Item: The Secret Life of Groceries
Rating: 5.00
Author: bookanonjeff

by Benjamin Lorr

"A deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites." --The New York Times

In 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.

This Likely Would Have Rated Lower Had I Read The Print Rather Than Listened To The Audible. As the title of this review says, my five star rating here is because, listening to the Audible form of the book - and thus not having access to see what, if any, bibliography it offers - there is little here to objectively deduct stars from. Yes, this book is more a loose collection of essays. Yes, the author is almost as present in the book as anything he is writing about - damn near to the point of being more a memoir than any reporting on anything about the supermarket or its supply chains. Yes, there is a lot of woke, activist drivel that at some points is easily as thick as the pig shit the author slopped through at one point in the narrative. But for what it does show, and admittedly the very conversational style (including multiple F-bombs, for those that care about such things)... this book is actually fairly solid. At least in the Audible form, where I can't see if the author bothered to have any documentation other than his own personal interview and anecdotes. So give the Audible a listen, at least. It is read by the author, and it works quite well. And then maybe go find some better sourced, arguably better (ie, more objectively) written books exploring the topics covered here. Recommended.

PS: I think the biggest takeaway from this book, for me, is that I am going to try to find and try some Slawsa. Read the book to find its story. :)

The Secret Life of Groceries

by Benjamin Lorr

Reviewed by Jeff Sexton on Jun 28, 2022

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