Oh, supermarkets, what are we going to do with you?
It seems you’re embroiled in a certain love-hate relationship with many of us.
Think of those farmers: they stock many of your vast shelves, yet often remain resentful for being squeezed. Or the upwardly-mobile, who slag you off in public, all while filling your coffers. Even food waste activists, perhaps your most virulent critics, have also been known to sing your praises.
However you slice it, dear supermarkets, it seems we just can’t take our eyes off of you.
Here in Canada, for example, you recently roused our spirits by bringing ugly fruit to your shelves, all while appropriating it as a new, cost-saving “brand” promising to quell food waste.
Meanwhile, in Denmark, you waded into the edible insect trade, only to pull them from the shelves two days later without telling us why.
In Alberta, you convinced the Blood Tribe of your merits, who hope to leverage your model on their land.
Yet this nagging question remains: do you really help us gain access to food? Or do you just stand in the way—-you big, boxy bully?
Over in the Bronx, a recent high-profile study seems to suggest the latter.
The NYU report investigated the effects of a 17 000 square foot Associated Foods supermarket in a known food desert, Morrisania, a neighbourhood with high rates of: “heart disease, obesity, diabetes…depression, infant mortality, mental illness and HIV…”
Its $1.1M 2010 opening costs were incentivized to the tune of $449 000 (about 40%).
However, the team reported no “significant changes in household food availability” to neighbourhood children, with an equal dearth of improved “dietary intake.” Don’t dismiss this as a one-off, supermarkets: the study’s vast sample size (about 2000 children) and lengthy duration (before, during and after the opening) suggest that even your government-fuelled spinoffs might fail to offer tangible benefit to those most in need.
Another recent article goes even further, claiming that you might be causing some of these problems to begin with.
In “Supermarkets are the problem,” Deborah A. Cohen at Slow Food USA surveys research on impulse purchases at the cash register alongside nefarious-sounding “slotting contracts” in your end-of-aisle displays. In a decisive verdict, she holds you structurally accountable for obesity and chronic disease.
Now listen up, supermarkets, because what I’m going to say might surprise you. I think we should cut you some slack.
First, determinist conclusions like the latter should be taken with a grain of your finest No Name salt.
It’s not only deceptive to pluck out and blame you from within a living, breathing, increasingly-complex wider food picture, it’s dangerous. By over-emphasizing government regulation as an ultimate cure, it effectively disempowers us everyday eaters of the education, choice, and agency we already possess—the type of things we really should be encouraged to strengthen.
If for no other reason than you’re not going anywhere soon, we’ve no doubt got a lot to negotiate.
Practically speaking, we all find ourselves in your aisles from time to time. Sometimes we’ve driven a long distance to greet you. Other times, we’ve just met you halfway.
Other times, for many of use, we just get squeezed for options and feel almost forced to wander your aisles. Yet rather than praying to be saved or averting our gaze, it would be better to simply open our eyes.
