Oy Vey It's - The End of October 👻

The newsletter that isn't owned by Kroger...yet...

Oct 21, 2022

Welcome back, I do sincerely appreciate you being here!

Now that I have this newsletter done I am going to do my voting research (and run some errands and clean my apartment and watch a couple hours of TikToks), I hope you are registered to vote and are planning to do the same. No small parts in this shit show!

Anyways, if you’re going out to eat this weekend I’d like to offer you this meme that will live in my brain and haunt every reservation I make for the rest of my life.

memestodiscussintherapy

A post shared by Memes To Discuss In Therapy (@memestodiscussintherapy)

What I’ve Read

The Plant-Based Meat Movement Is Down But Not Out - I mentioned in the last edition, that big producers like JBS are closing plant-based plants and Kellogg’s/Morningstar feel like there is trouble in plant-based meat products. This WP article goes more into the economic nuance than I could offering that sinking sales of alt meats are one effect of the fluctuating prices of foods, the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, etc. Even more intensely than my own words, the WP calls, “the waning of trust is dangerously misguided. The environmental advantages of plant-based products are well-documented and profound…”. Also super proud of them for calling out, “that alternative meats are competing against a subsidized industry that has had more than a century to achieve good economics”.
Op-Ed: The Supreme Court shouldn’t meddle with California’s standards on meat and eggs - Gives great context to the Supreme Court hearing of CA Prop 12 and explains the complexity. I appreciated this quote, “If the industry wants its preferences on animal cruelty and health to displace those of the millions of Californians who voted for Proposition 12, it is barking up the wrong tree. Rather than pulling federal courts into this flawed constitutional challenge, it should compete in the democratic marketplace of ideas in Congress, which has the primary authority to regulate interstate commerce”.
Will plant-based meat ever satisfy America’s hunger for the real deal? - Yup, this topic AGAIN. The article really was a decent opinion piece describing the variety of alternative meats, discussing some of the uniquely American aspects of meat, and acknowledging that the current Western industrialization of plant-based options are a new iteration on food cultivation that is thousands of years old. I do not think it came close to addressing the question posed in the title, which was a bit disappointing because there is a lot that could be unpacked to answer it. Also loved that apparently the author and I share a similar hobby of watching the plant-based meat industry like it’s a sport.
Inside the Global Effort to Keep Perfectly Good Food Out of the Dump - Fun fact of the day, apparently in Seoul the garbage cans automatically weigh the amount of food in the trash (more Korean food waste facts in article). According to people interviewed, this technology has aided in certain ways and South Korea does have specific waste quantifications because of the tech, but it hasn’t necessarily translated to changing people’s habits. There is still no primary solution to food waste although a lot of people and organizations are trying.
Teen Farmworkers Support the US Agricultural Industry But Have Few Protections - The exemptions for worker health and safety in agriculture are a huge fucking problem, we have deliberately allowed farm work to be as dangerous and inhumane as it is. One of these major exemptions not reflected in other U.S. industries is that children as young as 12 are legally allowed to work in agriculture, outside of required school time (and just because a legal age is set doesn’t mean younger children aren’t in the fields, as shown in the article). I’m grateful to the author and these teenagers for sharing their story and the organizations mentioned who are advocating for change. You already know the increases in food prices everyone’s (rightfully) complaining about paying are not making it back to the farm workers. We must continue to support farmworkers and ask our government to extend protection and benefits to their industry.
Inflation is Causing Shoppers to Buy Less at Supermarket - This is a run of the mill grocery industry article about inflation but I am so tired of how trade media talks about consumers. Food prices are high and people are continuing to struggle and as a result they are spending less at the grocery store. Unsurprisingly, an economics minded source hops in to respond to the fact that, “consumers are often or sometimes worried that their food will run out before they have enough money to buy more…” with a shitty take that, “on the plus side, reduced demand from consumers limiting their purchases should eventually rein in rising prices”. AKA some people being unable to afford food (drop in demand) will maybe lower the overall cost of food in the future, so chill out.
(See more from my little kvetchy TikTok and scroll through the comments to see the variety of ways people respond to news like this).
- For more on how inflation is impacting household spending and a look at the Consumer Price Index read here.
Cultured meat needs a race to mission not a race to market - This article outlined 5 parameters the authors deemed necessary for cultivated meat to achieve it’s full potential; create slaughter-free solutions, center health and safety, pursue sustainability proactively, and scale for impact, and practice open science. I think this grounding is necessary, across fields beyond that of cultivated meat, but I’m not optimistic we will see all of these principles applied as outlined. Fingers crossed!

Q&Kay

Now introducing…Q&Kay (get it, like question & answer, but my name…you get it)!!

This middle section used to be “What I’m Excited About” but I haven’t really been feeling it and tend to skip it completely. Instead I want to try something new! Something that gives more opportunities for you to engage and deepen our reader author connection, so ask me questions and stay tuned to this section for future issues!

Click here to submit a question or topic for Q&Kay!

Kvetch Sesh

Instead of my typical rant I put together a list of resources discussing one piece of news that is rocking the food and grocery industry; Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons.

The TLDR is that this acquisition would basically give Kroger ~19% control over U.S. grocery, for reference Walmart has about 30% of the grocery market. This level of consolidation, especially in the food industry, does not lead to good things for workers or consumers. In one of Kroger’s announcements Chairman/CEO Rodney McMullen said one of the reasons for the acquisition is that, “We believe this transaction will lead to faster and more profitable growth and generate greater returns for our shareholders”. They mention other stuff about being purpose-driven, wanting to enhance the customer experience, and investing in technology but we have so many historical opportunities to look back upon that demonstrate how mass consolidation and centralization of resources don’t actually trickle down nicely for anyone besides investors and those in the C-Suite.

For reference here are the chains owned by each company:

Kroger: Baker’s, City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Foods Co, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Gerbes, Jay C Food Store, King Soopers, Kroger (duh), Mariano’s, Metro Market, Pay-Less Super Markets, Pick’n Save, QFC, Ralphs, Ruler, Smith’s Food and Drug

Albertsons: Acme, Albertsons (duh), Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star Market, Haggen, Carrs, Kings Food Markets, Balducci’s Food Lovers Market

Articles discussing the acquisition:

Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons: What this means (Food Politics by Marion Nestle)
Why A Kroger/Albertsons Merger Is A Bad Idea (Forbes by Errol Schweizer)
‘Serious concerns’: These senators are pushing back on the $25 billion Kroger-Albertsons merger (CNN by Nathaniel Meyersohn)
U.S. Senate to put Kroger-Albertsons merger under microscope (Supermarket News by Russell Redman)

There are some great responses, including pushback from public officials like Representative Porter, Senators Klobuchar, Blumenthal, Booker, Warren, and Sanders, and others who are urging the FTC to evaluate the antitrust angle, and of course some lovely takes on Twitter.