“customers expect cheap food, that they can go to the market to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. All year. 24/7.”
“We’re shifting goods around the world in a way that looks really bizarre”
Paul Watkiss, Oxford University economist who wrote the 2008 European Union report on food imports
"Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya.
In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of New Zealand’s national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.
Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, in the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.
Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower.
And the penetration of mega-markets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe has accelerated the trend.
The movable feast comes at a cost.
Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower.
(and) Pollution — especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas — from transporting the food."
(...)
In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of New Zealand’s national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.
Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, in the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.
Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower.
And the penetration of mega-markets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe has accelerated the trend.
The movable feast comes at a cost.
Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower.
(and) Pollution — especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas — from transporting the food."
(...)
"In 2008 the European Commission announced that all freight-carrying flights into and out of the European Union would be included in the trading bloc’s emissions-trading program by 2012, meaning permits will have to be purchased for the pollution they generate.
The commission is negotiating with the global shipping organization, the International Maritime Organization, over various alternatives to reduce greenhouse gases."
The commission is negotiating with the global shipping organization, the International Maritime Organization, over various alternatives to reduce greenhouse gases."
(...)
"Paul Watkiss (Oxford University economist who wrote the 2008 European Union report on food imports) noted that Britain, for example, imports — and exports — 15,000 tons of waffles a year, and similarly exchanges 20 tons of bottled water with Australia. (...) Britain, with its short growing season and powerful supermarket chains, imports 95 percent of its fruit and more than half of its vegetables."
(...)
"“We are not (?) paying the environmental cost of all that travel” and imported foods generate more emissions than generally acknowledged because they require layers of packaging and, in the case of perishable food, refrigeration."
(...)
"“We are not (?) paying the environmental cost of all that travel” and imported foods generate more emissions than generally acknowledged because they require layers of packaging and, in the case of perishable food, refrigeration."
in "Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World"
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/business/worldbusiness/26food.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/business/worldbusiness/26food.html
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