The Grocery Store Illusion

Here's something that should matter to every parent filling a grocery cart.

Walk into any grocery store, and you'll see what looks like endless choice. It's an illusion. Nearly 80% of the products on those shelves are controlled by just a handful of corporations.

The meat case is the worst. Over 70 different brands, nearly all of them owned by four companies.

Even the brands that look independent aren't. Annie's Homegrown is General Mills. Applegate, the "natural" meat in the cooler, is Hormel. No matter which one you reach for, chances are the profit ends up on the same handful of corporate balance sheets.

And you can't even get to the shelf without paying the toll. Retailers charge slotting fees just for the right to be seen. Industry researchers estimate that many grocers now earn more from those fees than from actually selling the food. It's a tollbooth, not a market. 

But you already know there's another way. And quietly, a grassroots food system is taking root.

There's still work to do. The farms you'd actually want to buy from are disappearing. Farm bankruptcies have more than doubled in two years. Farm income is down $25 billion.

We're losing 2,000 acres of farmland every day to data centers, warehouses, and development. The small farms are the first to go. And when they go, they don't come back.

But there are farms proving that a different future is possible.

This part is personal. I just got back from planning the year ahead with several of our farm families in southern Missouri. One family told us this is the only thing on their farm that’s making money.

They're not the only ones.

This month, 500 American farmers signed a letter to Congress asking for help. Not for handouts, but for a fair shot at reaching families like yours. The system is built so the biggest operations get the shelf space, the subsidies, and the infrastructure. Everyone else gets the waitlist.

Those families I sat with in southern Missouri? They're still here because enough people decided the grocery store wasn't their only option. They're proof that a family farm doesn't need a spot on the grocery shelf to thrive. It just needs families like yours.

Your farmer (writing this so you have something to send next time someone asks why you don't just buy your meat at the grocery store),
Cody