Grocery Stores

Axios Report Reveals Rampant Forced Labor In Grocery Supply Chains

August 19, 2024 Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Educate! Food and Agriculture, Forced Labor, Grocery Stores, Immigrant Rights, Krogers, Worker Rights and Jobs

A stunning report in Axios paints a damning picture of widespread farm labor abuse in the US agricultural industry outside the protections of the Fair Food Program. Yet while federal prosecutions of forced labor operations grow more common in agriculture, many massive food corporations like the grocery giant Kroger continue to turn a blind eye to the extreme abuses of some of the most vulnerable workers at the bottom of their opaque supply chains, according to a shocking report, months in the making, by Richard Collings of Axios. Meanwhile, according to the report, the lack of adequate resources for state and federal authorities to protect farmworkers is only making matters worse, and is likely allowing even more widespread exploitation of the agricultural workers who put food on our tables to go undetected.

The Government Spends Millions To Open Grocery Stores In Food Deserts

August 14, 2024 Molly Parker, ProPublica. Create! Food Deserts, Government Subsidies, Grocery Stores, Illinois

Cairo, Ill. — More than 100 people congregated in the parking lot of Rise Community Market on its opening day a little over a year ago. As they listened to celebratory speeches, the audience erupted into joyful exclamations: “Mercy!” “Wonderful!” “Wow!” “All right!” Colorful homemade signs raised by local leaders beckoned the crowd to join in: “We!” “Are!” “No!” “Longer!” “A!” “Food!” “Desert!” For most American cities, the opening of a new grocery store barely warrants a mention. But in Cairo, the government seat of Illinois’ poorest county and the fastest-shrinking one in America, business openings are rare. And for residents who for years had to travel long distances to buy food, it was a magical moment.

The Refillery Is Coming For Your Grocery Store Routine

May 7, 2024 Kate Ray, Portside. Create! Food and Agriculture, Grocery Stores, Packaging, Refilleries, Sustainability

“This is slow shopping,” says Roque Rodriguez about his refillery grocery store, Seed and Oil, in Woodside, Queens. “It’s about slowing down, being more present, being more aware: What’s the impact of the choice I just made? We educate folks when they come in, we talk to them, and you see people getting into the rhythm of it.” I don’t think it’s that much slower to shop at package-free stores like Seed and Oil—you bring your own container and weigh it, then you fill it up with the amount of rice or walnuts or Peanut M&Ms that you want to take home. But I get what he means.

Can Grocery Workers Take Back Their Union?

April 10, 2024 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Strategize! Grocery Stores, Labor Movement, UFCW, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

On a gray October evening, half a dozen insurgents huddle around a table in an upscale diner across the street from Sea-Tac airport, considering their battle plans. “I don’t want to get shot in New Jersey or New York, and those guys will fucking murder us,” says the consigliere. “Yeah,” the boss muses. “They will hella murder us.” “I’m more afraid of some people who have threatened to shoot us out here than those people out there,” says one of the generals. “The chances of us getting shot,” concludes the ringleader, “are fairly high.”/

Workers Would Pay The Price For This Mega Grocery Merger

March 14, 2024 Ann Larson, In These Times. Strategize! Albertsons, Grocery Stores, Krogers, Mergers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

As a former grocery store cashier, the recent news that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing to block a merger between supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons prompted a sigh of relief. My experience cashiering and bagging taught me just how it is critical to stop further concentration in the industry when just five companies already control over 60% of U.S. grocery sales. First proposed in 2022, the $24.6 billion deal would be the largest supermarket merger in history and would create the second largest grocery company in the United States (after Walmart).

How Do You Buy Groceries When There’s No Grocery Store?

October 29, 2023 Kennedy Smith, ILSR.org. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Deserts, Food Security, Grocery Stores

When a new mobile grocery market launched in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, its first stop was Maple City Apartments, a 40-unit complex for low-income, elderly relatives. Maple City’s residents have felt the region’s lack of grocery stores acutely. The nearest full-service grocery store is at least five miles away,[1] which leaves few options for people who don’t have access to a car or good public transit. But the County’s residents can now buy groceries from a farmers market on wheels. It started when the Cooperage Project, a regional nonprofit organization, wanted to get fresh, healthy food to people during the pandemic, rather than having them settle for the shelf-stable, highly processed options that chain dollar stores offer.

Facing Consolidation, Communities Open Their Own Grocery Stores

August 27, 2023 Kennedy Smith, Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Create! Community Control, Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, Grocery Stores, Public ownership

When the longtime owner of Hometown Foods in tiny Conrad, Iowa announced in 2019 that he was closing the community’s only grocery store, some residents quickly mobilized to buy the business and keep it open. A few of them pooled their money to buy the building; one bought the fixtures; another bought the store’s inventory. They then approached Andy Havens, who owns two small grocery markets in nearby towns, about managing the store. He agreed to do so – and he is now gradually buying out the initial investors.[1] Like Conrad, a growing number of towns and cities recognize that access to fresh, healthy food is a basic human right – and a civic responsibility.

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