The Secret Life of Groceries
What does it take to run the American supermarket? How does our food get on the shelves? Who sets the prices? And who suffers the consequences of our increasing demands for efficiency?
Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and sharp, often laugh-out-loud prose, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on a highly secretive industry. Starting from the top, we learn the secrets of Trader Joe’s success from founder Trader Joe Coulombe himself, and then quickly move down the chain into move hidden places: driving with truckers who describe their job as “sharecropping on wheels”; following entrepreneurs as they struggle to get their product on shelves; breaking into factory farms with activists to examine our system of ethical audits, such as “fair trade” and “free range”; and tracing the paths of trafficked migrants in Myanmar and Thailand to understand life at the bottom of the commodity chain.
The product of five years of research and hundreds of interviews across every level of the industry, The Secret Life of Groceries is essential reading for those who want to understand our food system– delivering powerful social commentary on the American quest for more and compassionate insight into the lives that provide it.
Praise & Reviews
“A titanic achievement of reportage, insight, humor, and humanity, The Secret Life of Groceries will forever change the way you think about the American food system. Lorr journeys deep into our troubled supply chain with propulsive force and insight and brings us back the goods.”
—Adam Chandler, author of Drive-Thru Dreams: : A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom
“I loved this book… How many times have I been in a supermarket? I thought I understood it. But The Secret Life of Groceries taught me that I didn’t know much at all about the way food turns into groceries. Benjamin Lorr has given us a perfect book – deeply reported, brimming with interesting characters, and written with great style. Read!”
—Caitlin Flanagan, author of To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife
“You won’t look at a supermarket shelf the same way after reading this sharp-edged exposé”
—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
“Is “literary muck-raking” a genre? It is now. This book is at once a satisfying, enjoyable meal and a glass of cold water to the face… Does it sound grim? It’s not! The Secret Life of Groceries is a terrific read. The stories flow, and the hard truths are seasoned with wit and hope. Bottle this man and get him into every home!”
—Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
“A brain-bending look at how and why these massive stores filled with every type of food are even possible… Check out The Secret Life of Groceries!”
—NPR Planet Money
“This fascinating, deep dive into the American supermarket changed how I thought about grocery stores. Both entertaining and enraging, Benjamin Lorr offers a compassionate indictment of the way we feed ourselves.”
—Tracie McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table
“With prodigious research and vivid writing, Benjamin Lorr follows our food through a bizarre culture of enslaved fishermen, inventive entrepreneurs, underpaid truckers, exploited store workers, and chains so corrupt that bribes are routinely labeled ‘fees.’ Don’t read this book if you want to remain complacent about your groceries. If you want to be informed, as you should, this book is a must.”
—David K. Shipler, former New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seven books, including The Working Poor: Invisible in America
“With compassion and humor, Lorr introduces us to very real people who constitute that abstraction we call the “supply chain” and challenges us, in a thoughtful and nuanced way, to consider the high price we pay for supermarket bargains.”
—Timothy Noah, author of The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It
“In this sui generis book, Lorr reveals the human toll hidden beneath even the most virtue-peddling, thoroughly “certified” supermarket display case. He does so with great style and wit.”
—Tom Philpott, author of Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It
“If you have ever wondered who made that bottle of spicy condiment; who brought it to you; who is behind the wheel of the truck you just overtook that delivered it; who stacked it on the shelf; and how you came to choose it, read this book, because you will learn all those things. If you didn’t think it was possible for a book about groceries to have richness, insight, humor, humanity, and charm all at once, read The Secret Life of Groceries. You’ll never look at a sauce bottle with indifference again.”
—Rose George, author of Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate