The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket

by Benjamin Lorr

All these individually wrapped products beget something even more precious to us. Choice. As synonym for control. In a world without boxes lit with insignias, colors, and slogans, there is little need for a consumer to touch anything. It’s all the same. But suddenly, with cardboard boxes flying off the factory line, the greedy tentacles of customer demand are excited; they head to the general store and request particular products. They grow suspicious of the clerk behind the counter: Is he substituting, swindling, or otherwise shortchanging us? This suspicion is then weaponized by manufacturers. Suddenly America is awash in advertising lauding the package as proxy for security, as barrier against tampering or fraud.

The word “retail” comes to us from the Middle French word retailler, meaning “to cut into pieces,” more etymologically related to the English word “tailor” than anything having to do with sales. The original French retailers were oriented around precision, buying only a few key goods in bulk and carefully apportioning them for their customers. They added value through product selection, negotiating routes of supply, and expertise in handling.

I had watched organics and fair trade explode into billion-dollar industries. But it was hard to say the world was becoming a better place for the marginal spending. In fact, it felt like it was becoming a more insulated one. I kept thinking of the medieval practice of simony, where the wealthy could pay money to be released from their sins. The grocery store felt like it was becoming a smug secular update. The seals and certifications acting like some sort of moral shield, allowing those of us with disposable income to pay extra for our salvation, and forcing everyone else to deal with the fact that on top of being poor, they were tacitly agreeing to harm the earth, pollute their children via their lunch boxes, and exploit their fellow man each time they made a purchase.