1.0Food+Tech Connecthttps://foodtechconnect.comErrol Schweizerhttps://foodtechconnect.com/author/errol/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="JsMxHHOkOQ"><a href="https://foodtechconnect.com/2021/01/28/5-actions-to-reboot-food-retail/">5 Actions to Reboot Food Retail</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://foodtechconnect.com/2021/01/28/5-actions-to-reboot-food-retail/embed/#?secret=JsMxHHOkOQ" width="600" height="338" title="“5 Actions to Reboot Food Retail” — Food+Tech Connect" data-secret="JsMxHHOkOQ" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); /* ]]> */ </script> https://foodtechconnect.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/1.png1280720This is a guest post by Errol Schweizer, Host of The Checkout Podcast, Co-Founder, Board Member For Natural Products Retail and CPG, Writer at Forbes.com and Former Whole Foods VP of Grocery.   Mastered economics ’cause you took yourself from squalor Mastered academics ’cause your grades say you a scholar Mastered Instagram ’cause you can instigate a follow Look at all these slave masters posin’ on yo’ dollar  -JU$T by Run The Jewels   Covid-19 is the first real stress test that our food system and supply chains have experienced in the 21st century. The pandemic highlighted the deep fissures in the industry and ripped away the pretense of “sustainable food”, and showed that we have made little progress moving past our food system’s origins in plantation slavery, Native American genocide and land theft. The impacts of Covid-19 in the food and agriculture sectors have been felt most acutely by the essential workers foundational to the supply chain. Considering the potential impacts of the climate change related crises that are sure to come, we have our work cut out if we are to fulfill a vision of a more just, sane and sustainable food system.  We have a responsibility to all stakeholders in our supply chains to pursue deep and substantive change, starting with the social and economic issues that underlie how we grow, make, distribute and sell food. Our inability to accomplish this mission so far has enabled catastrophic death, sickness and misery during Covid-19. Is this the best we can do?   We’ve Failed Our Food Workers No stakeholder group has carried a greater burden during Covid-19 than essential workers in food service, retail, manufacturing and CPG. The latest data show that almost 83,000 supply chain workers have been sickened with the virus, and over 360 have died. This data doesn’t come near to illustrating the shocking impact of the pandemic on all supply chain workers, such as the hundreds of frontline retail workers that have also died, according to UFCW.  The federal government failed to protect these workers, and even put them in harms way. OSHA, the agency tasked with protecting workers on the job, completely failed in its role, refusing to issue an enforceable emergency temporary standard. And the Trump Administration exacerbated the dangerous conditions by issuing an executive order last April, at the behest of big meat monopolies, forcing meat plants to stay open despite the rapid transmission of Covid within the plants. The administration later releasing guidance to increase line speeds, which surely sped virus transmission in dirty, crowded facilities staffed by exhausted personnel. It’s not as though things were hunky-dory before March 2020. Essential workers have faced decades of wage stagnation. If wages had kept pace with productivity, we would have a $24 an hour minimum wage, and not still be haggling for a $15 an hour floor. Seen from another angle, working and middle class people have been robbed of nearly $50 trillion in income since 1975, or over $2.5 Trillion annually. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent of income earners have increased their share from 9 percent to 22 percent in that timeframe, while the bottom 90 percent have seen their share fall from 67 percent to 50 percent. In a year of Black Lives Matter-catalyzed reckonings of race and inequality, do I even need to mention that it’s mostly old white dudes who inhabit that top income bracket? They made money the old-fashioned way, LOL. The pandemic-induced economic crisis exacerbated these conditions. While over 400,000 died, 67 million folks lost work, 98,000 businesses closed and 1 in 6 Americans, over 54 Million people, were struggling with food insecurity, the Dow hit 30,000 and the collective wealth of 650 billionaires increase by $1 Trillion to over $4 Trillion, nearly double the wealth of the bottom 165 million Americans. And while thousands of individuals, enterprises and non-profits have mobilized to take care of their customers, workers and communities, retailers at the commanding heights of the food system and supply chain leveraged the pandemic to generate enormous profits for a small handful of shareholders and executives, while sharing little with the workers that kept everything going. The wealth of the Walton family alone has grown by $40.7 billion during the pandemic, nearly 26 times the amount of all hazard pay for all 1.5 million Wal-Mart associates in the same timeframe, putting to rest forever the misguided notion that better pay would result in higher prices. But as Arundhati Roy has written, the pandemic is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.  What could that portal lead to in our corner of the economy, in supply chains and the food system? First, Breathe. Next, I’d have a banner over that gateway, quoting legendary East Village artist Seth Tobocman, “You don’t have to fuck people over to survive.”  Then I’d start some civil, yet uncomfortable conversations around what we could do to create and build this fair, just, sane food system and supply chain. The following is a discussion guide to help inform those conversations. You can also join us for Food+Tech Connect’s Reimagining Food Retail Conversation Series and Slack group to have these conversations. Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @grocery_nerd or Instagram @grocery.nerd how it goes. Got a Vonnegut punch for your Atlas shrugs -El-P   1. A Seat at the Table Retailers need to give food workers a seat a the table. Unions, the folks that brought us the weekend. Unions, the folks that built the middle class. I grew up around family members, friends and neighbors that were unionized. But what a paradigm, shift I experienced in the natural products sector, not only a curious antipathy to organized labor, but an outright denial of the role that unions have played in our society. It was like another dimension, where the bosses, benevolent for the moment, knew best. Obviously, that moment passed.   Is it any coincidence that the extreme wealth and income inequalities since 1975 paralleled a similar […]