You may not know this, but I used to work as a cashier in a grocery store in the 1990s.
I met a number of people
who received WIC and/or food stamps at my first grocery store, where I worked
for two years. Some of these customers I got to know very well because they
bought small orders and came in two to three times a week. It was clear
that most of them were embarrassed to be buying food with assistance. Some came
in with a chip on their shoulder, expecting to be criticized, whether by
other customers or the cashiers checking them out, I'm not sure.
I treated them like any
other customer, often calling them by name. Why wouldn't I? It's good business
to get to know your customers and it was a small enough store that I could learn many
of their names.
The woman (and by and
large, it was they who were buying) clearly weren't used to being treated that
way. Once we were better acquainted, some told me that. They came to our
smaller store because the people were nicer and it was close enough to walk. It
was evident they were used to being treated as second-class customers
somewhere, which made me upset on their behalf.
Sometimes I
wondered why they picked the items they did, though I never criticized. The
items they bought, almost universally, were cheap and/or on sale, were filling
and often non-perishable, except for WIC items such as milk and cheese.
A couple of the other
customers occasionally commented to me about a prior customer's choices
(whether purchased with food stamps or not). I either changed the subject or
politely ignored those comments from the busybodies and got on with my job,
rather than telling them to mind their own business.
Fruit and vegetables my
customers bought with food stamps were almost always canned. I didn't connect
that 20 years ago, when I started working at the first store, to the fact that
fresh fruits and vegetables are almost always expensive. I did clue in,
eventually, but I didn't know what possibly could be done about it. I knew
fresh produce was more expensive, and some of these ladies had three or four
kids to feed.
Let's go forward 20 years. A few articles and blog
posts I've recently come across are giving me ideas of what could have been
done back then and should be done now.
The most touching of the articles was the most personal; it was by Brooke McKay,
who documented a trip to the grocery store with a woman who lives in crisis
housing within the homeless shelter at which Brooke volunteers. Brooke gave
Tori $50 (name changed for privacy purposes), though actually they spent
more because she didn't want Tori to have to take any of the food back.
She was surprised that one of the items Tori picked was an $11 bag of
apples. The trip broke through the assumptions people often make about the
homeless and those on food stamps.
The comments section
also is rather enlightening. I will admit that I had a few tears in my eyes
reading the blog and comments. (“There but for the grace of God go I.”)
A big part of why
produce seems to be so outrageously expensive appears to be food waste.
According to a
2013 NPR (National Public Radio)
blog post I read, Doug
Rauch, formerly Trader Joe's president, planned to use edible produce past its
sell-by date in prepared food that will be cheap in his supermarket-restaurant
hybrid that features food that other stores would have thrown out. The Daily
Table market will be in Dorchester, Mass. It was scheduled to open this year.
I've been searching for half an hour and still can't figure out whether or not
it's opened yet.
It's mentioned in other
articles, too, including this one 4 Restuarants Rethink Food
Waste, on
www.sustainableamerica.org's blog. The post offers some fabulous ideas, as does
another on that site, called Ugly Produce Can Be a
Beautiful Thing.
One of the points noted is that at every level, ugly produce is wasted.
In a quest to reduce
waste, grocery chains in the U.K., such as Tesco, Waitboro,
and Sainsbury's Food Rescue embrace the sale of these fruits and veggies at discounted prices.
In Europe, it's Ugly Fruits leading the way. Intermarché in
France also is promoting the benefits of ugly produce ... and a 30 percent
discount, according to a grist.org article. French shoppers are gobbling them up.
Ugly Produce Can Be a
Beautiful Thing also
commented that the U.S., Greenling, which delivers groceries in Texas
featuring local food and organic produce, "sells 'seconds' that have
slight physical defects" while another delivery service, "Fresh Direct,"
based in Long Island City, Queens, rates its produce from one to five stars and
customers can choose their grade, either taking a chance on one-star produce,
which can be inconsistent to the perfect five-star produce. Home delivery is
available in some areas; check the list. Out west, Grocery Outlet
"sells closeouts and overruns, including produce."
If you want to know
more, here are additional sources I found interesting:
- Modern Farmer, Food Waste: The Next Food Revolution
- Sustainable America's white paper, Increasing Food Availability to Ensure a Resilient Food Future for America
