Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants by Jon Steinman (New Society $19.99)

Review by Grahame Ware , 2019

For decades, Jon Steinman has been a digital Pied Piper for food co-ops. On his website you’ll find a Food Co-op Directory as well as constructive inspiration for starting and managing a co-op partially based on his experience as a former board president for the Kootenay Co-op.

Much of the content for his Grocery Story has arisen from 39-year-old Steinman’s Deconstructing Dinner podcast and video streaming series that was broadcast on co-op and campus radio stations across the continent for five years and 193 episodes.

“With 50 U.S. and Canadian radio stations rebroadcasting the weekly show,” he writes, “I gained a perspective on the food system that few journalists would have had at this time.”

It all began as a weekly radio show that Steinman wrote and hosted on Kootenay Co-Op Radio CJLY from 2006-2010. Later, in 2013, Steinman became the writer, host and producer of six episodes for his television and web series Deconstructing Dinner: Reconstructing our Food System.

With many charts and graphics, Grocery Story is well-researched, historically solid journalism chock-a-block with info, both historical and contemporary. We learn: “On Malcom Island in B.C., a Finnish community started the Sointula Co-op Store in 1909. It remains the longest-running co-operative in Western Canada and the longest running food cooperative in North America.”

The Buffalo Mountain Co-op in Hardwick, Vermont started out by sharing a roof with a gun shop and a liquor store. “Under one roof” recalls founding member Annie Gaillard, “you could purchase a pistol, a pint of Jim Beam and a pound of tofu.”

On the serious side, Steinman outlines social issues such as the abuse of the label “local” by Big Grocery. For example, he details alleged abuse by Save-On of their Western Family brand hamburger patties. Under a federal law, in 2013 Ottawa changed the definition of what could be considered local. Meat from Alberta was shipped west to Vancouver for processing and then sent back east to Nelson and called “local.”

This practice led to a protest by the Kootenay Co-op, the local Kootenay MP and the president of the National Farm Workers Union. They wanted a more meaningful definition and coined it “True Local.” The Kootenay Co-op regulated itself and in 2018, $2.6 million was paid to True Local suppliers.

These days, Jon Steinman is a hard guy to keep up with. Starting from his hometown of Nelson in early April, he’ll visit 48 cities to promote his book, returning to Nelson in mid-July. Along the way he’ll visit new food co-ops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Kentucky. Hamilton, Toronto and Elora are his Canadian stops.

From Grocery Story one gets the sense that nothing is going to stop Steinman’s work and energy at the grassroots level. He is a social leader who ultimately succeeds in convincing the reader that food systems accountability and ecological transparency are key issues going forward for us all.

His work and writing are rigorous, compelling and inspiring. 9780865719071

Grahame Ware reviews from Gabriola Island.