The Secret Life of Groceries

In the tradition of Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, an extraordinary investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery store.

The American supermarket is an everyday miracle. But what does it take to run one? What are the inner workings of product delivery and distribution? Who sets the price? And who suffers for the convenience and efficiency we’ve come to expect? In this rollicking exposé, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on this highly secretive industry. Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and compulsively listenable prose, Lorr leads a wild investigation to:

• Learn the secrets of Trader Joe’s success from Trader Joe himself
• Drive with truckers caught in a job they call “sharecropping on wheels”;
• Break into industrial farms with activists to learn what it takes for a product to earn certification labels like “rain forest friendly” and “fair trade”;
• Follow entrepreneurs as they fight for shelf space, learning essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food business;
• Journey with migrants to examine shocking forced labor practices through their eyes.

The result is a compelling portrait of an industry in flux, filled with the passion, ingenuity, and inequity required to make this piece of the American dream run. The product of five years of research and hundreds of interviews across every level of the industry, The Secret Life of Groceries is essential listening for those who want to understand our food system – delivering powerful social commentary on the inherently American quest for more and compassionate insight into the lives that provide it.

Plaudits:

“An intense, immersive, humorous, and sometimes shocking portrait of the modern American supermarket.” – NPR Shots

“The Secret Life of Groceries reveals the unsustainable reality of American shopping…no reader of this ambitious book will enter a store the same.” – San Francisco Chronicle

“The Secret Life of Groceries is a deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites.” – The New York Times

“The Secret Life of Groceries takes us on a tour through the lives that the food system touches so that we have clear eyes about the human and environmental cost of our demands. If we can stomach it.” – The Washington Post

“Is “literary muck-raking” a genre? It is now. This book is at once a satisfying, enjoyable meal and a glass of cold water to the face. The modern shopper wants groceries that are ethical, sustainable, humane, affordable, fresh, and convenient. But as Lorr discovers, the costs of our demands are recouped from the bottom of the food chain: debt-ruined truckers, foreign slave labor, and Whole Foods workers in our own communities — the people whose lives Lorr shared (and sometimes lived) for weeks or months. Does it sound grim? It’s not! The Secret Life of Groceries is a terrific read. The stories flow, and the hard truths are seasoned with wit and hope. Bottle this man and get him into every home!” – Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

“A titanic achievement of reportage, insight, humor, and humanity,The Secret Life of Groceries will forever change the way you think about the American food system. Lorr journeys deep into our troubled supply chain with propulsive force and insight and brings us back the goods.”  – Adam Chandler, author of Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom

“Lorr’s frank tone and detailed descriptions carry the reader through the splendor and horrors of your neighborhood retailer.”  – Smithsonian Magazine,

“In The Secret Life of Groceries, Benjamin Lorr demonstrates through lively and meticulous reporting how much the enthronement of the American consumer has cost workers, from truckers who live on $100 a week to slave laborers who fish the waters off Southeast Asia. With compassion and humor, Lorr introduces us to very real people who constitute that abstraction we call the “supply chain” and challenges us, in a thoughtful and nuanced way, to consider the high price we pay for supermarket bargains.”  – Timothy Noah, author of The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It

“This fascinating, deep dive into the American supermarket changed how I thought about grocery stores. Both entertaining and enraging, Benjamin Lorr offers a compassionate indictment of the way we feed ourselves.” – Tracie McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table