Stepping Into “The Secret Life of Groceries”
The complicated intersection of activism and our dinner.
Benjamin Lorr spent years thoroughly researching The Secret Life of Groceries, and what he found is definitely worth reading. His book hooks from the start by unmasking the “weird gutter of seafood waste compressed beneath four and a half feet of ice” we never knew was lurking beneath our grocery store’s seafood display. He then proceeds to tear down our ignorance by diving into marketing strategies, the plights of truckers, what motivates product producers and buyers, retail training sessions, and finally, slavery and exploitation throughout the supply chain.
In 1967, “Trader” Joe Coulombe identified his ideal customers, studied their idiosyncrasies, and built a very specific grocery experience with very few, specific products. In contrast, today we have the Amazon strategy — instead of making the buyer feel special, we get as many choices as possible through as convenient a process as possible. The Secret Life of Groceries examines what happened to get to where we are today, and how customers’ mindsets shape the grocery business.
Many of us feel we’re doing our altruistic duty when we shop organic, vegan, or forgo certain brands that have been publicly tainted by unethical practices in their supply chain. Lorr, however, brings to light just how complicated fixing the food system can be.
“…NGOs estimate 17 to 60 percent of Thai shrimp includes slave labor…. Seventeen to sixty percent might sound like a wildly high error range, but nobody knows anything in this world. It is divided between those who know nothing and are desperately trying to find out more, and those who know nothing and are financially incentivized to maintain that state.”
Even if we have good intentions, our ignorance of the system means there will inevitably be unintended consequences. The complications of supply chain ethics are revealed by the experiences of Tun-Lin, a Burmese man living on a Thai shrimp boat with whom Lorr was introduced during his research. Tun-Lin had been conned into slavery, and forced to work in dangerous and impoverished conditions for five years. Once he was able to leave the shrimp boat, he was still an illegal immigrant in Thailand, with his only option being to work at a processing plant under exploitative employers. Tun-Lin’s experience there ended with him choosing to go back to the boat where he had been a slave. Although the world had caught wind of corruption in the Thai shrimp industry, reactions were focused on correcting that specific type of horror; never looking further into the slightly less shocking practices of places like Tun-Lin’s seafood processing plant which kept workers so impoverished they felt their best chance was to go back to the boat where they’d been enslaved.
Tun-Lin’s story also contains an example of at best unintended consequences, and at worst the “financially incentivized” state of ignorance quoted earlier. Once the world saw how they were getting their shrimp, the industry was forced to change. This meant higher costs for Thai businesses — now that they had to pay wages — as well as losing business. Product buyers for grocery stores wanted to make sure they had a clean supply chain, so they moved their business elsewhere. However, as Lorr points out, “[The supply chain] responds to our actions, not our pieties.” So, while consumers were happy to say they did not buy shrimp caught and processed by slaves, we still demanded convenience and low prices. As the supply chain naturally responded to our demands, the same practices simply moved on from the Thai shrimp industry to another location.
All of this leads to the question, can we make any choices as consumers that will have an impact? Especially without traveling to each part of every supply chain for every product to see with our own eyes what is really going on? After experiencing and seeing the secret life of groceries with his own eyes, Lorr’s answer is that true change does not start with choices made in the grocery store. Our focus should be on “how we choose to live our lives; how we treat one another; how we demonstrate care.” Lorr explains,
“Retail is one of the oldest, most important forms of human connection, one circle outside of family, and just as important in current society to meeting our vital needs. Its uniquely material focus makes it a bridge between these two forms of self-expression: between the possessions we flaunt and how we treat the people who make them.”
There is not enough time in the day for every person to be radical about every injustice. We all have different callings, passions, and standards to which we dedicate our lives. What we all can and must do is keep in mind that which is truly important — how we treat those we come in contact with throughout our day. The effects of these interactions will spread, even to the bottom of the supply chain.
