{"id":30437,"date":"2012-01-04T07:58:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T07:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/?p=30437"},"modified":"2012-01-04T07:58:14","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T07:58:14","slug":"article_24588","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">For related articles and more information, please visit OCA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/farm.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Farm Issues page<\/a> and our <a href=\"http:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/btc.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Breaking The Chains page<\/a>.<\/span><br \/>\nAubretia Edick has worked at a Walmart store in upstate New York for 11 years, but she won&#8217;t buy fresh food there. Bagged salads, she claims, are often past their sell-by dates and, in the summer, fruit is sometimes kept on shelves until it rots. &#8220;They say, &#8216;We&#8217;ll take care of it,&#8217; but they don&#8217;t. As a cashier, you hear a lot of people complain,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Edick blames the problems on the store&#8217;s chronic understaffing and Walmart&#8217;s lack of respect for the skilled labor needed to handle the nation&#8217;s food supply. At her store, a former maintenance person was made produce manager. He&#8217;s often diverted to other tasks. &#8220;If the toilets get backed up, they call him,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Tracie McMillan, who did a stint working in the produce section of a Walmart store while researching her forthcoming book, The American Way of Eating, reports much the same. &#8220;They put a 20-year-old from electronics in charge of the produce department. He didn&#8217;t know anything about food,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We had a leak in the cooler that didn&#8217;t get fixed for a month and all this moldy food was going out on the floor.&#8221; Walmart doesn&#8217;t accept the idea that &#8220;a supermarket takes any skill to run,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They treated the produce like any other kind of merchandise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s plenty to give a shopper pause, but it&#8217;s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reasons to be concerned about Walmart&#8217;s explosive expansion into the grocery sector.<\/p>\n<p>Growth of a giant<\/p>\n<p>In just a few short years, Walmart has become the most powerful force in our food system, more dominant than Monsanto, Kraft, or Tyson. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aubretia Edick has worked at a Walmart store in upstate New York for 11 years, but she won&#8217;t buy fresh food there. Bagged salads, she claims, are often past their sell-by dates and, in the summer, fruit is sometimes kept on shelves until it rots. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[54,53,4,5],"organicbytes":[],"countries":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System - Organic Consumers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System - Organic Consumers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Aubretia Edick has worked at a Walmart store in upstate New York for 11 years, but she won&#039;t buy fresh food there. Bagged salads, she claims, are often past their sell-by dates and, in the summer, fruit is sometimes kept on shelves until it rots. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Organic Consumers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/organicconsumers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-04T07:58:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"OCA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@organicconsumer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@organicconsumer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"OCA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"OCA\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#\/schema\/person\/17936886bc35620784b0838870381700\"},\"headline\":\"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-04T07:58:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-04T07:58:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\"},\"wordCount\":303,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Big Box Retailers\",\"Breaking the Chains\",\"Fair Trade &amp; Social Justice\",\"Farm Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\",\"name\":\"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System - Organic Consumers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-04T07:58:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-04T07:58:14+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/\",\"name\":\"Organic Consumers Association\",\"description\":\"Campaigning for health, justice, regeneration, peace, and democracy.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Organic Consumers Association\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/OCA.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/OCA.png\",\"width\":640,\"height\":290,\"caption\":\"Organic Consumers Association\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/organicconsumers\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/organicconsumer\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/organicconsumers\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@organicconsumer\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/#\/schema\/person\/17936886bc35620784b0838870381700\",\"name\":\"OCA\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/csrtech.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/author\/rayj\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System - Organic Consumers","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_24588\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Walmart Is Taking over Our Food System - Organic Consumers","og_description":"Aubretia Edick has worked at a Walmart store in upstate New York for 11 years, but she won't buy fresh food there. 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