Food. Justice. Work.
The Checkout centers the voices and efforts of essential workers on the frontlines of our food system. Now more than ever, our food system is in a constant state of flux, radical change and crisis. From political economy and supply chain analysis to public policy, labor organizing and community struggles, The Checkout will expand the horizon of what is necessary to create a just, equitable and progressive food system.
The Checkout is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.
Episode 53: Grocery Update. May 14th, 2021: What is Agroecology? Why Fair Trade Dairy Fails & more.
Welcome to The Checkout’s Grocery Update, where we discuss some of the top issues in food retail, CPG, tech and policy.
On the docket for May 14th, 2021: Tyson, Impossible, Food chain workers, GMOs, Organic stats, Chobani's Fair Trade sham and a deep dive on Agroecology.
Episode 49: Grocery Update. May 7th, 2021: Dairy Pride Act? Organic Sector Growth & more.
Welcome to The Checkout’s Grocery Special, where we discuss some of the top issues in food retail, CPG and policy.
On the docket for May 4th, 2021: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, school meals, farmers, plant based proteins, robots, and more.
Hosted by Errol Schweizer.
Episode 47: Grocery Update. May 4th, 2021: Universal School Meals Now! + Why Maslow Was Wrong & more.
Welcome to The Checkout’s Grocery Special, where we discuss some of the top issues in food retail, CPG and policy.
On the docket for May 4th, 2021: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, school meals, farmers, plant based proteins, robots, and more.
Hosted by Errol Schweizer.
Episode 45: The Weekly Special. The Indian Farmers Uprising & more.
Welcome to The Checkout’s Weekly Special, where we discuss some of the top issues in food retail, CPG and policy. This week’s episode covers hot industry news from the week of April 12th, including corporate governance, marijuana aka cannabis, natural products trends, labor organizing, the Indian Farmers uprising, plant-based foods, inspirations, dedications and other musings. Enjoy!
Episode 44: The Weekly Special. Plant Based Foods, Labor Organizing & more. Dedicated to Jay Brito, RIP.
Welcome to The Checkout’s Weekly Special, where we discuss some of the top issues in food retail, CPG and policy. This week’s episode covers industry happenings from the week of April 5th, 2021, including plant-based foods, labor organizing, food access and our weekly inspirations. This episode is dedicated to Jay Brito of Bronx House JCC on the ten year anniversary of his passing. Rest in Peace.
Episode 42: UFCW Local 770, Hazard Pay and The Struggle For Dignity
The Checkout presents a special episode featuring John Grant, President of UFCW Local 770 in Southern California, as well as Maria Hernandez, a UFCW Local 770 rank and file retail clerk. Maria’s store is one of seven being closed by Kroger in response to the municipal hazard pay mandates that the union fought for.
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Episode 40: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on Medicare For All
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed discusses the corrupt and wasteful private healthcare system and why need Medicare For All and a true public health system.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a physician, epidemiologist, educator, author, speaker, and podcast host. He is a commentator at CNN and his newsletter, The Incision, cuts into the trends shaping our moment. His three books include Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic (Abrams Press, 2020), which diagnoses our country’s epidemic of insecurity and the empathy politics we will need to treat it; and Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide (Oxford University Press, 2021), co-authored with Dr. Micah Johnson, which offers a no nonsense guide to the policy. He is the host of “America Dissected,” a podcast by Crooked Media, which goes beyond the headlines to explore what really matters for our health. He is a Senior Fellow at the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and a Scholar-in-Residence at Wayne State University and American University, where he teaches at the intersection between public health, public policy, and politics.
In 2018, Abdul ran for Governor of Michigan on an unapologetically progressive platform, advocating for universal healthcare, clean water for all, debt-free and tuition-free higher education, a pathway to 100% renewable energy, and to rebuild the barrier between corporations and government. Abdul holds a doctorate in Public Health from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, as well as a medical degree from Columbia University, where he was a Medical Scientist Training Program Fellow and a Soros New Americans Fellow. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Distinction from the University of Michigan. He is a native Michigander who was born and raised in Metro Detroit, where he lives with his wife, Sarah, a mental health doctor, and daughter Emmalee. He is a proud member of the National Writers Union, AFT Local 477, and SEIU Local 500.
Episode 39: Why We Need A Public Food Sector
In the wake of Covid-19 and Winter Storm Uri, retail and wholesale food supply chains were continuously strained and broken in Austin, Texas, leaving grocery shelves empty. So why are we still dependent on the private sector for our food supply?
Errol Schweizer, Host of The Checkout and a 25+ year veteran of food retail and CPG, shares an overview of how things work in the corporate-owned food supply chain, from retailers to distributors to charitable networks, as well as an outline of what a public sector food system could look like. With an eye towards food sovereignty and food security, we discuss food utilities, public cafeterias, publicly owned manufacturing and cooperative delivery platforms.
Episode 38: The Weekly Special. Pass the PRO-Act & more.
Welcome to The Checkout’s Weekly Special, where we discuss some of the top issues in food retail, CPG and policy.
Hosted by Errol Schweizer.
This week includes: Why we must Pass The PRO-Act; Alt-Meat Craziness; Senator Tester’s Class Bias; Essential Worker Policies & Weekly Inspiration.
Episode 37: Amazon’s Racial Capitalism: The Cost of Free Shipping
Dr. Ellen Reese is Professor of Sociology and Chair of Labor Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Her research focuses on gender, race, and class, welfare state development, social movements, and poverty and work. She is author of They Say Cutback; We Say Fightback! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment (2011, American Sociological Association’s Rose Series) and Backlash Against Welfare Mothers: Past and Present (2005, University of California Press). She is also co-author of The World Social Forums and the Challenges of Global Democracy (2007, Paradigm Publishers) and co-editor of The Wages of Empire: Neoliberal Policies, Repression, and Women’s Poverty (2007, Paradigm Publishers) and A Handbook of World Social Forum Activism (2012, Paradigm Publishers). ellen.reese@ucr.edu
Dr. Jake Alimahomed-Wilson is a Professor of Sociology at California State University at Long Beach. His research explores the ways that racism and labor exploitation intersect. He is particularly interested in the global logistics industry and the workers who move goods around the world. His current research examines the impact of e-commerce (i.e. Amazon) on work and labor. His newest co-edited (with Ellen Reese) book, The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, was released in 2020 by Pluto Press (Wildcat Series). This book provides a rich and interdisciplinary collection of critical essays by scholars, activists, and labor and community organizers that interrogates the global significance of Amazon’s rise and the growing popular resistance to it around the world. jake.wilson@csulb.edu
Episode 36: Montserrat Garibay
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin began working on economic development projects with indigenous Guatemalan communities in 1988. He served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program’s Bureau for Latin America and as an advisor to the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. He was a founding member of the Fair-Trade Federation in 1994.
Episode 34: Reginaldo Hasslet-Marroquin: Decolonize and Indigenize Regenerative Agriculture
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin began working on economic development projects with indigenous Guatemalan communities in 1988. He served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program’s Bureau for Latin America and as an advisor to the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. He was a founding member of the Fair-Trade Federation in 1994.
Episode 31: Claire Kelloway on Prop 22, Big Tech and Reviving the Anti-Trust Movement
“Prop 22 is about excluding gig workers from basic labor protections.”
From https://www.foodandpower.net/our-team: Claire Kelloway is a senior reporter and researcher with the Open Markets Institute. She is the primary writer for Food & Power, a first-of-its-kind website, providing original reporting and resources on monopoly power and economic concentration in the food system. Her writing on food and agriculture has appeared in the American Prospect, ProPublica, Civil Eats, the Washington Monthly, and more.
Episode 27: Andres Bernal Talks Money
Andres Bernal, an advisor to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joins us for a wide ranging discussion on worker cooperatives, Modern Monetary Theory, myth busting the Federal deficit, the need for a Jobs Guarantee and how to fund a Green New Deal.
Episode 25: Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and The Fair Food Program
“If you have a lot of purchasing power, you can drive prices down. At the same time, if you have a lot of purchasing power, you can demand more humane conditions, you can demand compliance with fundamental human rights in your suppliers’ operations, you can improve the lives of millions of people… if you decide to wield that same volume purchasing power for good as opposed to evil.”
“The reasons all these mechanisms work are the market consequences in these agreements with the buyers. If a grower is found out of compliance, the buyer has to suspend purchases. All of this comes together to form an actual enforcement of the rights in the Fair Food Code of Conduct. That’s the power of the purchase order.”
“Whatever they call social responsibility in the food industry has been a joke, a fraud… it is absolutely empty and soulless and unreal. It is everything that has not worked and has been done for public relations purposes for the corporations, not the workers. That all became clear when Covid came down and all these outbreaks came to the press, did any of the Buyers of all that meat step up and say that we can’t allow this to keep happening? Not one.”
Episode 23: Ma'raj Sheikh and Good Food Policy Action in Chicago
“What we’ve learned is that food justice is really racial, economic and land justice.”
From https://www.chicagofoodpolicy.com/our-staff : Ma’raj Sheikh is a daughter of immigrants, descendent of liberation leaders, and a Castanea Fellow. Land, food, and justice are in her blood. Ma’raj has worked across many areas of food system development including soil bioremediation, bioenergy, stakeholder relations, consulting in the edible insect industry, and advancing racial equity in land, food, and water access. As a National Science Foundation Fellow, Ma’raj moved to Iowa from Southern California to learn about industrial agriculture from the belly of the beast - studying Sustainable Agriculture and Community and Regional Planning at Iowa State University. Prior to starting at CFPAC in January of 2020, Ma’raj served as Director of Equity and Community Engagement at Community GroundWorks (now Rooted), where her work focused on improving stable land tenure for Hmong refugee farmers and leading Gardens Network, a partnership with the City of Madison and UW-Extension, that provides support services to a member base of 65+ community gardens across Dane County, WI.
From https://www.chicagofoodpolicy.com/services : CFPAC co-develops, facilitates, advocates for, and supports implementation of policies that advance food justice and food sovereignty in Chicago and across the region. CFPAC envisions a food system where all Chicagoans, regardless of race, class, gender, and/or social identity, have the right to healthy and culturally-appropriate food produced through community-driven, ecologically regenerative, and economically viable processes. The Council recognizes the history and modern maintenance of structural racism in Chicago and across the country that have led to massive inequities in land access, food business ownership, food security, and political power along lines of racial identity. CFPAC works to address these inequities and dismantle racist structures in the food system by building local political power, supporting frontline workers throughout the food system, and facilitating Black/Brown partnerships and understanding.
Donate: https://chicagofoodpolicy.z2systems.com/np/clients/chicagofoodpolicy/donation.jsp?campaign=1&