A grocery store, grocery shop or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged.[1]
Coverage[]
Grocery stores are featured in The Last Supper and was briefly mentioned in the documentary.
Documentary[]
It was briefly mentioned in 10 days after people when food begins to rot on supermarket shelves. The only clip seen is the rotting apples, nothing else was seen on the store itself.
The Last Supper[]
It was introduced in 1 day after people when the last supper has been served and in the over 100,000 grocery stores around the world, the eerie silence normally reserved for closing time has arrived. Automatic sprinklers keep the produce moist but gone are the sounds of carts squeaking down the aisles and registers ringing up sales. In stock sits one food item that can keep for thousands of years, but for most of the other items on the shelves, they are destined to either be devoured by hungry animals or rot by being consumed by equally-voracious microorganisms.
The microscopic organisms and insects have already arrived and many of it have always been in the products. Small levels of bugs and animals parts were allowed in grocery store food by the United States Food and Drug Administration in the time of humans. Some examples include 8 rodent hairs in a package of noodles, 8 fly eggs in a can of tomato sauce, and 150 insect fragments in a jar of peanut butter. It was estimated that humans unintentionally ate 1 to 2 pounds of insects each year, but after people and without humans to consume the products, the insect eggs would hatch, bacteria multiply, and animals ready themselves for an aggressive assault.
Meat starts to decay.
In 1 week after people, power has gone out across the world and the lights and refrigeration of the grocery stores has failed. As the temperature rises, many items begin to spoil within hours like meat and dairy foods, which require temperatures of 41 degrees fahrenheit or less. Ellen Bradley stated that heat, water, an oxygen are three elements that speed decomposition which is the hotter a temperature, the faster the decomposition will happen. An abundance of organic material makes stores a literal banquet for bacteria and fungi, which begin consuming the food, rapidly decomposing it.
Ellen Bradley stated that there are two spoilage organisms that are common to meat, poultry, and produce. These are Pseudomonas and lactic acid bacteria. Pseudomonas causes food to go slimy as it consumes the material that makes it up, while lactic acid bacteria feast on sugars and produce lactic acid as part of their metabolism, alongside carbon dioxide and other gases. She then explains a bag of chicken that within hours, spoilage organisms would produce gas and the bag would become bloated and within few days, it would burst.
The produce decays from ethylene and mold.
In the produce section, ethylene is being emitted from ripe fruits and vegetables. While this process is useful, as ethylene encourages other plants nearby to ripen, without anyone to buy and eat the food, it causes the produce to quickly become overripe and rot when the microorganisms get their cell membranes on it. Bigger creatures are now setting up shop, as Steven S. Ross states that once refrigeration fails, the large quantities of food everywhere will quickly attract animals, particularly mammals.
The pungent odor sends out a welcome call to the world of rodents, where rats muzzle their way into supermarkets and feast their eyes & noses on a 100-course meal along with the hordes of insects like fruit flies being attracted to the fermenting smell of overripe fruit, and blowflies attracted to the smell of rotting meat. Eventually in 8 hours, each female fly can lay 250 eggs which quickly hatch into maggots. Lynn Kimsey stated if the blowflies could get into it, it'll have maggots and a hundred pounds of meat will become gross after a couple of days. Among the other microorganisms, mold has also gained a foothold, as the damp environment is perfect for its spores to germinate and grow on almost any food it can use for energy.
In 3 weeks after people, lactic acid bacteria has multiplied into the tens of thousands inside milk containers causing the dairy products to curdle, sour, and explode. Meanwhile the lack of artificial refrigeration has caused most butter to go bad and melt.
Beetles eating the dry goods.
In 3 months after people, fruits have shriveled up, non-packaged meat has decomposed with only the bones left, and just like what happened at the Mexia Supermarket in Fort Worth, Texas, every grocery store across the world has it's own chamber of horror. Rats moved from meats to dry goods as their teeth easily rip through paper and plastic packaged goods which create openings for other creatures to get in or out. Some food was often manufactured in sealed with insect eggs already inside in the time of humans, like the merchant grain beetles, which laid their eggs on nuts in the field, and being too small to see with the naked eye, it ended up in containers of nuts or product with nuts like chocolate bars where they would sometimes hatch into larva. The larvae become beetles which feed on rice, noodles, and cereals, along with red ants nimble on dried apricots and cockroaches eating inside plastic containers filled with cookies. The plastic can hold out moisture and oxygen can keep the treats fresh for months if the pest last it long. But for one food, packaging isn't the only way food was protected because urban legend claim that a famous type of snack cakes filled with preservatives can last well beyond it's expiration date of 25 days because of sorbic acid, monoglycerides, and polysorbate-60 and experts determined that the snack cakes could still be edible after 25 years.
In 1 year after people, produce has almost completely decomposed in grocery stores and some foods will disappear forever like the bananas, especially the Cavendish banana, which left it vulnerable to disease by humans.
Canned foods would explode in hot and humid regions.
In 2 years after people, insects finish off the last of the dried goods but many of the pests have evolved to rely on humans for food and after people, the pests are doomed. Lynn Kimsey stated that it may take insects a year or two to work through all the stored foods and when there's nothing left, they'll go extinct like store product pests, garden plant pests, and crop pests. Meanwhile, canned foods still rest on shelves which are protected from pests by their aluminum and steel containers. After 2 years, most have reached predicted expiration dates but the food inside can remain edible for hundreds of years. While most cans are lined with a polymer coating which prevent the small amount of sulfur, in hot and humid regions around the world, canned foods experience a different fate. Ellen Bradley stated if the temperature raise around 105 degrees, spoilage organisms not killed off in the canning process like thermophilic spores would actually begin to grow. As the thermophilic spores multiply, it produce gas that builds up and eventually causes the cans to explode. In 30 years after people, while any resemblance of a prepared meal would have vanished from the face of the Earth, freeze-dried food still last which can be still edible for 30 years and can be still found in grocery stores. However, the grocery stores have quickly deteriorated. After 30 years, the flimsy roofs starts to cave in after decades of snow and rainfall. Steven S. Ross stated that plant life will colonize the inside very quickly and the parking lot would become a green lawn, then a meadow, and finally a forest. The roof of the grocery stores collapse, whether during the winter or during the hot weather.
Honey would remain edible even after 4,000 years.
In 4,000 years after people, all traces of a grocery store are long gone, yet a 21st century item could still be edible and found, the unbroken jars of honey, scattered in locations where cities once stood. It will remains eternally fresh if sealed with glass unless if it's exposed to air that would absorbs moisture and cause fermentation.
Gallery[]
Series
Official Concept[2]
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