The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket

Product Description
"A deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites." --The New York TimesIn the tradition of Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, an extraordinary investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery store
The miracle of the supermarket has never been more apparent. Like the doctors and nurses who care for the sick, suddenly the men and women who stock our shelves and operate our warehouses are understood as 'essential' workers, providing a quality of life we all too easily take for granted. But the sad truth is that the grocery industry has been failing these workers for decades.
In this page-turning expose, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on the highly secretive grocery industry. Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and sharp, often laugh-out-loud prose, Lorr leads a wild investigation, asking what does it take to run a supermarket? How does our food get on the shelves? And who suffers for our increasing demands for convenience and efficiency? In this journey:
• We learn the secrets of Trader Joe's success from Trader Joe himself
• Drive with truckers caught in a job they call "sharecropping on wheels"
• Break into industrial farms with activists to learn what it takes for a product to earn certification labels like "fair trade" and "free range"
• Follow entrepreneurs as they fight for shelf space, learning essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food business
• Journey with migrants to examine shocking forced labor practices through their eyes
The product of five years of research and hundreds of interviews across every level of the business,
The Secret Life of Groceries is essential reading for those who want to understand our food system--delivering powerful social commentary on the inherently American quest for more and compassionate insight into the lives that provide it.
Review
"An intense, immersive, humorous, and sometimes shocking portrait of the modern American supermarket."
—NPR Shots
"
The Secret Life of Groceries reveals the unsustainable reality of American shopping...no reader of this ambitious book will enter a store the same."
—
San Francisco Chronicle
“
The Secret Life of Groceries is a deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites."
—
The New York Times
“
The Secret Life of Groceries takes us on a tour through the lives that the food system touches so that we have clear eyes about the human and environmental cost of our demands. If we can stomach it."
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The Washington Post
“Is "literary muck-raking" a genre? It is now. This book is at once a satisfying, enjoyable meal and a glass of cold water to the face. The modern shopper wants groceries that are ethical, sustainable, humane, affordable, fresh, and convenient. But as Lorr discovers, the costs of our demands are recouped from the bottom of the food chain: debt-ruined truckers, foreign slave labor, and Whole Foods workers in our own communities -- the people whose lives Lorr shared (and sometimes lived) for weeks or months. Does it sound grim? It's not!
The Secret Life of Groceries is a terrific read. The stories flow, and the hard truths are seasoned with wit and hope. Bottle this man and get him into every home!”
—
Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
“A titanic achievement of reportage, insight, humor, and humanity,
The Secret Life of
Groceries will forever change the way you think about the American food system. Lorr journeys deep into our troubled supply chain with propulsive force and insight and brings us back the goods.”
—
Adam Chandler, author of Drive-Thru Dreams: : A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom
“Lorr’s frank tone and detailed descriptions carry the reader through the splendor and horrors of your neighborhood retailer.”
—Smithsonian Magazine, “In The Secret Life of Groceries, Benjamin Lorr demonstrates through lively a