Although you all will be preparing for your midterm this weekend, you do also need to write a commentary for this week. I strongly recommend doing this this week not only because they are required, but also because some of the themes in this week's reading will likely show up in the essay questions for the exam.
This week, Patel is going to take us away from the production of food to turn our attention to the consumer and corporate production of consumer desires. As you write your commentaries think about what Patel's overarching argument in this chapter is [hint: it might have something to do with ideologies of personal choice and personal freedom in consumption]. What evidence and examples does he employ to make that argument? How does he tie the issue of consumption in this chapter to the issues surrounding production and the lives of farmers that he discussed in preceding chapters? Does his argument change the way that you view your own relationship to supermarket shelves? Finally, what does Patel's argument suggest for the concluding recommendations presented in the film, Food, Inc.? Does it change how we think about the notion of "voting with your wallet" and "changing the world with every bite"? If so, how?
Patel is saying that supermarkets have control over who works in other countries by what they buy and what they put on their shelves and basically by what we buy. I think this is a problem economically because some of the poorest farmers in countries that aren't doing well economically can be put out of business and left with no work when other wealthy companies are booming and they are producing the same goods even sometimes with less quality. We as the consumers control what goes on the shelves by what we buy, the classic case of supply and demand. Supermarkets start to control us when they use the technique of lowing prices for more goods even if they are not a necessity, this is another problem and a possible down fall in the system. Its crazy how we buy too much food when people cant even afford to eat.
ReplyDeleteIs this a classic case of supply and demand? Doesn't that imply that the consumers have ultimate control over what the purchase? How does supermarket manipulation change that story of the relationship between supply and demand?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn the chapter checking out supermarkets patel's main argument is how supermarkets has a great dominance on the food we consume. Patel describe the supermarkets don't really give customers the options of deciding what kind of food they want. Because supermarkets are already providing the products they have, we as the consumer have the decision weather we buy the product or not.
ReplyDeleteThis argument could be base on how supermarkets products come mainly from three main corporations. One of the most known corporations is monsatos. The customer goes into the supermarket with the idea of having a variety of options which is not really the case. Since all the products are coming from only three main corporations.
In the chapter patel also mentions that the consumer don't have any connection with the producer of the food. This shows that the consumer don't know a lot about the product they are buying. They only know the information that is being provided by the label. Patel also describes how supermarkets have power over the consumers by using the example of the "Loyalty cards". According to patel this cards are able to provide personal information such as your name and adress but also the type of shopping the consumers makes.
This kind of information helps the supermarkets corporations decide what kind of products are more popular among customers. That will provide the most money to the companies.
Technology is an important source of food production and is use in supermarkets as well. The barcode is able to provide information about the product background and how much money is being made from the product. The barcode (EPC) electronic product code got my attention because it shows how advance technology is. This barcode is able to detect the product you bought, but also the route you took in the supermarket and the product you didn't buy. This shows how supermarkets are running the same way factories work and limiting the options of food.
Raj Patel briefly introduces us to the evolution of the supermarket system from the beginning of the twentieth centuries, to present. The progress begun with Saunders idea of Self serving store.
ReplyDeleteUnlike it precedent : the grocery store, where the consumer would get his products on demand from a clerk behind the counter, the consumer would now pick his own products of choice without any additional assistance. The organization of the store area reminded a lot of a maze:consumers had to follow a strict path, fill in their baskets and go straight to the cashier. Somewhat perceived as strange at first by consummers at that time, this new invention became really convenient for people. These stores were not only well organized - they became really cheap. Enterpreneurs would now not only attract new consumers by it store looks, it would also attract by it's content. It is true that supermarkets would have a large variety inventory. Plus, the cost of those would be less cheaper than everywhere else. Moreover, a new customer service system would be integrated within, with "greeters", pleasant store employees and special offers for those who are willing to adhere in the store's membership. All these special features with the only purpose to tie up consummers, and grab their fidelity. With people trapped in that way, holdings and corporation would grow, expand and seize enormous power and ifluence. Which is the case with Monsanto, a U.S.-based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation that controls every single thing related to the consumer and it's surroudings. We're not living in Saunders times anymore, things did change a lot since the patent of the revolutionnary architecture planning of groceries for consummer convenience in 1917. We live in a world now, where shelves are filled of products. Products that are not as necessary for us, as they're advertised and commercialized everywhere. No need to mention, that in fact, all these names, labels, marks of products are nothing else but the same thing under different covers, packs and wraps. Pepsi or Cola? they will ask you, while these two beverages are manufactured under the same big corporation, with the same manufacturing techniques and recipe. Corporations have power over everything: from the pay that they will give to growers for their primary product to the cost that you will pay for the ready commodity. They control their employees lives, they control their growers and farmers lives, they control your government, they control your life...
An interessting issue to that problem has been given in the Food Inc film, an issue that goes along and correspond to the issue that Raj Patel gives to us. The main ideology would be to go local markets and straightly support the farmers and growers, instead of "the people in the middle". This could be done departing from a personal choice and personal freedom of consumption basis.
It's up to you to make choices. You can begin to consum organic and seasonal foods instead of unhealthy GMOs and biotechnological, global, imported products since the money that goes in exchange to those commodities comes from your own wallet.
Tashibay.
Petal has introduced to us the beginning of the supermarket, what we are so common with wasn’t always so common. Petal is portraying is argument through the supermarket its expressing how good it makes the consumer feel to choose its goods from a shelf. At the beginning of the book Petal talks about the matter of personal of choice and personal freedom of consumption. This is when the consumer would have its choice on where their food is produced and where it comes from. The corporations were taking that away because three main big businesses produce and manufacture our food. Now he is showing that they are trying to make us believe that they have given us back our personal choice and personal freedom of consumption by having supermarket.
ReplyDeleteThey designed the supermarket for us to be attracted to look around, they formed it in a maze that we would have to search for the item we needed. That would make us view more items than we which would lead to us spending more than we wanted to. The supermarkets are the ones who make the money profit like the businesses. In having an organized system such as the way the supermarkets are set up cuts down the demand of workers. The consumer likes the idea they can help them self, they are all for self service. But they don’t know they are helping the business get more money. We think the prices but we don’t know what they cutting down on to make them so low. As Patel revealed to us before the farmer suffer and also they don’t need many workers in the supermarkets. They invented checkout tills in order to cut down more workers they made everything to be electronically taken care of.
I was surprised when Patel revealed that the barcodes have a sort of tracking device. They can trace back your route around the supermarket. This doesn’t really change my mind about the shelves in supermarkets because I really don’t find it necessary to have someone assist you on grocery shopping. An argument close to the movie Food inc. is you can make the choice about your spending. Go to the supermarket pick put seasonal food or just buy the good with the GMOs it’s your choice because it’s your money.
In this raj Patel latest chapter a cry for bread shows more of how the international food trade began by showing a verse from the bible from the book of kings. It shows how Solomon started to trade with the people of his time which lead on to the other trading from then on out. As the chapter goes on I see the more of how people would want more and fight for more food, but the world cant supply as much food as need for the growing population even as time goes on it gets harder and harder. Problems including natural disasters add on to the even harder way to supply the people of countries with food. Raj Patel argument allowed me to re think my own ideologies on the supermarket but I always was a bit iffy on how I shopped but this chapter allowed me to see what is really going on also with the past chapters it greatly helped my own view on supermarkets.
ReplyDeletePatel’s argument suggest that the average consumer should be wise and see actual where their food comes from and not just always go by the brand from which made it. Also that the modern day consumer should eat more natural food then the food that you can come by easily in the store’s even though it may cost less it does not mean it is good for you and that what is in the cheaper food is worse for you to eat then the expensive food. Finally it does not change the notion that every person who buy groceries is in a sense voting with their wallet. Because for item of which the consumer buys that item is what is in demand say a new brand of cereal for instance is the best in America and people go on the shelves to buy as much as they can for each cereal box you buy you are voting to keep making more and continuing the cycle .
Basically, Patel has introduced us how the supermarket to cather to consumers' interested of different types of food; therefore, they can earn more profits according to what consumers need. Nowadays, our supermarket becomes more modern and technological because they were copying from Saunder's idea of how to run a self-serving store. It can help the supermarket gain more profits since they can save the money of hiring instructors. Customer can shop individually by their shopping list. In fact, Patel showed that consumer didn't even have freedom to choose what they want. They were just guided by chicken wire. We already know that there is only one big company controlling all the food behind us, and we don't have many options to pick different choices. In addition, loyalty cards are a great example to help these supermarkets to collect customers' personal information, so it will be more able to control us. For example, some supermarkets will send advertisement to our home, so we will be attracted by looking which products is being on-sale. We have the ability to help ourselves to choose what we really need to buy.
ReplyDeleteHm, reading Patel's work and seeing the first three quarters of Food, Inc. has me really unconvinced by this argument that we really have the freedom to "choose [only] what we really need to buy," or to even have access to information that would help to guide these choices. We'll think more on this tomorrow in class...
ReplyDeletePatel gets into detail in this chapter about how the supermarket first started in this country. He gets into all the details about how the supermarket uses little techniques in order to attract the consumer to buy more. Supermarket is just a cover up to the consumer making them believe that they have a variety of items to buy from but in reality they are buying from 3 big companies. In the beginning Patel talks about how the consumer once had a choice on whom to buy their food from and gave the consumer the idea what they were buying was a good choice. Before supermarkets owners had a hard time getting people to buy more than what they needed not like before when people would walk into grocery store and ask the clerk only what they needed and nothing more . Super markets sold items at a much cheaper price which made the consumer think it was worth buying more than needed. Owners also figured out that the environment in which they sell their products affects what the consumer buys and the amount of time the consumer takes shopping. Supermarkets affect the lives and production of farmers because as said in the book on page 240 “super markets aren’t buying from small businesses”. Corporations have control over ever thing from the wages the growers get to the amount of hours they get, they basically control the workers life. In Mexico there was incident where workers were forced to skip breaks and work longer hours. Workers were using the bathroom in areas they work so the environment they were in was horrible. Big supermarkets like the one discussed in this chapter like wal-mart affect mom and pop shops since they kill the competition with their prices. This does change my view on supermarkets because now I see that the variety on the shelves isn’t much and that everything I’m looking at is probably all made from the same company. This chapter relates to food inc with the fact that they both have similar ideologies. People assume that the food they’re buying is coming from farms but little do they know. It doesn’t change the notion about voting with your wallet because at the end of the day the consumer has the final say so if the consumer decided to take their money elsewhere than corporations will adjust so the consumer will come back. If people become more aware of what they are eating and eat more healthy than we can change the world with every bite.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn this chapter i think what Patel's main argument is that supermarket's are now controlling the mainstream markets. Supermarkets manipulate consumer’s desires. They don’t really give consumers a choice. It’s more of an illusion for consumers. What they’re doing is since they have power there using it to their ability to change food products and limit them. I think supermarket's are just cover up's for consumers having them believe that they could walk into a supermarket see so many different items from different brands BUT what they fail to see is that all those items come from three major companies .they have designed supermarkets for us to believe that it would help individual’s get their own wants but if you really look on the shelves it's the same thing in each local supermarket you go in to! In my point of view I see this as the U.S lying to its people. Shouldn’t we have the right to really buy what we want to eat and not have like someone put A idea in our minds and set us up. The idea they should be placing in our mind should be consumer sovereignty, where consumers have their own power to get there needs!
ReplyDeleteIn this chapter Patel's argument is based on how food companies controls what we buy not just in USA but also in global economy , It's like they have total control over what food we decide to buy. The manufactoring system produces so much food that people are not being able to soak up the flood of goods that is being produced. This is one of the big reasons for why fast food is so much cheaper then others fresh foods because manufactoring goods (eg.fast foods) are easy to produce and also it can be stored in the freezer for very long time. Most people these days are working people so no one has time to sit around the kitchen making healthy food for the family .These days people usally trust on food that is being produced in the factories, like when some goes to the supermarket they would find varity of manufactoring goods that is over loaded with calories, fat, salt & sugar, usally chemicalized product to fill up the hunger. When someone is at resturant they will also find simliar kind of foods.Which changed the whole agricultural system, no fresh food any where. If these kind of factory made food is our only choice what can we do about it, we really don't have any choice here but to go on with what we are given, and just because we are not speeking out about our choice of food that's why there is so much problems in the world to that is based on Diet and uncleaness of manufactoring goods.
ReplyDeleteIn the chapter “voting with your wallet,” Raj Patel is pointing out how we as consumers in the food industry actually do just that, this is achieved every time we as shoppers decide on where, what and how to purchase our food. Those choices made by consumers create a domino effect from packaged food that is taken off the shelves in supermarkets into the shopping cart, to the farmer who is growing the product in remote region. We are part of that system whether we realize it our not. It creates the ability to buy food at the lowest prices available at the expense of the workers involved, through hard labor and less income for it. We also see that technology has the ability to provide better strategies for companies to implement options that are appealing for food shoppers. Patel mentions studies that have been done based on a consumers shopping behavior, with loyalty customer cards, electronic data recovery and embedded chips within our shopping carts to name few. These technological efforts give out more information on a more detailed scale to see what is purchased. An example of the research is demonstrated on page 229; with a diagram illustrating how companies are utilizing sophisticated technology such as RFID chips as path trackers to show how we shop from the location of the trolley, the path taken throughout the store to the items that are purchased when you leave. The is an essential part of the marketing that is implemented for the creation of supermarkets and super stores such as Wal-Mart and A&P chains that are expanding quite rapidly. It leaves smaller businesses within the community unable to compete with the low prices given by the major chains. Supermarkets that are working near competitors like Wal-Mart make it difficult to stay in business as they slash their prices eliminating other options and having the ability to raise prices according to the area. So this is how we as customers are contributing to this issue because we are more than happy to shop at a place that provides the convenience of everything you need at very low prices. I personally didn’t realize that I actually have the power to influence they way cooperation’s run their based on my daily eating habits and choices. My food choices affect many areas on a global scale and it does make me want to think twice now when I shop for myself and family but living in the city of new york I have to say I can see how it is effective to provide this to customers such as myself who have a limited amount of time and travel means to want to not shop at a convenience super store.
ReplyDeleteThe chapter "Voting with your wallet" by Raj Patel is one of many distinct chapters to come out of "Stuffed & Starved" that distinguishes and exposes the truths about the food industry and agriculture as a whole. I would like to adjust my focus on the topic that Raj Patel chose for this chapter. Voting with your wallet when you ultimately think about it, you grasp the general idea of exactly what the chapter is going to dwell into. We come to an understanding that Supermarkets are the Main source or market trade where consumers go through the bidding process of coming to a means of deciding what's good to eat and what's good enough for their pockets.With the recent recession we've fallen into; I can say from experience food shopping in the supermarkets has become hard on the wallet. Prices for healthy foods become expensive while junk food and fast food becomes the only reliable means of surviving while managing to have money left over from it's expense.
ReplyDeleteOf Course Producers of Supermarkets have a set out strategy to bring in and attract their consumers. There are the bright and decorative advertisement ads that showcase wholesome foods for low affordable prices but when you actually set foot into the establishment you're taken aback by not only false advertisement but are approached by workers of the establishment to buy more than what you anticipated. Establishments like this appear such as of A&P, BJ's, Walgreens, Pathmark etc. They promise good sales that are helpful and affordable to the public by giving out coupon cards, but the public tends to spend more than they can afford and ultimately have little funds left in their wallets while the supply of food they just purchased only lasts but for a couple of weeks tops depending on the size of one's family.
I think in this chapter Patel definitely goes after the idea that “voting with your fork” will actually work, I feel like he –unlike Fast Food Nation- feels like it’s not a viable option. In this chapter to build his argument I feel like he first leads to reader to understand the massive power and control that these big companies have over every aspect of the foods on our supermarket shelves. Throughout this chapter I feel like his main argument or at least his argument on ideologies is that the basic ideology that “ I have a control over what I choose to buy, and I have control over what I eat” is in fact believed by many and ultimately a lie perpetuated by what appears to be the many buyer options. By pointing out to the reader at the beginning of this chapter the various acts by supermarkets to maximize their revenue by manipulating the consumer to purchase more regardless of whether or not the products they were buying were needful. I found this interesting because the idea that I had had up until reading this chapter was that companies were only involved in the whole food process not necessarily the presentation process, although now that I read it it seems pretty oblivious. I feel like Patel’s argument, and one that I’m convinced by, is that the typical consumers idea of buyer freedom is still restricted by the decisions that large companies make. The evidence he uses is the implementation of the self-serve format, that once it was created as an effective tool to increase “engines of consumption” by Clarence Saunders, no large market has ever attempted to change it even though products are moved within the frame constantly. The idea now is that we as consumers have the freedom to move our carts around any which way we like- something that was not allowed prior to Saunders invention- we can shop in any way for anything we like, but in reality we are still shopping within the way large companies want us to shop. The same frugality and mind-set that was the driving force behind the growth of Wal-Mart and the penny pinching drive to get consumers to buy more seems akin to the mindset that looks to pay farmers below production costs, as well as other food-issues we have discussed. I like that Patel breaks down the idea (that was actually surprisingly encouraged by Fast Food Nation) that once we start seeing green “organic” labels on the foods of our supermarket shelves that the large companies have heard our cry for better more ethically and environmentally responsible food. “But if we all go to the label we’ll be led astray…Yet when the Heinz Corporation cans organic tomato sauce, it does nothing to support farmers, and precious little to encourage us to eat better”. He kind of points out that we haven’t necessarily demanded a choice, we’ve been given. A choice that is still no better than the one we had before.
ReplyDelete