Episode 76 with Guest Phil Lempert

For more than 25 years, Lempert, an expert analyst on consumer behavior, marketing trends, new products and the changing retail landscape, has identified and explained impending trends to consumers and some of the most prestigious companies worldwide. Known as The Supermarket Guru® Lempert is a distinguished author and speaker who alerts customers and business leaders to impending corporate and consumer trends, and empowers them to make educated purchasing and marketing decisions. As one of America’s leading consumer trend-watchers and analysts, Phil Lempert is recognized on television, radio and in print. For twenty plus years Phil has served as food trends editor and correspondent for NBC News’ Today show, reporting on consumer trends, food safety and money-saving tips, as well as showcasing new products, as well as regular appearances on ABC’s The View, FOX Business, Dr. Oz, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, CNN, CNBC, FOX, as well as on local television morning and news programs throughout the country. For almost two decades, he hosted the syndicated show Shopping Smart on the WOR Radio Network and now co-hosts the weekly Lost in the Supermarket podcast on iTunes. Phil Lempert was one of the pioneers of the new information media, founding SupermarketGuru.com in 1994. The website is now one of the leading food and health resources on the Internet, visited by more than 9 million people each year. SupermarketGuru.com offers thorough food ratings, analyzes trends in food marketing and retail, and features health advice, unique recipes, nutrition analysis, allergy alerts and many other resources to help consumers understand their food, health, lifestyle and shopping options. Phil is the founder and editor of The Lempert Report, Food, Nutrition & Science, Facts, Figures & the Future, and The Food Journal. He is contributing editor of Progressive Grocer, which exclusively runs his trade columns and videos both in its magazine and on its website as well as a strategic alliance to develop and manage industry initiatives. He has been profiled and interviewed by USA Today, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek and Ad Age, and is interviewed by hundreds of publications each year. He is also a columnist for Forbes.com and manages the Food Reference site on about.com. He has served on the Executive Committee of Michelle Obama's Chefs Move to School program. He is the founder and CEO of the Retail Dietitians Business Alliance; and has developed and manages Retail Foodservice: The Great Grocerant educational program for the National Restaurant Association, hosts and manages the Most Innovative Product Awards for the National Confectioners Association, developed the Supermarket Chef Showdown for the Food Marketing Institute, created and managed the Spud Nation Throwdown Competition for the National Potato Council. Lempert is the author of Being the Shopper and Healthy, Wealthy & Wise. His previous books include: Phil Lempert’s Supermarket Shopping & Value Guide, Top Ten Trends for Baby Boomers and Crisis Management: A Workbook for Survival. He is currently working on his next book which documents the important relationship between Millennials and food - YOLO, The Intersection of The Jazz Age with The Millennials' Passion for Food. Phil is a spokesperson for National Frozen & Refrigerated Association and their retail partners to help communicate strategies on saving money, healthier eating and food trend information to America's shoppers; and had been the corporate spokesperson for ConAgra Foods for ten years. Phil Lempert graduated from Drexel University with degrees in Marketing and Retail Management and did his Post-Graduate at Pratt Institute. He worked at McDonald’s and Howard Johnson’s before joining his family’s food brokerage firm. Lempert went on to create Lempert Advertising, a full-service, award-winning advertising agency that specialized in food and retail branding, marketing and public relations. A resident of California, Lempert’s roots are in the Belleville, New Jersey dairy farm started by his grandfather. The family food tradition carried on through his father’s work as a food manufacturer, distributor and broker and then to Phil Lempert, The Supermarket Guru®.