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.

The Checkout’s Host Errol Schweizer first put NadaMoo! on grocery shelves way back in 2005 while working as a grocery buyer in Austin.

Daniel Nicholson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Daniel discovered NadaMoo! in 2008 after an introduction to the founder. Since immediately falling in love with the product and brand, NadaMoo! has become his sole focus for the past 13+ years. He started as the Controller, and after 3 years, the founder of the company was ready to step out to pursue other opportunities. In that moment, Daniel decided to step into the role of President and CEO, and he never looked back. Since 2011, the company has grown its revenue over 50x, from being distributed in just a few hundred stores to over 10,000 stores nationwide, and it is beginning to be distributed more widely in Canada. NadaMoo! has been a driving force for Daniel to help build awareness around health, wellness, and sustainability.

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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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The Checkout’s Host, Errol Schweizer has worked closely with Greg for almost 15 years.

Greg Fleishman creates, nurtures, & invests in Consumer Brands that make the world better. Co-Founder/CEO @foodstirs | Founder @purelyrighteous Brands | Co-Founder @uptogoodenergy | Co-Founder @eatunion | Board Director for Lily's Sweets, Once Upon a Farm, 4th & Heart Ghee, Nuun Hydration, & Demeter Biodynamic Farming USA | Impact Investor Partner for Cambridge SPG | Former exec @ Kashi, Kellogg, Coca-Cola | Forbes Top Consumers Catalyst | Certified Donutoiseur

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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.

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.

This week includes: Why we must Pass The PRO-Act; Alt-Meat Craziness; Senator Tester’s Class Bias; Essential Worker Policies & Weekly Inspiration.

“Amazon is contributing to the racialization of labor within the logistics sector, where workers of color are disproportionately employed in the hardest, most backbreaking jobs for the lowest pay and the highest turnover rate, and absorbing the environmental impacts of these facilities in communities of color. We have to connect labor, racial justice, worker rights with environmental justice.” -Jake Wilson

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). [email protected]

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. [email protected]

“The PRO-Act will be helpful for all workers.”

Montserrat Garibay is the former Secretary-Treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO. She was just appointed by the Biden Administration as Senior Advisor on Labor Relations for the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.

Previously, she served as Vice President for Certified Employees with Education Austin. An activist on education and immigration issues, Garibay came to the U.S. from Mexico City as an undocumented immigrant and became a citizen 20 years later.

She has been instrumental in promoting opportunities for all students, including those from immigrant families. She promoted passage of the Texas version of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform. A bilingual pre-kindergarten teacher for eight years, Garibay has strongly supported early childhood education.

This episode was recorded as a fireside chat for the Conference on Food Access and Resilience.

https://www.foodresiliency.net/montserrat-garibay/

https://migrantjustice.net/about The mission of Migrant Justice is to build the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community and engage community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights. We gather the farmworker community to discuss and analyze shared problems and to envision collective solutions. Through this ongoing investment in leadership development, members deepen their skills in community education and organizing for long-term systemic change. From this basis our members have defined community problems as a denial of rights and dignity and have prioritized building a movement to secure these fundamental human rights to: 1) Dignified Work and Quality Housing; 2) Freedom of Movement and Access to Transportation; 3) Freedom from discrimination; 4) Access to Health Care.

Milk With Dignity: https://migrantjustice.net/about-the-milk-with-dignity-program