Best Grocery Shopping Guide: Buying and Selling Food in America - Online Grocery Stores, Farmers Markets & Food Delivery Services
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Product Description
In Grocery, bestselling author Michael Ruhlman offers incisive commentary on America's relationship with its food and investigates the overlooked source of so much of it—the grocery store. In a culture obsessed with food—how it looks, what it tastes like, where it comes from, what is good for us—there are often more questions than answers. Ruhlman proposes that the best practices for consuming wisely could be hiding in plain sight—in the aisles of your local supermarket. Using the human story of the family-run Midwestern chain Heinen's as an anchor to this journalistic narrative, he dives into the mysterious world of supermarkets and the ways in which we produce, consume, and distribute food. Grocery examines how rapidly supermarkets—and our food and culture—have changed since the days of your friendly neighborhood grocer. But rather than waxing nostalgic for the age of mom-and-pop shops, Ruhlman seeks to understand how our food needs have shifted since the mid-twentieth century, and how these needs mirror our cultural ones. A mix of reportage and rant, personal history and social commentary, Grocery is a landmark book from one of our most insightful food writers.
Customer Reviews
In the United States grocery stores are so commonplace that we generally take them for granted and rarely think about them and just how important they are. Michael Ruhlman grew up in Cleveland with a father who loved grocery stores, and eventually took such an interest in them himself that he wrote "Grocery," this volume that looks at these important places from just about every angle.Ruhlman discusses some of the history of the retail food business going back more than a century. Twentieth-century giant A&P rose and eventually fell, and change in the industry has been constant—Walmart and Whole Foods have been drivers of change in recent decades. The author focuses on Heinen's, a Cleveland-area chain, and recalls their history in Northeast Ohio. "Grocery" notes how competition between stores and chains of stores affect decisions of individual grocers.Healthy eating is en vogue in some quarters in America today, and the author describes how chains such as Heinen's make room for healthier products on their shelves to compete with other retailers. Ruhlman talks with the consultant physician for Heinen's on a trip through the store, discussing the poor eating habits of many in the last forty or so years and how they contribute to food-related illnesses, focusing much attention on the detrimental effects of excess sugar.Ruhlman has chapters in the book about the meat, produce, and frozen foods departments, looking at the operations of each. The author also notes how food producers get their products on grocery store shelves and looks at the forces likely to change grocery stores in the near future, including the rising market for prepared foods, hydroponic farming, and the impact of Amazon.com.The book closes by discussing the opening of a new Heinen's location in downtown Cleveland and just what the opening of a sizable grocery store can do for such an urban area. This volume even goes over how groceries should be properly bagged and debunks some of the myths about how grocers supposedly try to trick customers. "Grocery" is a thorough look at a topic some might wrongly think mundane, and those of us who worked in a grocery store at some point during high school or college would find the book an especially good read.
