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Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants
Hungry for change? Put the power of food co-ops on your plate and grow your local food economy.
Food has become ground-zero in our efforts to increase awareness of how our choices impact the world. Yet while we have begun to transform our communities and dinner plates, the most authoritative strand of the food web has received surprisingly little attention: the grocery store--the epicenter of our food-gathering ritual.
Through penetrating analysis and inspiring stories and examples of American and Canadian food co-ops, Grocery Story makes a compelling case for the transformation of the grocery store aisles as the emerging frontier in the local and good food movements.
Author Jon Steinman:
- Deconstructs the food retail sector and the shadows cast by corporate giants
- Makes the case for food co-ops as an alternative
- Shows how co-ops spur the creation of local food-based economies and enhance low-income food access.
Grocery Story is for everyone who eats. Whether you strive to eat more local and sustainable food, or are in support of community economic development, Grocery Story will leave you hungry to join the food co-op movement in your own community.
Food has become ground-zero in our efforts to increase awareness of how our choices impact the world. Yet while we have begun to transform our communities and dinner plates, the most authoritative strand of the food web has received surprisingly little attention: the grocery store--the epicenter of our food-gathering ritual.
Through penetrating analysis and inspiring stories and examples of American and Canadian food co-ops, Grocery Story makes a compelling case for the transformation of the grocery store aisles as the emerging frontier in the local and good food movements.
Author Jon Steinman:
- Deconstructs the food retail sector and the shadows cast by corporate giants
- Makes the case for food co-ops as an alternative
- Shows how co-ops spur the creation of local food-based economies and enhance low-income food access.
Grocery Story is for everyone who eats. Whether you strive to eat more local and sustainable food, or are in support of community economic development, Grocery Story will leave you hungry to join the food co-op movement in your own community.
304 pages, Paperback
Published May 7, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 16, 2019
If you eat food, you should read this book.
January 30, 2020
The author is very dedicated to food: local food, empowering farmers, empowering eaters, growing diversity in the food economy. He spent a decade creating a weekly podcast on food issues, helped organize a collective that put grain grown by local farmers directly in the hands of eaters, and served on the board of the Kootenay food Co-op in Nelson BC for a few years.
He wrote the book as an expose of the state of food economy and the enormous power yielded by food retailers on consumers and on the entire supply chain. Farmers and food manufacturers can be bankrupted by the fickleness of huge monopolistic chains who contract for a supplier's entire production, and then renege on their obligations, leaving farmers with huge quantities of unsellable food. Manufacturers are universally forced to pay retailers tens of thousands of dollars in "shelving fees" in order to get their products stocked....only to have those same retailers copy their products by issuing cheaper "own brand" versions, undercutting their business. Whole Foods required a small-scale chocolate manufacturer of the author's acquaintance to provide days of volunteer labour annually to take her turn managing the entire chocolate section of every BC store: removing all products, cleaning shelves, and restocking in exchange for the privilege of selling what she produces the rest of the year.
The solution? Well, Steinman points out that until well past mid-century, anti-monopoly laws controlled the concentration of ownership of grocery stores. But the days of government acting in the interest of communities or of consumers is well past. Today Steinman advocates food coops as a way for consumers to take direct power over what they eat, and as a way to create the food economy that they want to participate in.
Steinman means the book to be inspiring: he even ends with a call to action, telling readers that they can found their own coops, join existing coops, and participate in a food revolution.
But the stories he tells about coops .... are mixed. He discusses the history of food coops, mostly in North America, focusing on the wave of natural food food coops founded in the 1970s. He talks about the history of his own Kooteny coop, including the story of the recent-to-eater grain collective sponsored by that organization. And he talks about a new wave of food coops founded post 2008.
The two "modern" coops whose stories he tells in some detail, both founded in "food deserts" in American low income communities....failed, no more than 3 years after they opened, despite the huge amount of fund-raising and organizing that went into their creation. After a roaring start, the Kootenay grain coop shrank....Steinman seems forcedly patient at the lack of commitment of members who found that they couldn't manage to mill all their own flour and then use it to make all of their own pasta and bread. He doesn't talk about how many of those 70s era coops are still thriving, and why...I know that some are barely hanging in there, and many have closed.
Overall, the book has many ideas for improving coops, best practices from active coops, and a whole lot of passion for the ecological, economic, and practical benefits of local control of food. It just isn't inspiring in the way that the author intended.
June 22, 2020
Fascinating.
March 12, 2021
Enlightening stuff
December 8, 2019
Great overview of the topic. It made me want to run down to the Kootenay Co-op and give them all my business instead of the evil Save On Foods that I also sometimes frequent. I found the writing a bit too figure heavy (so many stats), and it was hard to keep all the various stores straight - i.e. sometimes the author would mention a specific co-op from earlier in the book, and talk about it like you remembered what he said earlier, but I had to keep flipping back to figure out which one it was. I would have preferred all the neat info about a particular store in one place rather than dispersed throughout. I also wanted to hear more about what exactly this Whole Foods Amazon story is. He alludes to it several times, but doesn’t spell out the whole story anywhere. Overall, I enjoyed this and it reassured me why I just feel better in every way about shopping at my local co-op than I do when I walk into the big box store, and made me want to support my co-op more.
February 2, 2022
As a co-op employee, I wanted to dive a little deeper and learn more about the history and meaning of cooperatives. It was fun to hear about many co-ops I’ve visited or work near/with. (I do admit, it took me a while to finish this book because picking it up felt like I was at work!) But at the end of the day, I’m proud to work for a cooperative and I just wish more people knew the amount of power and impact they have by choosing where to purchase their food.
A few quotes I highlighted:
"Today, the dominance of the chain stores operating in communities elicits little more than a murmur among eaters. Instead, descent within the food system is often placed on the Monsantos, Coco Colas, and McDonalds of the world. Rarely do we see campaigns to expose Kroger, Sobeys, or Shop 'n Save for their influence on food, people, and the planet."
"French diplomat, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned of the unrestrained powers that the emerging industrial revolution might one day yield. He warned of the risks to the human spirit from the long distance control of anything a community could otherwise manage on its own. Placing the power of our needs and desires into the hands of a centralized few would force people to set their own will habitually and completely aside. In other words, should a small but increasingly powerful number of companies assume dominance over the economics of our lives, a self-reinforcing apathy among the population would install itself. Accompanying this centrally controlled consumerism, would be petty domestic interests that would compel a narrow seeking of immediate pleasures to mask all that is missing from our lives."
^DAMN...it blows my mind that this was quoted in the 1800's.
"Barriers to entry: Through the many controls at the disposal of the grocery giant, an almost impenetrable wall is erected, stifling innovation and barring new entrance at all levels of the supply chain. Slotting fees are one of the highest barriers to entry in grocery retail."
"Much of the retailer power described has been power over suppliers. But what about their direct influence over eaters? Joanna Blythman conveys the incarceration of the eater quite succinctly, 'When we rely on one supermarket chain for almost all the food we buy, we can easily be manipulated to accept what they want to give us. As a consequence, supermarket’s power to shape our shopping and eating habits is phenomenal-and they know it.'”
"When our cities and towns are filled with spaces we can claim as our own, people can feel a sense of value and purpose, living from a place of freedom and possibility. This is the human side of cooperatives."
"There is no such thing as cheap food. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. And if it isn't paid at the cash register, it's charged to the environment or to the public purse in the form of subsidies. And it's charged to your health." -Michael Pollan
"Jobs, income, affordability, security. We’re talking about keeping money circulating locally. Everyone understands this-it’s a language we all speak."
"Food co-ops empower us unlike any other space to nurture long-term, healthy relationships to our food, communities, and the earth. They make it possible to be the change, and not the sheep. They make it possible to invest our food dollars into the next seven generations. They make it possibly to sanctify our supermarkets."
"From expense into investment: No longer shall my food purchases be expenses. They will be investments into my health, my family, my neighbors, and my community. They will be investments into the next generations."
"I will see myself as one part of the whole. An active contributor to the well-being of all people-not just myself. From disempowerment into empowerment, no longer shall I believe myself to be powerless. I am immensely powerful and when joined cooperatively with others, infinitely powerful."
A few quotes I highlighted:
"Today, the dominance of the chain stores operating in communities elicits little more than a murmur among eaters. Instead, descent within the food system is often placed on the Monsantos, Coco Colas, and McDonalds of the world. Rarely do we see campaigns to expose Kroger, Sobeys, or Shop 'n Save for their influence on food, people, and the planet."
"French diplomat, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned of the unrestrained powers that the emerging industrial revolution might one day yield. He warned of the risks to the human spirit from the long distance control of anything a community could otherwise manage on its own. Placing the power of our needs and desires into the hands of a centralized few would force people to set their own will habitually and completely aside. In other words, should a small but increasingly powerful number of companies assume dominance over the economics of our lives, a self-reinforcing apathy among the population would install itself. Accompanying this centrally controlled consumerism, would be petty domestic interests that would compel a narrow seeking of immediate pleasures to mask all that is missing from our lives."
^DAMN...it blows my mind that this was quoted in the 1800's.
"Barriers to entry: Through the many controls at the disposal of the grocery giant, an almost impenetrable wall is erected, stifling innovation and barring new entrance at all levels of the supply chain. Slotting fees are one of the highest barriers to entry in grocery retail."
"Much of the retailer power described has been power over suppliers. But what about their direct influence over eaters? Joanna Blythman conveys the incarceration of the eater quite succinctly, 'When we rely on one supermarket chain for almost all the food we buy, we can easily be manipulated to accept what they want to give us. As a consequence, supermarket’s power to shape our shopping and eating habits is phenomenal-and they know it.'”
"When our cities and towns are filled with spaces we can claim as our own, people can feel a sense of value and purpose, living from a place of freedom and possibility. This is the human side of cooperatives."
"There is no such thing as cheap food. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. And if it isn't paid at the cash register, it's charged to the environment or to the public purse in the form of subsidies. And it's charged to your health." -Michael Pollan
"Jobs, income, affordability, security. We’re talking about keeping money circulating locally. Everyone understands this-it’s a language we all speak."
"Food co-ops empower us unlike any other space to nurture long-term, healthy relationships to our food, communities, and the earth. They make it possible to be the change, and not the sheep. They make it possible to invest our food dollars into the next seven generations. They make it possibly to sanctify our supermarkets."
"From expense into investment: No longer shall my food purchases be expenses. They will be investments into my health, my family, my neighbors, and my community. They will be investments into the next generations."
"I will see myself as one part of the whole. An active contributor to the well-being of all people-not just myself. From disempowerment into empowerment, no longer shall I believe myself to be powerless. I am immensely powerful and when joined cooperatively with others, infinitely powerful."
December 26, 2024
If you love your Food C0-Op then this book will just make you love them more. So much great history of Food Coops in Canada & America. In this day of great socio-economic income inequality this book is a great reminder of how people, everyday people, can take power back into their own hands.
Living in the SF Bay Area I'm saddened at how we once had great co-ops and now have none. Reading about how they collapsed, and the for profits have filled the space has me longing for the day we can expand beyond farmer's markets and bring back the co-op to my corner of the world.
Living in the SF Bay Area I'm saddened at how we once had great co-ops and now have none. Reading about how they collapsed, and the for profits have filled the space has me longing for the day we can expand beyond farmer's markets and bring back the co-op to my corner of the world.
November 25, 2021
What an empowering book! I learned so much about the history of conventional grocery stores. This book also gave lots of current examples of food co-ops in operation as well as lessons learned from some that are no longer operational. A really comprehensive book, well-researched, and with lots of resources. Would highly recommend to anyone who is tired of the current "status quo" corporately-owned grocery store drama and seeks to find other ways of accessing food in community!
August 14, 2019
Made it to pg. 137 but I just don't think I can finish this one. Really not enjoying it, plus I don't really care about food co-ops. Maybe I'll come back to it at some point, but right now I need to put it down.
June 25, 2023
A must read! Such a great, informative, and well written book on co-ops! From the history behind the movement and the rise of grocery giants to the benefit and learning of the best co-ops! 11/10 and I’d recommend everyone read with book!
June 28, 2025
A solid read. Outlines many issues with conventional grocery store systems in North America (USA/Canada). Co-ops certainly can and will have their own problems, but this still makes a strong case for moving your business to a local food cooperative.
January 18, 2020
Do you buy groceries? Do you eat food? Do you live in a community? Read this book!
May 17, 2020
Insanely in-depth dig on the modern grocery store. Contrast that with how food co-ops work and you see how beneficial a food co-op could be for neighbourhoods and communities.
July 21, 2022
This book will make you want to start a cooperative. This book provided a sense of hope that there was a better way, but was also realistic about the challenges in establishing a cooperative.
January 9, 2024
I think this book is a great way to dive into the world of grocery giants vs. co-ops. I learned a lot and would continue this journey of understanding the food systems and food justice.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews