Heartland - March Retail Talk Recap: Redesigning the Future of Grocery

Last Thursday, our chapter hosted our inaugural Retail Talk—and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Going into the final week of planning the conversation, I still wasn’t entirely sure what it was going to be. I'd just gotten back home from a fun but chaotic trip to Seattle, was more depleted than I wanted to admit, and found myself in a familiar place a few hours before we went live: staring blankly at my screen, questioning if I actually had anything worthwhile to say.

But then… we started talking. What followed was something that felt a lot less like a webinar, and a lot more like a real conversation... which was precisely our goal.

I was joined by the Southwest + Pacific Chapter's Mimi Yacobucci, whose Whole Foods-honed grocery design chops more than made up for my minimal experience in the sector. Together, we set out to explore what is up with grocery... not only as a place to buy food—but as an essential piece of community infrastructure... one that is shaped by design, human behavior, and the broader socio-economic systems we’re all navigating.

Our conversation touched on sameness in grocery design, the rise of the “hybrid shopper,” and the ongoing tension between experience, efficiency, and economics (the one thing we purposefully didn't dig into was AI—which is a much bigger conversation... one we may attempt to take on in a future edition!)

We believe our AI-generated title slide was a real hit... mostly to the water table and electric grid.

Beneath all of that—whether we said it perfectly or not—was a harder truth:

In many communities, grocery isn’t just a design problem. It’s an access problem. And access, more often than not, follows patterns we already know how to recognize.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped worrying about whether I had “the right take,” and started listening more closely to what was actually being said—by Mimi, by the audience, by the conversation itself as it unfolded.

But while Mimi and I certainly could have (and had, by that point) talked for hours on the topic, our favorite parts were the perspectives that came from the folks on the call. We had over 60 people registered, and more than 50 members and non-members joined us from all over the country. What's more, the majority of them stayed engaged with us throughout, sharing their thoughts in the chat, asking questions, and in a few cases, joining us live on camera.

I am thrilled that were able to include the voices of so many RDI members in the final recording. That part felt important... not merely as documentation, but as a reminder that design conversations are better when they’re shared. That was the goal with this format from the start: not to present answers, but to make space for dialogue with other members of our community. And in that sense, I believe it was a smashing success.

Through the process, I was reminded that the value of something like this isn’t in having everything figured out. It’s in being willing to show up, ask deeper questions, and let the conversation go somewhere real.

If you weren’t able to make it, or if you want to revisit the conversation, we’ve lightly edited the session into a podcast-style recording:

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👉 Watch the Retail Talk recording on our new YouTube Channel! (and make sure to like and subscribe!)

It’s our first attempt at this format, so there are a few rough edges—but we learned a lot, and we’re excited to keep building on it. If you have any thoughts, tips, tricks, or suggestions—or if you want to help us produce an upcoming installment—let us know!

More than anything, I just want to say thank you to everyone who joined, contributed, supported the event, and/or helped shape the conversation in real time—this worked because you showed up and engaged with us.

If you have thoughts on this topic, or ideas for future conversations, I’d genuinely love to hear them: 📩 heartland@retaildesigninstitute.org

Thanks again for being part of this first one... looking forward to what comes next!

Happy spring!

Michael Trenary, RDI

Heartland Chapter President