Supermarkets in the caring city

Matthias Neumann, August 2025

Based on the action conference on climate justice and socialisation 'Let's Socialize ', the "Our Lidl" alliance came together to pose the question "'Lidl is worth it' during action days in Heilbronn in mid-July. But for whom actually? During the days, there were various actions, such as a symbolic tree occupation: trees are to be felled, public green space sealed and an indoor swimming pool demolished to expand the educational campus, which is being financed to a large extent by the foundation of owner Dieter Schwarz, presumably the richest individual in Germany. No drama - if you have a private pool and private park.

Private property vs. democracy

In this and other ways, the group of companies and its foundation intervene massively in urban development and thus in the living conditions of the people of Heilbronn. This ability to intervene is due to the financial dependence of local politics on a major patron and is therefore a direct consequence of the combination of private wealth and public poverty. Wolfram Weimer wrote in 2021: "Schwarz has earned the multi-billions himself." Such an attitude may qualify him to be Minister of State for Culture; however, the more than half a million employees currently working for Lidl and Kaufland around the world may also have contributed.

The fact that private ownership of the means of production gives people the power to determine the living conditions of others is the opposite of democracy - people jointly control their living conditions. Conversely, serious attempts to expand democracy must fundamentally question this link between private property and power. The organisers therefore explored their topic "Our Lidl" in a panel discussion: What is the problem with such a group of companies being privately owned, and what could be different if Lidl really was "our" Lidl and employees and users* could dispose of the markets? This event brought together perspectives from food rescue, local politics, agriculture and supermarket employees. The latter perspective was represented by the author of this article; I worked for 25 years in stores, mainly in the EDEKA Group, during which time I was also active as a works council member and in ver.di, as well as co-authoring a study for the Hans Böckler Foundation.

Privately owned supermarkets

How a group operates in the food retail sector is largely not a question of good or bad intentions. The sector is dominated by four corporations or corporate groups, which together account for 85% of sales in the food retail sector. They are therefore powerful enough to shape framework conditions and set prices. At the same time, they are in fierce competition with each other, which is also fought over prices. As the purpose of their actions is to generate profits, it is always about the difference between sales and costs. This forces maximum efficiency in the use of all required goods, including labour, with corresponding pressure on working conditions. In addition, maximum cost pressure is exerted on purchasing; this also affects wages as the price of labour. Incidentally, because of this focus on efficiency, supermarkets are not the place where a particularly large amount of food is thrown away, as inventory losses must be minimised to reduce costs. However, shoppers are encouraged to buy too much - through high advertising expenditure or because small or individually packaged portions are much more expensive. And before expiring goods are given away, it is the lesser evil from a profit perspective to throw them away. The market power of food retail groups also has an impact on purchase prices and therefore directly on working conditions along the supply chain. The conditions for migrant workers on Spanish plantations, for example, are neither unknown to food retail companies nor are they innocent of them.

These effects also exist in the markets themselves: High labour intensity, minimisation of workforces, hardly any time for discussions, collective bargaining flight, escalating expectations of flexibility in this sector with predominantly female work, significantly below-average pay for a skilled occupation. All of this is commonplace; at the same time, however, creativity, personal initiative, team atmosphere, producer pride in craftsmanship or speed are being utilised.

The latter requires corresponding skills and is important for the question of socialisation: the majority of supermarket employees are trained, which means, among other things, that they have an insight into all processes in the market: They have an insight into all processes in the store because they have worked in all departments during their training. Even now, the processes in the departments are largely self-organised, because staff and hierarchies have been thinned out for cost reasons and there is usually no one there to give instructions on what to do when and how. This means that the socialisation of markets would not fail due to a lack of skills on the part of the workforce; employees are no strangers to self-organisation. Moreover, in this highly concentrated industry, which is also vertically integrated via wholesale and retail and long-term supply contracts, many processes are already planned, including between companies. Socialisation would therefore primarily be about the fact that the subjects and objectives of planning could be different: It could be directly about needs instead of maximising cost efficiency.

Socialised supermarkets

In more concrete terms, what would be different through socialisation? Firstly, the social framework is crucial. If nothing else were to change and a single socialised market had to compete with capitalist-run shops, it would essentially have to do the same as the latter. Because it would have to assert itself in competition, and beyond - extremely important, but small - solidarity niches, it is all about costs - efficiency and purchase prices - and not about better working conditions in the market and with suppliers, about ecology or other criteria. How alternatives can be organised from a care perspective at a social level will not be discussed in depth in this text, but see here, for example. But what would be possible at a local level if the market were not only focussed on returns?

If we start big, at the level of a social alternative, we can see that despite the constant hunt for all cost-cutting potential in capitalism, social working time is wasted due to the combination of competition and profit orientation; what makes sense in business terms is harmful to the economy as a whole: if there were no parallel operating companies, each with their own supply chains, the distances between large warehouses and shops could be shorter and lorries would not have to travel in parallel. All the catalogues, advertising videos etc. would be superfluous; the work that goes into them serves to increase sales, not to supply food. Social labour time would also be saved in the shops themselves if the time spent on checkout, advertising, presentation of special offers or price labelling was eliminated. In a supermarket with counters, where I had a good insight as a worker and works council member, I came up with around 35% of the working time that is tied up here. In a discounter without counters, the proportion will certainly be significantly higher. The time saved could be used to reduce wage labour time, to slow down work, as a time buffer for democratic decisions or for additional tasks that fulfil unmet needs.

In an economy organised through democratic planning, supermarkets could perform three important functions, in line with the tasks they already fulfil: Firstly, as an interface with consumers: Providing products, storing, portioning, advising, etc., all directly oriented towards needs, not profit maximisation. Secondly, as an interface to producers: A contact point in the large warehouse, from which products from many suppliers can be distributed to many different warehouses and local bottlenecks can also be compensated for. Thirdly, through information about stock levels and experience, there is knowledge about what needs to be available and ordered for supply in the catchment area, including knowledge about seasonal fluctuations in demand, major events, school holidays, etc. This too is now partly automated and partly still based on experience.

Supermarkets in the caring city

If we think a little smaller, we come across many things that are important in the context of the discussion about caring cities, because supermarkets play a central role in the neighbourhood as facilities that are frequently visited by many people and can hardly be dispensed with. The ability to buy food in the city is closely linked to care work and quality of life. This was also shown when people in the catchment area said that they missed the closed supermarket in surveys conducted by the "Care in the Park Centre" initiative on the question of what the largely empty shopping centre could be used for against the background of setting up a care centre there.

If the supermarket is not primarily used for profitable sales, it could also open up for additional functions that are important in the catchment area: Just a few examples; a neighbourhood meeting held for this purpose would surely come up with many, many more: There are already temperature-adapted storage rooms here that could be used for parties or housing projects. Less mobile people could be supplied at no extra cost - why should they be penalised for their handicap? Where food is available and there are often already ways to prepare it, food distribution could be combined with a 'kitchen for all'/'people's kitchen' or with nutrition and cooking lessons for daycare centres, schools and neighbours with little additional effort. From here, the solidarity food supply could be organised during the next pandemic. During hot spells, cool lounges with drinks supplies could be found here, as well as quiet rooms. The boundaries between the workforce and interested parties could be blurred both in work processes and in decision-making, for example if the workforce took part in a neighbourhood meeting. Much of this is already possible, but there would be much more scope if neither food nor labour were commodities, i.e. if we were in a different mode of production.

If food supply were to become an area that was no longer subject to the logic of capital valorisation, this would increase the quality of life immensely. Gabriele Winker summarises such areas and social structures beyond the logic of exploitation under the term solidarity-based care economy. Here too, as with the concept of the caring city, it is a question of entering into a feminist socialisation, which must be thought of as twofold: On the one hand, the facilities that are highly relevant to the management of care work should be transferred from private disposal to those of the workers and users. This applies not only to care services or daycare centres, but also to the transport infrastructure or, as argued here, the provision of everything that is needed on a daily basis in families or shared flats. On the other hand, the caring city should provide support and literally space for collective solutions to the care tasks that are currently assigned to small families and people living alone. In the case of the caring city (Gabriele Winker's book argues from the level of society as a whole), however, it should be noted that the framework conditions for caring tasks cannot only be created locally: Social security systems or migration regimes, for example, are decided at national or EU level. Taking all of this into account, the entry into feminist socialisation is also about entering a mode of production in which care work is neither allocated according to gender, classist and racist norms, nor is the division of the economy into paid and unpaid work maintained.

First steps

Even if it would make me very happy as a former supermarket worker, it is certainly not realistic to start socialising supermarkets. Areas that can be used by any number of people without increasing costs (e.g. electronic media), where competition leads to a loss of efficiency (transport or electricity networks), that can be easily organised outside of companies (services offered by neighbourhood shops) or where there is a state monopoly on demand or fixed prices (healthcare, care, schools...) are more likely to be a good place to start. However, because supermarkets are so important in the neighbourhood, it should at least be possible to integrate them into a socialisation movement: By involving employees in describing how a solidary, ecologically sustainable, joyful coexistence in the neighbourhood would also be possible. Through a regulars' table of the ver.di works group and customers. And in very practical terms: through support for industrial action, the establishment of a works council or similar - so that supermarkets will one day be a self-organised part of caring cities!