Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Stephen Pimpare
Guests: Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern & Teresa Mares
Episode: Teresa M. Mares and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain (U California Press, 2025)
Date: October 22, 2025

Overview

This episode features authors Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern and Teresa Mares discussing their new book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain. The conversation explores the interconnectedness of labor throughout all segments of the U.S. food system—from farms to kitchens to waste management—analyzing historical and current vulnerabilities facing workers, the impact of policy and economic shifts, and the power of worker organizing. The authors bring both academic rigor and activist orientation, aiming to increase awareness of the patterns of exploitation and possibilities for change throughout the food chain.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction & Author Backgrounds

• [02:13] Teresa Mares
  • Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Vermont, specializing in food and migration.
  • Research collaboration with Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern over five years; two decades of experience.
• [02:39] Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern
  • Associate Professor of Geography & Environment at Syracuse University.
  • Research on farmworkers across the U.S.; recently broadened to labor throughout the food system.

2. What Is a Food Systems Approach?

[03:28] Teresa Mares

• Examines food as a system of interconnected processes and institutions—from seed breeding to consumption, policies, and politics.
• Shift from focusing solely on farmworkers to connecting all food system workers.
• Inspired by the Food Chain Workers Alliance, which links diverse worker advocacy groups.

Quote:
"But realizing that there were so many connections between the laborers that we were getting to know really well and other parts of the food system…inspired by some of the work of the Food Chain Workers alliance." (Teresa Mares, [03:28])

3. Farmwork and Immigrant Labor

• [04:35] Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern
  • Highlights the irony that farmworkers—those producing our food—often experience food insecurity.
  • Points to a lack of comprehensive resources connecting the struggles of food workers across sectors.
  • The book includes chapters on home (reproductive) labor and waste work.

[07:32] Teresa Mares

• Precarity and vulnerability are common threads; these are not new, but a continuation of exploitation.
• Current political climate (2025) exacerbates immigrant workers' vulnerability, especially via targeted policies and threats of detention.

Quote:
"What we're seeing currently in 2025...is disproportionately targeting food workers and is making them incredibly vulnerable and afraid and subject to detention...follows the blueprint...of exploitation that is centuries long." (Teresa Mares, [07:32])

4. Processing and Meatpacking

[09:40] Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern

• Meatpacking: among the most dangerous, grueling food jobs—physically and mentally.
• Plant relocations were strategic, putting the most hazardous work out of sight, and away from union power.
• Problems include repetitive stress, wage theft, long hours, child labor (documented as recently as last year).

Quote:
"It's some of the most gruesome and worst labor conditions, I would say, in any industry, not just in the food industry." (Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern, [10:15])

• Artisan and small-scale food processing industries can also be exploitative, especially for undocumented workers.
• High-profile investigations have revealed child labor in major processing plants.

5. Warehousing and Transportation

[13:19] Teresa Mares

• Recent years have seen dramatic changes, especially with the rise of rapid home delivery and gig economy services.
• Warehousing and transportation labor are pressured to move faster—creating new forms of stress and precarity.
• Not all sectors are equally bad, but all are shaped by capitalist change and technological advance.

Quote:
"The fact that you can get groceries delivered and HelloFresh delivered, all of these box subscriptions is something very different...Those warehouses have to work incredibly fast, especially with some of the perishable foods..." (Teresa Mares, [13:19])

6. Roots & Drivers of Change in Working Conditions

[15:24] Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern

• Historical legacies: Food labor in U.S. built on "slavery and colonization...highly racialized, highly dangerous, highly exploitative conditions."
• Two major modern trends:
  1. Market concentration: Small number of firms dominate, driving prices and conditions throughout the chain.
  2. Deregulation: Neoliberal policy shifts since the 1970s have eroded worker protections and increased outsourcing/fissuring.

Quote:
"A pattern where you see deregulation of industry, further concentration of firms, and then the end result for workers is more increasing vulnerability..." (Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern, [17:44])

7. Grocery, Retail, and Restaurant Work

[18:31] Teresa Mares

• Dollar stores have surpassed grocery stores in number, reshaping food retail access and employment.
• Restaurant work: Shift from home cooking to meals prepared outside the home; growth of institutional dining.
• Work is often highly gendered, rife with sexual harassment, and strongly influenced by wage structures (e.g., tipping).
• Changes in eating habits reflect—and reinforce—changes in labor policies and economic structure.

Quote:
"There's a lot of sexual harassment, a lot of gendered violence...especially with working for tips, a lot of accommodating to customers demands because of a concern for one's own economic viability as a worker." (Teresa Mares, [20:36])

8. Reproductive Labor and Work in the Home

[21:25] Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern

• Writing during the pandemic brought home the hidden, unpaid labor of feeding families.
• Even with egalitarian ideals, the burden still falls disproportionately on women—even in the most developed and "equal" societies.
• Domestic (reproductive) and farm labor were left out of key New Deal labor protections—a testament to their devaluation.
• Examines historic movements to value this labor (e.g., wages for housework).

Quote:
"Despite the fact that we're both incredibly privileged...as the women in our relationships also found ourselves with the heavy burden of kind of the day to day, no matter how much education and privilege you have, research shows that we're still the ones doing the majority of that labor." (Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern, [21:25])

9. Food Waste and Waste Work

[25:17] Teresa Mares

• Labor in food waste sector is under-studied and often invisible—much is unpaid (volunteers, home cooks) but also includes formal waste collection.
• Social movements (e.g., Food Not Bombs, freegans) politicize the issue, turning food waste into mutual aid.
• Historical sanitation struggles show the essential and hazardous nature of this "dirty work."

Quote:
"This is one of those dirty jobs that people often either don't want to do or don't want to identify with. But it's absolutely essential to our food system..." (Teresa Mares, [27:34])

10. Hopeful Organizing and Paths Forward

[28:42] Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern

• Food Chain Workers Alliance: An umbrella linking 50+ food worker groups; a central hub for advocacy and resources.
• Worker-driven Social Responsibility Model: Exemplified by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (Florida) and Migrant Justice (Vermont); targets corporate power to improve conditions down the chain.
• Emphasis is on worker power, agency, and organizing—not just exploitation.

[30:41] Teresa Mares

• Active social movements—from campaigns for wages for housework to the Fight for $15—demonstrate worker resistance and innovation.
• The book's conclusion aims to leave readers with hope and a guide to supporting change.

Quote:
"We really tried to highlight all of the ways that workers are not just passive recipients of exploitation, but they are very active agents in pushing for policies and pushing campaigns that will bring better and greater dignity to these jobs." (Teresa Mares, [30:43])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ongoing exploitation:
  "What we're seeing currently...follows the blueprint of exploitation that is centuries long." (Teresa Mares, [07:32])
• On the dangers of meatpacking:
  "Some of the most gruesome and worst labor conditions, I would say, in any industry, not just in the food industry." (Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern, [10:15])
• On shifts in food retail:
  "Did you know that we have more dollar stores than all grocery stores combined?" (Teresa Mares, [18:31])
• On reproductive labor:
  "Research shows that we're still the ones doing the majority of that labor." (Laura Ann Minkoff-Zern, [21:25])
• On worker agency:
  "Workers are not just passive recipients of exploitation, but...active agents in pushing for policies..." (Teresa Mares, [30:43])

Key Timestamps

• [02:13] Author introductions and research backgrounds
• [03:28] Defining the food systems approach
• [04:35] From farmwork to a food chain perspective; food insecurity among farmworkers
• [07:32] Immigrant labor, vulnerability, and the politics of 2025
• [09:40] Food processing: conditions and child labor
• [13:19] Warehousing and transportation: capitalism and precarity
• [15:24] Long-term drivers: racial exploitation, concentration, and deregulation
• [18:31] The transformation of retail and the changing nature of restaurant work
• [21:25] Reproductive labor and unpaid food work in the home
• [25:17] Labor in food waste and the politicization of waste work
• [28:42] Worker organizing; Food Chain Workers Alliance; future pathways

Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive, critical look at labor across all aspects of the U.S. food chain, uncovering hidden forms of exploitation and highlighting the resilience and innovation of workers and grassroots movements. The book Will Work for Food and its authors challenge listeners to see the food system not as a chain of commodities, but as a complex network of human labor—a network that must be made visible, valued, and transformed.