The guardian
‘The last straw’: the American families ending their love affair with the grocery chain after the Capitol riot
Families boycott Publix after a family member donated $ 300,000 to the Donald Trump protest that preceded January’s deadly Capitol attack in Florida, with more than 1,200 stores in seven southeastern states. Photo: Larry Marano / REX / Shutterstock The family of Wendy Mize grew up on Publix, the disciples of the giant supermarket chain’s empirical marketing slogan: “Where shopping is a pleasure”. As babies, her three daughters wore diapers that were purchased at the Publix Baby Club. As children, they indulge in free cookies from the bakery. There were even benefits for the pets of the family, who are proud members of Publix Paws. But now the decades-long love affair is over. After a member of the founding member of Publix donated $ 300,000 to the Donald Trump protests that preceded the deadly riots in the Capitol in January, Mize pulled out what she said became “an abusive, dysfunctional relationship” and he joins others in a boycott of the Florida-based grocery chain that operates more than 1,200 stores in seven southeastern states. “It was the last straw,” said Mize, 57, an advertising copywriter from Orlando, whose youngest twin daughters are now 19. ‘Uprising at the Capitol, images of the police officer smashing his head, individuals dressed as Vikings on the floor of the Senate … we are not going to call it normal. [Publix] they are a private business and it is their business how they want to contribute their money but it is also my right to decide where I want to spend my dollars. Publix is an institution in Florida, the company that began to grow into a regional cattle with 225,000 workers in the 1930s, and the founding Jenkins family, according to Forbes, is now worth $ 8.8 billion. . Proud of a family-friendly image, it attracts customers with prominent buy-one-get-offers and a range of popular sandwich businesses, boasting the fact that it is the largest employee company in the US. Yet the company and its founders regularly and generously donated to biased, conservative causes, including more than $ 2 million alone through Publix heir Julie Jenkins Fancelli, daughter of the late founder of the company George Jenkins, to the Republican National Committee and Trump’s failed re-election campaign. In a brief statement on January 30, to date of the company’s only comment on Fancelli, Publix tried to distance itself from her. Yet her funding of the Trump rally that formed the opening act of the uprising and revealed by the Wall Street Journal that it was channeled by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was just the latest in a series of controversies and mistakes made by some buyers let hold. noses when they fill their cars, or others like Mize pull out completely. Three years ago, in the aftermath of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed, Publix suspended political donations after a scream over the bankroll of Adam Putnam, a self-confessed “proud National Rifle Association sale” “, for the state governor. Parkland survivors, led by activist David Hogg, and their supporters staged “the-ins” at Publix supermarkets in several places, protesting the donation of $ 670,000 to the company by Putnam’s political action committee. Putnam, as Florida commissioner of agriculture, strongly opposed stricter gun laws after the shooting. Publix made a donation of $ 100,000 to a political action committee that wanted to ensure the re-election of Ron DeSantis in 2022. Shortly afterwards, the governor awarded a lucrative and exclusive contract to distribute Covid-19 vaccines in numerous stores. Photo: Bob Self / AP He was also the civil servant responsible for regulating Publix’s 800 stores in Florida, but eventually lost the Republican primary to incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis, a strong Trump ally and another recipient. of the company’s political goodwill. Earlier this year, Publix donated $ 100,000 to a political action committee to secure DeSantis’ 2022 re-election. Shortly thereafter, Governor Publix awarded a lucrative and exclusive contract to distribute Covid-19 vaccines in numerous stores. The governor’s office, which has denied the allegations, has since added other retailers, including Walmart and Winn Dixie, to its approved distribution chain. But the controversy did not go down well with some observers. “This is, simple, dirty pay-to-play politics, corruption made possible by a manipulative governor who keeps Covid-19 infection data secret and now does the same with the distribution of vaccines,” the Miami Herald columnist wrote. , Fabiola Santiago. . “He does not work for us, but on behalf of his re-election campaign. And this is exactly the kind of politician who supports and helps Publix by funding their careers. Others point out that Publix is at the forefront of the distribution of vaccines in Florida, while the aggravation of masks is not applied in some regions of the state, and the defense of a harmful wrongful death of an employee’s family in Miami who died of Covid complications after being told not to wear a mask. A Tampa judge last week slammed the company’s claim to reduce the lawsuit to a workers’ compensation claim after the company killed 70-year-old deli worker Gerardo Gutierrez in April last year as a classified work accident. Gutierrez’s family maintains that he contracted a colleague’s infection after employees were banned from wearing masks because workplace regulations were later reversed. Publix said it did not comment on pending litigation, and did not respond to other Guardian questions for this article. “They were very slow to adapt to the pandemic and the new pandemic rules,” said Craig Pittman, author of several books on Florida culture, describing Publix’s rise to become the state’s leading grocery retailer. ‘But the thing about Publix is that it does a lot of little things that people like, it’s a big part of the fact that they’ll carry your groceries to the car and not accept the fee; they give free cookies to the kids in the bakery, if you ask a sample, they give you no questions. ‘People are therefore long prepared to overlook some of the less heartfelt aspects of the story, a number of sexual and racial lawsuits by employees, and this whole issue about them or their heirs being donated to different politicians. ‘Corporate messaging experts say Publix is on a tightrope in dealing with the Fancelli crisis. ‘What Publix is doing is taking the middle ground, it reduces the responsibility and by noticing that Mrs. Fancelli’s actions were essentially those of a private citizen who was not involved in the company, they say: “Look, we have no control here,” said Professor Josh Scacco of the Department of Communications at the University of the South. Florida said. “Publix assesses the situation as: ‘We have no responsibility or responsibilities outside the debt of association’. [But while] there is separation between the person at the checkout, the person behind the deli counter, the manager of a store, the CEO, and then the political action committee, eventually they all come under the umbrella of Publix. Scacco also believes that the furore reflects the increasingly biased nature of the US Chamber of Commerce, where even the purchase of guava and cheese squares at a Publix bakery has become a political statement. “President Trump, for example, would send out the support for a particular company and the brand approval would be immediately polarized. Republicans like that company, Democrats don’t like the company,” he said. ‘This is the risk that companies are so closely linked to a particular leader or set of leaders. “This is also partly why, immediately after January 6, there was such a rush for many of these companies to say, ‘We are not donating to individuals in Congress who voted to reverse the election result, we are just not going to do it. not ‘. Mize and her family meanwhile work through their exposition of Publix with a mixture of sadness and relief. “This time I just thought, ‘Enough.’ It’s not going to do business normally ‘. ”