Supermarket Obsolescence

  The first American supermarket officially opened in 1946.  That's a mere 80 years ago.  Compared to human history, that's a short time.

  It replaced the corner or village grocery that had always carried staples like butter, eggs, flour, and meat.  People prepared food in home kitchens.  What made a supermarket a supermarket was that you didn't have to do any preparation for the lion's share of the food there.  TV dinners, heat-n-eat, frozen and canned produce.  Eventually pharmacies joined and other items like toys, videos, and delis added options and floor space.

                  As people left their home kitchens and purchased convenience, yesteryear's diversity, with many small venues, gave way to umbrella businesses owning multiple brands.  Consolidation, concentration, and centralization dominated the food and farm platform.

                  Here are beef brands currently owned by Tyson:

                  AdvancePierre Foods

                  Aidells

                  Ball Park

                  Barber Foods

                  Big Az

                  Bascos

                  Bryan

                  Chairman's Reserve

                  Fast Fixin'

                  Galler

                  Hillshire Farm

                  Hillshire

                  ibp

                  Jimmy Dean

                  Lady Aster

                  Landshire

                  Like Mom's

                  Mexican Original

                  Open Prairie

                  Original Phiffy

                  Pierre

                  Reuben

                  Russer

                  Savoro

                  Sara Lee

                  Star Ranch Angus

                  State Fair

                  Steak EZE

                  Wright Brand

                  Wunderbar

                  Okay, you can take a breath now.  The point is that all these brands are coming out of the same tube.  You can hear the floor manager shouting: "now switch to the blue brand; now switch to the green labels; now switch to the red labels . . . "  The result of all this is that Americans have lost trust in industrial chemical foods and are tired of dehumanization in the retail experience.

                  Cashiers are fast becoming a thing of the past.  More people don't even go to the supermarket. Workers don't smile and you can't trust anything.

                  At Polyface, we know the two things people want is trust and connection.  In fact, the difference in shopping experience is profound.  A hidden cultural development is the cost of physical retail interfaces.  Insurance for liability (slip and falls), cost of stocking shelves attractively, and waste streams from spoiled or out-of-date inventory have made the modern supermarket pricey and inefficient.

                  As a result, a plethora of alternatives is now chipping away at supermarket viability.  From home cooking to UPS door-to-door delivery, the retail food space is in flux and moving away from the supermarket, which epitomizes the concentrated industrial food paradigm.

                  Who would have thought, a mere 15 years ago, that from our dirt road in rural Swoope, Virginia our farm could ship 4 dozen eggs to any city in America cheaper than folks could by them at farmers' market?  As distribution logistics cheapened and physical retail costs increased, supermarket advantages vanished.

                  The last edge claimed by supermarkets is price, and that has now collapsed with cheap distribution options.  Amazon revolutionized the retail space.  Door-to-door delivery revolutionized acquisition.  

                  Polyface has no desire to be in supermarkets.  We'd like to see a time when supermarkets no longer exist.  Over many decades, every attempt to get Polyface products into supermarkets has either been a disaster or fraught with insurmountable difficulties.  The truth is that supermarkets are not conducive to non-industrial fare.

                  Today I honor and salute each of you who has chosen an opt-out strategy toward supermarkets.  In general, they represent everything that's wrong in our food and farming systems.  They beat up suppliers on price, drag out payments, demand product babysitting, and offer the least information or connection with their products.  If we're going to defund something, how about we defund supermarkets?

                  Thank you for being part of the quiet revolution to replace the obsolete supermarket with trustworthy, human-connection sustenance.  You are part of the solution; together let's create a new universe that honors earthworms, nutrition, and water.