The Checkout

The Checkout speaks with award-winning olive oil producer and fair trader Nasser Abufarha about war, regenerative organic agriculture and the deep foodways of Palestine.

The Checkout catches up with grocery wholesale wiz Peter Gialantzis about the way that Pod Foods is disrupting this sector.

The Checkout speaks with Elizabeth Whitlow, Executive Director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance.

The Checkout presents “Shoptalk”, a new series co-hosted by grocery expert Eve Cohen. This week we do a deep dive into the wholesale sector, and how the “middle” of the food supply chain really works.

The Checkout presents “Shoptalk”, a new series co-hosted by grocery expert Eve Cohen. This week we take a broad look at the grocery industry and the inner workings of food retail.

The Checkout speaks with CEO and Co-founder of Yellowbird Hot Sauce about a controversial new supplier policy being rolled out by the grocery industry’s largest natural and organic product wholesaler.

The Checkout does a deep dive on the Robinson-Patman Act with antitrust scholar Daniel Hanley of the Open Markets Institute.

The Checkout presents part two of an interview with Timothy Wise on the Mexican resistance to U.S.-grown GMO corn. Mexico’s case rests on science and is a huge challenge to GMO dogma.

The Checkout presents part one of a two part interview with trade policy scholar Timothy Wise on the Mexican resistance to U.S.-grown GMO corn.

The Checkout dives into the Farm Bill with Navina Khanna of HEAL Food Alliance and what food workers want to see in this massive legislation.

The Checkout presents this unpublished interview with Phil Howard on how corporate concentration threatens our food supply.

The Checkout presents a revealing conversation with labor historian John Logan about how “progressive” companies like Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and Amazon want to gut labor law and make it impossible to form unions.

The Checkout host Errol Schweizer returns with a deep dive grocery update on retail consolidation, scaling cooperatives and reinventing food processing.

The Checkout speaks with antitrust expert and author Austin Frerick on power, corruption and the need for radical change in the food industry.

The Checkout returns to Arkansas to talk to Magaly Licolli of Venceremos about how workers and faith activists are taking on Big Chicken.

You are not going crazy. Grocery prices are 30% higher than a few years ago. Some categories are up over 50%. And food companies have leveraged global crises to raise prices and rake in huge profits while selling less actually products. What an amazing hustle, if you are an executive or a shareholder! As for the rest of us, we now pay more for less food.

The Checkout speaks with Anna Hammond of Matriark Foods about food processing, food waste and why packaged food brands need to invest in sustainable, regionalized supply chains.

The Checkout speaks with Rebecca and Josh Tickell about their groundbreaking new film, Common Ground.

The Checkout speaks with Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, activist filmmakers who have documented the growth of the Cooperative Movement in Cincinnati in their new film, “Works For All”.

Ellen Cassedy was a founder of the 9 to 5 organization in 1973. She is the coauthor of 9 to 5: The Working Woman’s Guide to Office Survival (with Karen Nussbaum) and The 9 to 5 Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment(with Ellen Bravo).

Trader Joe’s United, an independent union of grocery workers, returns to The Checkout to discuss their campaign history, struggles, successes and frustrations.

The Checkout checks in with Lauren Baker of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. What went on at the annual United Nations conference on climate change, COP28, and how does it relate to the food industry?

The Checkout does a deep dive with journalist Ryan Cooper on why grocery cooperatives are so mainstream and dominant in Finland.

The Checkout speaks with grocery store workers Rachel Fournier and Jess Crowley of UFCW 770 about why they are taking a stand against the biggest grocery merger ever.

The Checkout speaks with Chloë Waterman of Friends of the Earth and The Federal Good Food Purchasing Coalition about how integrating Good Food Purchasing Standards into federal food procurement can change the food system.

The Checkout presents part 2 of a two part conversation with Dr. Sarah Taber about demystifying how food supply chains function and how to make them more transparent, accessible and sustainable. Originally published as an interview on Farm To Taber. Dr. Sarah Taber is a scientist and food systems advocate running for Secretary of Agriculture in North Carolina.

Ora Wise is a Brooklyn-based chef, community organizer, cultural producer, and educator whose current work invests in community controlled and regenerative food systems. For over a decade, Ora focused on media-based education, including co-facilitating the Palestine Education Project's high school program Slingshot Hip Hop: Culture & Resistance from Brooklyn to Palestine, serving as Youth Education Director for a progressive synagogue, and co-leading the Indigenous Youth Media Delegation to Palestine. In recent years, Ora founded The Dream Cafe, an experimental cooperative pop-up restaurant in Detroit as part of the Allied Media Conference and co-produced The Asymmetrical Table, a food sovereignty dinner series in downtown Manhattan centering the cuisine and activism of Palestinian women chefs. She currently co-directs the grassroots food justice collective FIG which operates political education and food distribution programs in partnership with frontline community organizations, farmers, and chefs.

The Checkout presents this exclusive new interview with Dr. John Fagan, a leading researcher on food integrity and transparency. Dr. John Fagan is a pioneer in applying biological research techniques to understanding what is in our food. He was an early adopter of GMO testing and has more recently applied mass spectrometry to understand the nutrient density of foods down to the molecular level. His latest research takes aim at the synthetic biology industry, also called “precision fermentation”, where biotech companies genetically modify microorganisms to produce analogues to common consumer products, such as milk, honey or vanilla. Dr. Fagan’s new research questions what is actually in these products, including dozens of compounds never before consumed by humans, how these products lack critical nutrients found in organic products, and what the FDA has overlooked in allowing them to be sold.

Reem Assil is a California based chef of Syrian and Palestinian heritage. Over 20 members of her family have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the recent years before the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel. For Chef Asil, “from the river to the sea” holds promises of self-determination, multicultural democracy and freedom for her family and community after 75 years of exile from their land and liberty.

The Checkout presents this special two part conversation with Dr. Sarah Taber about demystifying the food industry and how to make it more transparent, accessible and sustainable. Originally published as an interview on Farm To Taber. Sarah Taber is a scientist and food systems advocate running for Secretary of Agriculture in North Carolina

The Checkout speaks with Patrick Machel, a union shop steward organizing with his coworkers to take ownership of their iconic brewery. Anchor Steam is a unique and legendary brewery in the Bay Area the has fallen on hard times. Can the jobs, the beer and the legacy be saved by converting the company into worker ownership?

The Checkout speaks with UFCW770 President Kathy Finn about the need to protect retail clerks in stores.

The Checkout looks at how cooperativism can be achieved at scale as an alternative to both free market and autocratic economies.

Is a cooperative economy possible?The Checkout dives into how capitalism creates the problems that make cooperation and cooperativism such an appealing alternative.

The Checkout speaks with world renowned speculative and science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson.

The Checkout speaks with Urban Tilth of Richmond, California about food and economic justice.

Advocates For Urban Agriculture is a coalition of urban farms, community and school gardens, individuals and businesses working to support and expand sustainable agriculture in the Chicago region.

TThe Checkout catches up with one of our favorite food companies, Goodsam Foods, and their founder Heather Terry.

The Checkout host Errol Schweizer does a deep dive on why food prices are still so high and why grocers themselves can and should lower prices.

The Checkout speaks with Texas farmer, rancher and community advocate P. Wade Ross about farming while Black in Texas. Texas has over twice as many Black farmers as any other state.

The Checkout returns with another inflation update, this time with a takedown of the Federal Reserve’s draconian interest rate hikes.

The Checkout speaks with Professor Ken Kolb about why incremental efforts to increase access to healthy foods won’t result in systemic changes. Food deserts are not actually about food. They are about inequality.

The Checkout dives into the history and economics of the grocery industry with preeminent business historian Shane Hamilton.

The Checkout dives into the connections between Black Liberation Theology, ethical food systems and animal agriculture with the groundbreaking scholar and theologian Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter.

The Checkout host Errol Schweizer does a deep dive on how pricing and profit works in grocery value chains, who is winning and what can be done.

The Checkout speaks about food policy with Dr. Ricardo Salvador, Director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Checkout speaks with Michael Sanabria, an award-winning barista who was fired after taking time off to go to his grandmother’s funeral. Faced with over 250 unionized stores, low morale, high turnover and a stock price down over 25% since their scorched earth union busting campaign began, Starbucks has fired over 130 workers across the country. Michael Sanabria returns to The Checkout a year after discussing his courageous union organizing, and reviews the illegal tactics that he and his coworkers have faced.

The Checkout speaks with the godmother of food policy studies, Professor Marion Nestle, author of her recent memoir Slow Cooked.

The Checkout speaks with Matte Wilson of Sicangu CDC about food sovereignty and community organizing on the Rosebud Reservation and how these lessons are applicable anywhere.