Retail Reinvented: How Food Stores Will Thrive in 2025
In recent years, food retailers have been caught in a perfect storm of rising costs, supply chain uncertainties, and shifting consumer preferences. As 2025 gets underway, the pressure to adapt is immense. Conversations with industry leaders underscore the most pressing priorities: managing overhead, strengthening labor practices, rolling out earned wage access (EWA), and fostering a culture where employee feedback truly matters.
One of the most talked-about challenges in food retail is the surge in everyday expenses. Everything from raw ingredients and packaging to transport and rent has jumped in price. Most retailers aren’t simply cutting corners; they’re rethinking their entire cost structure. Renegotiating supplier contracts, fine-tuning inventory, and making more accurate forecasts have become the norm for leaders who want to protect their margins. Rather than a short-term fix, these strategies are evolving into long-term frameworks that allow retailers to stay nimble when market conditions inevitably shift again.
Rethinking Labor Management
Facing Rising Costs Head-On
Earned Wage Access as a Game-Changer
Labor is a huge chunk of any retailer’s operating budget—depending on the vertical, it can account for up to half of total expenses. Yet, there’s growing acknowledgment that a motivated, well-supported workforce is essential. Gone are the days when “scheduling” simply meant filling slots. Now, the approach is more holistic: using data to predict staffing needs, cross-training employees for flexibility, building “gig-like” shift work, and creating clear pathways for growth. This helps keep costs in check while also showing respect for the workforce, which can reduce friction—especially when wage compression for new hires can cause pay rates to resemble more tenured team members.
Attracting and retaining talent in a frothy market is a super skill, and retailers should be thinking about all the pieces of the labor puzzle. For example, if hourly team members are driving a long way (the national average is 19 miles), a closer job will have an immediate impact on commute times and their paycheck. Hyper-local recruiting can help find and retain loyal team members.
One strategy gaining serious attention is earned wage access (EWA), a system that allows employees to draw on their already-earned income before the official payday. It’s more than just an attractive benefit—it’s becoming a real differentiator in a highly competitive labor market. Employees feel supported when they know they can handle sudden expenses without waiting weeks for the next paycheck. For retailers, that translates into lower turnover and a recruitment edge over competitors who haven’t yet caught on to EWA’s potential.
We’ve seen market adoption of over 50% in some retailers, where team members are using their dollars on a daily basis instead of waiting for payday.
Retailers who embrace hyper-local recruiting, cross-training, and data-driven staffing are not just cutting costs—they’re building resilient, motivated teams ready to adapt to 2025’s challenges.
Embracing a Culture of Feedback
Investing in Good Leadership
A Look Ahead
Two recent studies highlighted that 65% of chains and 50% of independent retailers cite rising labor costs as their number one obstacle for 2025. Recruiting staff is the number one labor issue for 31% of food service retailers. Taken as a whole, 70% of retailers say that lowering operating costs and improving labor metrics are their most important business metrics this year.
Even the best labor initiatives can stall if employees feel unheard or there is a weak culture. Encouraging an open dialogue—through surveys, group discussions, or impromptu brainstorming sessions—provides real-time insights into what’s actually happening on the floor. A specialty grocery chain, for instance, discovered outdated processes simply because employees felt comfortable voicing their concerns, and management listened. The result? Rapid adjustments that improved operations and morale.
There are now six generations of shoppers, and five generations of workers in a store. Leading and managing across that divergence of a workforce is difficult, especially if the executive team is not actively investing in leadership growth and opportunities.
None of these efforts can succeed without capable, empathetic leaders who understand how to bring out the best in their teams. Whether through structured feedback, one-on-one coaching, soft skill training, or more robust onboarding, forward-thinking retailers are finding ways to support supervisors in growing their communication and problem-solving skills. Strong leadership not only maintains fairness in pay and recognition but also fosters the sense of belonging that keeps employees engaged and committed.
The retail landscape isn’t getting any simpler. Costs are up, labor markets are competitive, and customer expectations continue to evolve. Yet there’s a clear path for those willing to adapt. Retailers who tackle overhead systematically, adopt programs like EWA, and genuinely listen to their teams stand a better chance of weathering whatever comes next—and even thriving in the process.
The lesson is simple but powerful: when retailers invest in their people and embrace fresh ideas, the result is not only greater resilience but also the opportunity for innovation and sustainable growth. Ultimately, in a market defined by slim margins and fierce competition, building a people-centric culture might just be the key to long-term success.
The State of the Retail Industry 2025
JAN 2025
Bryan Leach – Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Bryan Leach is the Founder and CEO of Ibotta (NYSE:IBTA), a leading performance marketing platform that allows CPG brands to deliver digital promotions to over 200 million consumers through a network of publishers called the Ibotta Performance Network (IPN). Under his leadership, Ibotta pioneered a pay-per-sale model that allows brand marketers to gain market share cost effectively, only paying when their campaigns lead directly to sales.
After founding Ibotta in 2012, Bryan took the company public in 2024 in what was the largest tech IPO in Colorado history. Bryan is a frequent commentator on loyalty and rewards, digital media, and the role of AI in pricing and promotions. He has been recognized as a Top 10 CEO in the United States (small/medium size businesses) by Glassdoor.com, CEO of the Year by ColoradoBiz magazine, and EY Entrepreneur of the Year for the Rocky Mountain Region.
Prior to Ibotta, Bryan was a partner at Bartlit Beck LLP and served as a law clerk to former US Supreme Court Justice David Souter. As a lawyer, he specialized in international arbitration and dispute resolution, and handled trials and arbitrations in London, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. Bryan is a graduate of Harvard, Oxford (Marshall Scholar), and Yale Law School. He resides in Denver with his wife and two teenage daughters, and has climbed to the summit of Colorado’s 58 tallest mountains.