This was a fascinating look at the culture and mentality behind retail in this country. Bravo! I've read it several times.

I completely loved this book. The clincher for me? FOOTNOTES!!!! Also all of the information of food in America, where it comes from, how it's made and how it's sold. As well as how the Standard American Diet truly is SAD and killing us.

I love how he got interested in grocery stores through his father and how he honored him in the writing of this book, though the ending made me TEAR UP like nobody's business. That aside, this was an awesome book and I highly recommend it to just about anyone who eats food in America. We should know where our food comes from and how it affects us once we eat it.

My only annoyance was that this book was an ARC, so NO CITATIONS OR NOTES IN THE BACK, but the table of contents says they DO exist, so the finished copy will have that highly desirable section of the book. But the footnotes sated my desire for notes and he was very good about including the book titles and authors he gets the info from, so guess who's Mt. TBR just grew?

Really great book, highly recommended. 5, yummy, stars!

My thanks to NetGalley and Abrams Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

A very good book that was informative on how the grocery business is actually ran without being an overly political sided book.

Great book on the history of grocery stores. I found the book very interesting. Would definitely recommend to friends and family!

The author uses a medium sized, family owned chain in the Cleveland, Ohio area as the chain to study. Be assured that there are great differences between these size chains and the mega chains that dot the countryside, and the author is quick to point out those differences. The biggest difference is the level of customer involvement and the ability to respond to customer demands.

The author covers the store from every department, explaining the difficulties in operating those areas and how the stores decide at what should be stocked. It is a truly amazing look at the work that goes into how the stores operate and how complicated the dance is between getting fresh food in at the right time and working to avoid spoilage.

As a mom, cook, and self-professed "super couponer" I have spent hundreds of hours in grocery stores. I knew several points the author made, but it was very interesting to have such a massive insight to my "2nd home".

4 stars based on 3 stars for chapters that I skimmed and 5 for the ones that totally caught my interest.

There were two elements that made me anxious to read this book: one was that I'm a huge fan of Ruhlman's food journalism (SOUL OF A CHEF is at the top of my favorite food/restaurant/chef books), and the other is I love delving into the inner workings of industries, businesses, restaurants, retails stores--heck, I'd even read a book about auto dealerships or realtors if they outlined how everything in the business works. So I couldn't wait to read more about grocery stores and how they operate.

Turns out I was a little disappointed. I still like Ruhlman's style but found some of the chapters less than interesting, but some such as where produce and meats come from and how they're marketed were informative, as were the chapters on prepared deli foods (who knew they weren't much of a moneymaker?), how new products are found and brought in, and the "healthiness" of many of the foods (and food should be called "nutritious" instead of "healthy").

What fell short (for me anyway) was that the book centered on Heinen's, a family owned store in the east, that is primarily a cross between a supermarket and a Whole Foods, with many specialized and "natural" type of foods (for those of you in Salem, OR, Roth's would be a good comparison, only on a smaller scale), and while he touched on the topic, I wanted more about huge conglomerates such as Safeway, Kroger, et al. Ruhlman also spent a lot of time on the history and development of supermarkets and foods.

A phrase that caught my eye was "This is a good rule when evaluating food that is a box or a bag: Read the list of ingredients, and if you can buy each one of them in the grocery store, it's probably real food." So I went to the cereal drawer and looked at the list on two favorites. One said "Contains wheat" and other had a good list until "acacia gum." Hmmmm...

Read this if you want to know about grocery stores and where our food comes from, and especially if you are a frequent shopper at Heinen's or similar stores. The footnotes reminded me a bit of Mary Roach's science writing and fans of hers may enjoy the author's research experiences.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance digital reading copy.

A well-researched and entertaining look at the grocery store business in the US. Well written, informative and fascinating. From the history to the layout of a grocery store, to where the various products come from. Highly recommended.

Food writer Michael Ruhlman is back with a new book, Grocery. Taking an in-depth look at the stores that offer us a mind-bending number of choices for cooking and eating, from fresh, locally sourced vegetables and organically fed beef to frozen or boxed convenience foods. The grocery store is more than just a place to buy food. It's where we go to plan and organize the feeding of our families. It's where we spend our hard-earned money. It's a cornerstone of the community. 

To study this phenomenon, he went back to the grocery stores of his childhood in Cleveland, Heinen's. It's a local, family-owned chain of 22 stores. He shadowed the owners, fraternal twins Tom and Jeff Heinen, to see the bigger picture of the grocery business. It's a complicated business model, one that incorporates both a mercantile (stocking things to sell) and a manufacturer (creating new products to sell), with an incredibly low profit margin. You don't get into the grocery market to make money; you do it because you love it and you want to help your community. 

Ruhlman did his homework for this. He studied each part of the store, from the produce to meats to the aisles. He even bagged groceries to get a feel for the front of the store. Like his memoir on the Culinary Institute of America (The Making of a Chef, highly recommended, by the way), he mixes facts and figures with stories of the people he encounters. His mix of meticulous research, personal emotion, and memorable personalities makes this a readable sociological treatise on the basis of our own personal food culture. 

Yes, Michael Ruhlman's Grocery is An Important Book About Food, but it's also a charming and readable one. If you care about the food in your refrigerator, about where it came from and where it will come from in the future, you'll pick up a copy of this book. It's just smart shopping. 



Galleys for Grocery were provided by Abrams through NetGalley.com, with many thanks

Michael Ruhlman has written numerous cookbooks in conjunction with chefs and other non-fiction books related to cooking. Here, he gets into the nitty gritty of the grocery business. Who would have thought this topic could be so fascinating. It was! And eye-opening as well.

Ruhlman has done exhaustive research on this transforming industry. He gathers info from many sources; by observing practices, interviewing a wide scope of people - visionaries, owners, buyers, vendors, farmers, nutritionists, the list goes on. His passion for food is obvious and I found his style of writing to be very readable. The book is chock full of good information and advice.

Rahman also touches on nutrition in general and the trends that grocers have to keep up with in order to satisfy their customers and also continue to make a profit. Are you attracted to that well-placed package on the shelf marked “low fat”? Have you considered what the replacement is for the fats that are taken out? Something I certainly would not want to put into my body but it is a multi-million dollar business. The word games food companies play are so misleading and make me angry. Big food companies are inserting questionable ingredients into products to increase their bottom line and too few people are paying attention. It’s no wonder there are so many health issues. Ruhlman makes clear that people need to take the time to read labels and learn what puzzling ingredients are for the sake of their own health and our country’s growing epidemic of health issues. Luckily, the pendulum appears to be swinging in the right direction - more consumers are making nutritious food choices and the industry is following the trend with healthier organic choices.

Via this insightful book, I earned a new respect for my own neighborhood grocery store and the efforts that go into its smooth operation. The book reaffirmed that my family is doing it right most of the time - going the natural, whole food route, developing the good practices of reading food labels, buying mostly in the “rainbow of color’ produce department and cooking most meals at home so we know exactly what we are eating. I appreciate the efforts my local grocer has made in offering more nutritious options than it had just a year ago.

Genius! Michael Ruhlman is a must buy for me. This book is no exception.

A behind the scenes peek at the operation of a grocery store. And of the overall management and strategies of grocery stores nationwide.
I have to confess, of all the jobs I held in my career, all the way up through the upper levels of a federal law enforcement agency, the one I loved the most was as a simple "bag boy"/clerk in my local grocery store while in high school. To this day, I get a feeling of satisfaction out of bagging my own groceries. In this, I felt a kinship with the author's father, who said "When I retire, I think I'm going to bag groceries".
There is so much information in this book, I don't know where to start! If you have ever wondered about where the food in your store comes from, Ruhlman explains it very well.

I can't review at the moment the book because my netbook is broken. I will do that as soon as possible. I love all your books and I want to do a good work as I did for the other ones I reviewed. There is just to wait some other days and then I will be back with these books. I am so sorry for the delay.

Another very interesting book in the foodie world by Michael Ruhlman! After reading about chefs this book turns to how home cooks as well as chefs are guided by the grocery industry to purchase food and ingredients. It begins with the humble beginnings of little shops where goods are kept behind the counter or in the butcher's case and requested by the customer and takes us on an historical tour up to today's supermarkets and big box stores. I'm always fascinated by the behind the scenes look at the people and processes that work to put food on the table.

Author's experience in buying grocery from her childhood and from her family......

Grocery is an interesting blend of personal reminiscence, journalistic interview, and history, all geared to get us thinking about something we tend to think about rather superficially if at all -- shopping for groceries. I enjoyed Ruhlman's memories of his father, who loved to shop for groceries, plan meals, prepare food, and entertain his friends and family. Most of the memories were from the 1960s and 70s, so there was a fun retro angle to the book. The bits where Ruhlman delved into the ins and outs of stocking a grocery store or designing one were also quite good, and he talked to many experts on these topics, including grocery store managers and owners, architects, and nutrition gurus like Marion Nestle. The parts that I found a little slow were those having to do with the mechanics of getting the food from source to store or about sustainable foods and possible trends of the future. Important topics but not as interesting. Overall it was a fun and informative look at the history and evolution and future of groceries and grocery stores. (Thanks to Abrams Press and NetGalley for a digital review copy.)

Fascinating look at grocery stores. I enjoyed it very much

Quite enjoyable, interesting, with a balanced tone but a tendency toward repetition and confused structure. |

It's not easy to write with a conversational feel in a factual book with source citations, but this manages it. I have at times in the past been harsh in my reviews of Ruhlman's books, because he can't seem to keep himself off the page in places he doesn't need to be. Here, finally, he's found a theme and style where his presence in the narrative makes sense and isn't a distraction.

I did find myself irritated by some of the points repeated ad nauseam. Constantly it was mentioned that consumers now have many places to buy the same items, when that used not to be the case. Uncountable sentences re-explaining the diversification of product lines. Again and again it was pointed out that Costco, Sam's Club, and Wal-Mart came on the scene offering better prices, and that Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, with their specialty goods, went national. Every single time these things were written as if they'd never been mentioned before. Add in the contradictions--he says Whole Foods sells a version of Froot Loops, which he lists the ingredients for to point out that it's sugar and stripped carbs, and 3 pages later says you can't buy Cap'n Crunch at Whole Foods because the chain offers food that supports health--and I find myself going round in confused circles.

There was a lot of meandering, all of it on interesting subjects (I mean, I gave this four stars, so I clearly found it fascinating), but much of it seemingly barely related to what preceded it, and a lot of very suspect ideas were given much page space without being justified by the central idea of the book. An entire chapter is devoted to the opinions of a very negative analyst, presenting them as proven fact, despite their not matching life as I've known it in the four states I've lived in.

In the end, I enjoyed the book and was glad to read it, but there was no cohesive thesis behind it, and I found it exceptionally difficult to explain to others just what this book I was reading was about.

Appreciation to the publisher for the ARC, which in no way affected the content of my review or the rating.

Comprehensive and educational Grocery is a well written resource by Ruhlman. I was intrigued by the history of the Supermarkets, the growth was far more complex and cunning that I had previously imagined.

Like grocery stores themselves, Michael Ruhlman’s Grocery is all over the place, stuffed to the rafters, with numerous departments and unexpected items. It is a lot of memoir, a smattering of rants, endless lists, and a bunch of behind the scenes negotiating. Like a grocery, there’s something for everyone.

Because he doesn’t have a horse in this race, Ruhlman can be neutral or critical as needed. He slams the food desert of the center aisles of supermarkets, yet admits he buys some of this poison himself because he likes it. He is critical of agriculture, but finds much to praise in a new generation of farmers who prize quality over quantity. And he digs at medicine and nutritionists in a front al attack: “Fat isn’t bad, stupid is bad.”

We learn the economics of the business, how size matters, how grocers find products, and how they run their stores. The business has changed dramatically in our lifetimes. We might not have noticed because we’re in those stores every week. It’s a trillion dollar business in the USA. From the hot take-out meals (and even restaurants and bars) to the organics and the gluten-free, the mix is anything but stagnant. And it’s up to 40,000 items now, from the 5000 when he was a child. Beef sales are way down, fish is way up. Fruit is no longer seasonal. Frozen food is still blah, and there are still hundreds of sugary breakfast cereals and snack foods to wade through. Sadly, grocers are forced to stock them all because customers will go elsewhere if their particular variety is AWOL.

There are aspects he has missed, like what grocers do with stale-dated foods. There’s nothing about community involvement, how the stores weave themselves into the fabric of the neighborhood. There’s no mention of all the games grocers have played, like specials and Green Stamps and loyalty programs. Or home and online shopping. And he never addresses customer complaints, like why there are 24 checkout lanes when only four are ever open at once. And it really could use some photos.

Grocery is a kind of love letter to Cleveland, Ruhlman’s hometown. He goes back to the grocers of his youth, and makes them the focal point of the book. On the one hand it is cloying, but on the other he had to make some grocer his example, so why not the chain he grew up loving? The people are dedicated, passionate and talented, and the stores are institutions. Overall, Grocery is a rare insight into the state of the business and the state of our food.

David Wineberg