Equity, Environmentalism, and Conscious Consumerism

A Review of Grocery Activism

Abstract

First paragraph:

Two crises pervading the current consciousness of society—the COVID-19 health crisis and the ongoing crisis of police brutality against Black Americans as evident in the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis—make Craig B. Upright’s Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota particularly timely and relevant, though neither is the direct topic of the book. Upright outlines how grocery co-ops were able to find, sustain, and promote a niche in the market through a symbiotic relationship with the natural and organic foods movement. Readers encounter a variety of voices from Minnesota’s rich history of food co-ops, and while some voices are notably missing, the book provides a foothold into exploring the broad environmental, social, and eco­nomic implications of the aphorism Upright notes in the text: “Food is power." . . .