The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
Benjamin Lorr
This book is an investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery store. What does it take to run the American supermarket. How do products get to shelves. more
328 pages, Hardcover
First published Avery
3.96
Rating
11204
Ratings
1767
Reviews
Benjamin Lorr
3 books 150 followers
Community reviews
In response to my initial thoughts, the author wrote a long comment about how the book wasn't at all preachy but given what he himself said, all the freebie reviews, and the paid ones on Netgalley and Kirkus, not to mention all the quotes on his own site, he wasn't able to disprove it. In fact all of them, the author included, just confirmed what I had said in my 'review'. I deleted the author comment, my response etc. because I don't feel like getting into an argy-bargy. I don't have anything against the author or the book, only that I don't want to read that sort of thing, at least not right now. more
This is Election Day 2020 for the US and I need to write this review but it's hard to think about eating food let alone concentrating on a review for a book about where our food comes from. So you'll have to excuse me if my thoughts are a little scattered. (Adorable cats to help alleviate Election Day anxiety)Ok, let's go. The title of this book is a little misleading. The Secret Life of Groceries. more
This book is equal parts fascinating and depressing. It delves into the supply chain of the grocery store from all angles. The book begins with the story of the founder of Trader Joe's. It's very exciting. Then the author lives with a truck driver for a while and things get very depressing. more
The main takeaway I got from this book was "this author has a degree in creative writing—maybe an MFA—and wants me to know it. " I started the book hoping for a 5 hour romp through grocery supply chains, vegetable farming, how food gets canned, the economics of grocery stores, and the labour conditions of people who work in grocery. Instead, the book was basically three drawn-out first-person narratives: "I did a bunch of research on Trader Joes"; "I followed around a trucker and a food entrepreneur for a while"; and "I hung out with abused migrant workers in Thailand. " Any of those could have made for an awesome story, but it felt like the author himself was WAY too present in the narrative. If you're gonna write a memoir, that's cool, but title it "The Secret Life of Groceries: Anecdotes From My Personal Experiences Studying Supermarkets. more
DNF - Not what I thought it was going to be about. The title is a little misleading. No rating. more
Equal parts depressing and inspiring, this is a thorough and well-written journey into the world of the grocery supply chain in the spirit of Upton Sinclair and the great muckrakers of old. Along the journey, you'll meet grocery employees and managers, truckers, product creators, and the people at the bottom of the chain that keep your food at the prices you expect. I can tell you, you won't like that chapter one bit. Honestly, a good deal of this book will upset you. And it should. more
This book is REALLY freaking good. The author spent 5 years reporting this - going to Thailand to talk to former slaves, working the seafood counter at Whole Foods, and riding in a truck with a long-haul trucker. It's fascinating to learn about the full scope of the grocery industry, but also the book is simply a delight to read - all the idiosyncratic characters and weirdos, all the hustling entrepreneurs, all the heartbreaking stories. Most of all, Lorr's just an incredible writer - sentence-for-sentence this is as good as almost any book I've read. Full disclosure the author is a friend of mine but THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE MERIT OF THIS INCREDIBLE BOOK. more
As I have previously mentioned, I love reading books about the systems at work in our world that we barely ever think about. Grocery stores are one such system. The supply chain for things like grocery stores has been slightly more in the news lately, given disruptions caused by the pandemic (not to mention a ship blocking the Suez Canal for days). Yet the news can only ever give a cursory explanation of the complexity of the supply chain. Benjamin Lorr dives deep in The Secret Life of Groceries. more
Reading this was like standing in a checkout line behind a person who is fruitlessly searching through their coin purse for exact change. . more
16 MAY 2021 UPDATE On sale today for $1. 99. The *perfect* price for it. Many thanks to Edelweiss+ and Avery for my DRC of this bookIn a five-year odyssey through the world created to feed American consumers, Author Lorr sees the behind-the-scenes costs of the cornucopia you visited weekly if not daily. and now likely use the internet to have delivered to you. more
There is a fair amount of interesting, legitimately surprising information in this book. There were even sections that I couldn't tear myself away from. This book is good when it is sticking to investigation and new facts. However, the author's tone and writing style felt incredibly unsuited to non-fiction, and often overshadowed and interrupted the parts I found most interesting. It's like the writing is trying entirely too hard. more
I am one of the Whole Foods shopping, Michael Pollan-reading moms that this book is written for. The Bowery Whole Foods was my home market when I lived in Manhattan. I am the kind that will stop buying palm oil full stop if I learn that it destroys the planet but this book shows me that those things really are not any kind of fix for what ails the economy of food. I found this book really beautifully done but devastating too. The author doesn’t give you a way to shop around your Western guilt. more
We read this for book club. An interesting, quick read that begins to explain the ins and outs of the grocery industry. Overall, Lorr writes from an educated, upper middle class perspective, and seems somehow surprised to find out there is no ethical consumption in capitalism, er in grocery buying. This will not be earth shattering to most. Lorr muses about America’s conflation of identity with consumer choices, and bemoans our lack of meaningful action to address the oppression of those who bear the brunt of our abundant supermarket shelves. more
This is not rated because I didn't read more than 1/2. It's more about the author's views re "product" than it is the title. It's coastal California in great majority of determinations. It's like looking at "history" with only the negatives numbered and less positives than you could count on one hand. Which is extremely "odd" considering the stats given in the first chapters about food costs and distribution in the USA. more
Where historically food signified a few narrow ideals, primarily around wealth and social standing, now it went impossibly wide, offering a blitz of expressive possibilities from our relationship to our bodies to our relationship with the natural world to every aspirational desire in between: thin, muscular, compassionate, worldly, closer to our ancestors, unique from our kin, food allowed us to advertise who we wanted to be – who we desperately believed were were – all while meeting our vital needs, side-slipping those larger consumptive clichés. (p. 205)Books come to our attention through serendipitous routes. I had not heard of this one, but was sampling a podcast to see if I wanted to add it to my list of regulars, and it included an interview with the author. I was interested enough to look for the book, and I’m glad I read it, although glad in a sadder but wiser way. more
I had been waiting for quite a while in the queue at the public library for the copy because I saw it recommended on a booklist and I thought, this is right up my alley of interest and piques by curiosity. Unfortunately, my reading was defeated fairly early on. I felt condescended to and unintelligent in sharing the information that he wanted to share. His voice in writing the book grated on me. Alongside that, it was technical in a way that didn't allow me to push my boundaries of understanding nor was his writing style captivating or approachable. more
Superb reporting, superb writing, thoughtful, philosophical, well-researched, funny in spots, and a bit hallucinogenic. Not a simple survey or history of grocery stores, far deeper than that,and no attempt to be encyclopedic. You will not see a grocery store the same way again. And maybe you won’t quite see life the same way again. This is the review that made me want to read the book: https://www. more
Every so often, you read something and it means that you can't look at some thing the same way ever again. Reading this book, I cannot look at grocery stores the same way again. The bar codes. The specialty condiments. Joe, of Trader Joe's. more
I disliked the first chapter - about the life and business model of Joe Coulombe, founder of Trader Joe's - so much that I almost quit. Fortunately subsequent chapters were more interesting, although Lorr's overly florid style was grating:"If we want to think about the introduction of the supermarket as a birth, the cafeteria was foreplay. ""All around Joe, men and women were meeting for drinks, pink-and-white leis slung around their necks like frothy Elizabethan collars, their plastic coconuts of flaming run threading a weird cultural needle between escape and irony, refuge and sincerity. ""A disgusting cough to listen to, wet and moldy, a tumbling of moss and rotten sponge. ""This is the hive mind of my condiment drawer, a gibbering id of anxiety and acquisition, responsible for all those decaying bottles in my fridge. more
I'm a serious geek for all things supply chain (I have a PhD in the field and have taught it for 13+ years), so . I just finished this last night and it’s by far one of the best non-fiction non-textbook pieces that I’ve read on SCM decisions and the human, legal, financial, and other issues that drive them. I’ve read Where Underpants Come from: From Checkout to Cotton Field - Travels Through the New China and The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade and all of Eliyahu M. Goldratt's books, of course, as well as SCM books on the auto industry, beer, and many other topics. This particular book is really beautifully done and touches everything from the retail developments that shaped SCM (e. more
Benjamin Lord presents a scathing expose on your local grocery stores. The food that is put on your shelves may not be as wholesome as you may think. At least I didn't think so. The author first describes the cleaning out of the seafood counter. First you must remove all the fish from the counter. more
An incredibly thoroughly researched investigation into the grocery industy. This book was recommended to me by a friend who knew I'd enjoyed Richard Flanagan's Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmania Salmon Industry and it did not disappoint. It's the kind of deep dive into an ordinary, everyday part of our lives that is rarely given specific thought. Lorr interrogates the obvious parts of the grocery industry like brand development, corporate structure, store systems and employment practices. Where this book really excels is in the chapters that explore more niche elements of the industry. more
This book on the supply chain in the US was actually quite gripping. Sometimes depressing too, but this topic impacts our lives so intimately that I loved learning more. This book was about how we get our groceries in the US. It covers everything from the rise of Trader Joe's to the life of a trucker (grim), from what it takes to get your product on supermarket shelves to slave labor employed in the shrimp fishing industry (even more grim). I appreciated that there were some lighter topics in here. more
Basically wow. Everything in this book makes sense yet I hadn't thought about any of it beforeBut that's part of the premise of modern day groceries. We just expect to find whatever we're looking for at the store. Lorr speaks with Joe Coulombe, aka The Trader Joe and discusses how people go to the grocery store to help them define themselves by the foods they eat, the foods they avoid, reading labels and finding their place in the grocery world. I've read about our relationship to food, such as advertisements in junk food, or in the struggle to put groceries in food deserts. more
This book dives into the craziness that goes into the background to make supermarkets 'work'. At first it's kind of weird and funny but the book gets very dark, detailing the human suffering that gets inflicted to make your shrimp slightly cheaper. more
I expected some deep secrets into the business. Didn’t expect 50 pages on Slawsa . more
There’s some great info here, but the organization/style doesn’t flow well. And, ok, I get that after the brief history and such, Lorr uses specific stories to illustrate broader points. Not a bad thing necessarily, but he goes on and on AND ON to the point of utter boredom. I’m sorry Slawsa lady and Tai fisher, but damn. The truck driver bit was great, though. more
Couldn’t get into it, the voice was dripping with testosterone and it put me off. more
This one’s gonna stick with me for a loooong time. So much work and investigative journalism went into this book and it shows. As a former grocery worker, I appreciated the many layers of labor and supply chain that Lorr includes in his interviewing and research and the fact that he actually worked at the Whole Foods fish counter for a couple of months to better speak to the retail worker experience (tho imagine my chagrin when part I turns out to be the origin story of Trader Joe’s……. ). Something I did not enjoy was the contempt Lorr seemed to have for the truckers, especially the woman who let him ride along with her. more
I picked up this book somewhat begrudgingly. It was a non-fiction book on an Important Topic, and I felt I should read it given the subject matter and that I patronize grocery stores more than any other business. And wow, was I surprised. It was much more of an enjoyable read than I anticipated. Lorr’s writing is funny, personal, and informative. more