The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table

McMillan has left the fields of California behind and is looking for work in Michigan. She hopes to find work in a Walmart Supercenter—a store with a supermarket—because, as she tells us, “Walmart is the largest grocer in both the U.S. and the world” (101).

From the outset, McMillan realizes that working at Walmart will be vastly different from working in the fields; the application process requires she provide significant amounts of personal information along with guarantees that she is not a convicted felon and that she has the right to work in the US. After a week, McMillan lands a job stocking shelves overnight on a part-time basis.

Having secured a job at the largest grocer in the world, McMillan explains how Walmart got that way. Within 20 years of its creation in 1962, Walmart had come to dominate the consumer goods market and began searching for opportunities to expand. The company opened its first Supercenter in 1988; 10 years later, it was among the country’s largest grocers, and it took the top spot a few years later.

What Walmart does share with other supermarkets is its method of selling food, which McMillan tells us dates to the early years of the Great Depression.