Aisle 7 — Tensions across grocery aisles nationwide are once again flaring, as increased fighting for shelf space in the combined Jewish and Middle-Eastern food aisles approaches a tipping point to all-out shelf collapse.
What began as a local shelving squabble has gone national. Grocery chains across the country report the same standoff unfolding aisle by aisle, and say they are suffering for it, with shelves left empty during repeated border adjustments and shoppers caught in the crossfire. Industry groups now call it the costliest disruption to hit the grocery floor since bring-your-own-bag.
The crisis has a long history, going back to the canned-food era, and is just the latest in a recent string of slotting-fee disagreements. The original plan to put both food groups in the same aisle was met with skepticism, while a Green Food Line cleanly separated the historically weird consumables. The two halves, divided only by a narrow strip of shelving that staff call the 'Buffer Zone', have constantly bickered over who should have access to the Hummus region. The boundary, first drawn by a planogram in the 1990s, has been redrawn, ignored, and unilaterally re-priced so many times that no one on staff can say with confidence which products belong where.
The Hummus Among Us
The store manager, who described his role as "mostly keeping the two endcaps apart," pointed to the middle of the store, on the eastern side, in frustration. "Someone moves the tahini six inches. The other side moves the matzo eight inches. By Friday we've got a bloody mess on the floor and the United Foods is threatening to step in."
At the center of the conflict is the Hummus region, claimed by both combatants as a sacred place reserved for after-yoga snacks and drum-circle picnics. The most recent peace deal, brokered in the New Deli that was recently installed, allowed for neutral shopping-cart roll-ways where all followers of the Holy Chickpea can worship together.
Staff describe a pattern of slow encroachment. Almost overnight, a full shelf appears, a price rail, and a sense among the other aisle that something has been lost. "We call them facings," the manager said. "They call them settlements. I call them Oy-Vey, a headache."
Zion Foods, the maker of a premium line of kosher cashews, has been among the most assertive expanders, adding three new facings this quarter alone. "We are not encroaching. We were here first. Cashews have an indefinite shelf-life, as given by God," a Zion Foods representative said.
Food industry representatives were quick to point out that cashews go rancid more quickly than ancient religions. "They are oil-based," one said, "and everything that touches oil in the Middle East goes bad."
Partisans of the Halal shelving have taken to calling the company "the Little Seitan," a label that rabbis and imams, in a rare show of agreement, have called theologically confused: seitan is a wheat product, certified both kosher and halal, and would be welcome on either shelf. "It's only wheat gluten," one rabbi said, "but they imagine it's the Hormel Devil."
The standoff has not been without cost. One bag of Zion Foods product was spilled out across multiple segments, and was found rancid with the words "Cashew Later!" spray-painted on the label. Analysts who track the aisle say the constant re-shelving has pushed prices up on both sides, as labor hours meant for restocking are instead spent on brokering peas, and they feel that new residents may be wary of moving to a disputed and pock-marked steel frame.
Fears of a Wider Conflict
The conflict has been encroaching into the International Foods aisles for several years, but the new round of aggression puts the Lime-light on their citrus section.
"We have to be sensitive toward ethnic-food cleansing," said a regional category manager, who asked that her section not be named. "But we also have a right to defend our shelf space from this Won-Ton destruction."
The Asian food aisle, for its part, is not without conflicts of its own. Chief among them is the Asia Minor section on the lower south-western shelves, a contested strip that both the Far East and the Middle East insist has always been theirs. Today, the area is mostly deserted.
A shopper, "Tryinto Make Dinner", which sounds like a made-up name, said she now avoids the section. "My daughters wanted duck-duck couscous, but we've been running around in circles."
Satyr Satire's camera-person took these photos at great personal risk, with his cabbage almost taking a direct hit, while he nearly slipped on the contested oil. He expects an award.