The Guardian
‘The last straw’: US families ending their love affair with a supermarket chain after the Capitol riot
Families are boycotting Publix after a founding family member donated $ 300,000 to Donald Trump’s demonstration that preceded the January deadly attack on Capitol Hill. The Florida-based supermarket chain operates more than 1,200 stores in seven southeastern states. Photo: Larry Marano / REX / Shutterstock Wendy Mize’s family grew up at Publix, a disciple of the giant supermarket chain’s empirical marketing slogan: “Where shopping is a pleasure”. As children, their three daughters wore diapers purchased at the Publix baby club. As children, they ate free cookies from the bakery. There were even advantages for the family’s pets, who are proud members of Publix Paws. But now the decades-old love affair is over. After a member of Publix’s founding family donated $ 300,000 to the Donald Trump rally that preceded the Capitol’s deadly riots in January, Mize is withdrawing from what she says has become “an abusive and dysfunctional relationship” and joining to others in a Florida boycott of the supermarket 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. “Capitol insurrection, images of the police officer with his head being crushed, individuals dressed as Vikings on the floor of the Senate … let’s not call that normal. [Publix] we are a private company 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 money. ”Publix is an institution in Florida, the company growing from the roots of the Depression era in the 1930s to a regional giant with 225,000 workers today, and its founding family Jenkins is now worth $ 8.8 billion, according to Forbes. It prides itself on its family-oriented image, attracting customers with important deals, buy one and win one and a variety of popular sandwiches, and prides itself on being the largest employee-owned company in the United States. However, the company and its founders donated frequently and generously to conservative party causes, including more than $ 2 million just from Publix heiress Julie Jenkins Fancelli, daughter of the late company founder George Jenkins, to the Republican National Committee and the Trump’s failed campaign re-election. In a brief statement on January 30, the company’s only comment on Fancelli so far, Publix tried to distance himself from her. However, its funding for the Trump meeting that formed the opening act of the insurrection, and revealed by the Wall Street Journal as being channeled through right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, was only the most recent in a series of controversies and mistakes that left some buyers holding their noses while filling their carts, or others like Mize withdrawing completely. Three years ago, after the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17, Publix temporarily suspended political donations after protests over the funding of Adam Putnam, an avowed “proud National Rifle Association traitor”, to the state governor. Parkland survivors, led by activist David Hogg, and their supporters staged “die-ins” at Publix supermarkets in various locations, protesting the company’s $ 670,000 donation, through its political action committee, to the campaign Putnam. Putnam, as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, vehemently opposed stricter gun laws after the shooting. Publix donated $ 100,000 to a political action committee that seeks to secure Ron DeSantis’ re-election in 2022. Soon after, the governor awarded Publix a lucrative and exclusive contract to distribute Covid-19 vaccines to several stores. Photo: Bob Self / AP He was also the state official responsible for regulating Publix’s 800 stores in Florida, but ended up losing Republican primaries to current Governor Ron DeSantis, a staunch ally of Trump and another beneficiary of the company’s political benevolence. Earlier this year, Publix donated $ 100,000 to a political action committee that seeks to secure the re-election of DeSantis in 2022. Soon after, the governor awarded Publix a lucrative and exclusive contract to distribute Covid-19 vaccines to several stores. The governor’s office, which denied impropriety, added other retailers, including Walmart and Winn Dixie, to its approved distribution network. But the controversy did not go well for some observers. “This is, quite simply, dirty pay-to-play policy, corruption made possible by having a manipulative governor who kept Covid-19’s infection data secret and is now doing the same with vaccine distribution,” wrote the columnist Fabiola Santiago of the Miami Herald. “He’s not working for us, but on behalf of his re-election campaign. And this is exactly the type of politician that Publix helps and encourages, financing their careers ”. Others point to the juxtaposition of Publix being at the forefront of vaccine distribution in Florida, by failing to impose the use of a mask in the store in some areas of the state and to defend a lawsuit for the manslaughter of the family of an employee in Miami who died of Covid complications after being instructed not to wear a mask. A Tampa judge last week rejected the company’s demand to reduce the process to a labor claim after the company asked that the death of 70-year-old Gerardo Gutierrez, last April, be classified as an occupational accident. Gutierrez’s family insists that he contracted a colleague’s infection after employees were banned from wearing masks by later reversed workplace regulations. Publix said he did not comment on pending litigation and did not answer other questions from the Guardian for this article. “They adapted very slowly to the pandemic and the new rules of the pandemic,” said Craig Pittman, author of several books on Florida culture, who recorded Publix’s rise to become the state’s leading food retailer. “But what happens with Publix is that it does a lot of little things that people like, they give a lot of importance to the fact that they take their purchases to the car and they don’t accept the tip, they give free cookies to the kids in bakery, if you ask for a sample they give you no questions asked. “So people have long been willing to ignore some of the less flavorful aspects of history, a series of lawsuits for sexual and racial discrimination brought by officials and all this stuff about them or their heirs by donating to various politicians. “Corporate messaging experts say Publix is walking a tightrope in dealing with the Fancelli crisis. “What Publix does is take the middle path, they minimize liability, and when noticing that Ms. Fancelli’s actions were essentially those of a private citizen not involved in the company, they are saying, ‘Look, we have no control here, ”said Professor Josh Scacco, from the University of South Florida’s communications department. “Publix assesses the situation as: ‘We have no responsibilities, or responsibilities beyond guilt by association’. [But while] there is a separation between the person at the checkout, the person behind the counter in the deli, the manager of a store, the CEO and the political action committee, ultimately all are under the umbrella of Publix. Scacco also believes that the furor reflects the increasingly partisan nature of corporate America, where even the purchase of guava and square cheese from a Publix bakery has become a political statement. “President Trump, for example, tweeted support for a particular company and the approval of the brand immediately polarized, Republicans like this company, Democrats don’t like this company,” he said. “This is the risk that companies face because they are so closely linked to a particular leader or set of leaders. “It is also partly why there was such a rush immediately after January 6 for many of these companies to say, ‘We are not donating to individuals in Congress who voted to overturn the election result, we are simply not going to do that.’ ”Meanwhile, Mize and her family are working on separating Publix with a mixture of sadness and relief. “This time, I thought, ‘Enough. It won’t be a normal business. ‘ “