Making mileage out of food
16 January 2007 16:25 | Global
Chris White
With the single exception of the Kingdom of Thailand, one doesn’t usually turn to royalty for advice on the big issues. However, the future king of England could be about to change all that.
Never shy of an opinion on the absurdity of much modern architecture or the value of complementary medicine, HRH Prince Charles now wants his subjects to recognise that the food they buy may contribute to global warming.
According to newspaper reports, the Prince of Wales is keen that products marketed under his Duchy Originals brand carry information about the greenhouse gases emitted in their manufacture.
“Charles hopes Duchy customers will be able to use the detailed information on his products’ labels to make ‘green’ choices in the supermarket, which in turn will encourage other food companies to do likewise,” reports The Sunday Times newspaper.
Duchy Originals is a multi-million-euro food business set up by Prince Charles in 1990 (www.duchyoriginals.com) to focus on supplying high-quality organic and premium products. Annual profits of some £1m are donated to his charities.
Although fresh fruits and vegetables are not yet part of the extensive product range, the odds are shortening fast as to when they will do. Let’s not forget, the heir to the British throne is, among many other things, a keen horticulturalist.
Prince Charles was due to outline his plans on food miles labellling to a meeting at St James’ Palace in central London in mid-December, just before this magazine went to press.
Already well in advance the press was speculating busily just how Prince Charles’ labelling scheme might work. Would it look at the weight of gas? Or would it focus on the percentage of a daily “personal carbon allowance”, something that Tony Blair’s government is also looking at, to help people make their lifestyles more “eco-friendly”.
As reported in these pages in recent months, food miles is becoming a big issue in the UK. It also features strongly in the environmental debate across Western Europe, where governments are keen to show their green credentials.
At the same time, shoppers are also catching onto the idea. Europe’s warmest autumn in years will convince many that global warming is an issue that needs to be tackled right away.
And in an effort to do something, shoppers would be forgiven for paying much more attention to what they put into their trolleys on their weekly trip to the local supermarket.
However, as New Zealand agriculture minister Jim Anderton points out in this month’s Trade New Zealand supplement (see p18), the issues around food miles are more complicated than the average shopper might think.
“A standard British shopping trip of 6.4 kilometres in a large family car to collect 20kg of food uses 25.6 megajoules of energy, the same amount of energy as is used to transport the food over 8,500 kilometres by sea,” says Mr Anderton.
Nevertheless, shoppers are expert at making ill-informed choices every day, not least because so much of shopping is driven by psychological need. We’d be fools if we kid ourselves that a label telling shoppers the distance a food has travelled will not make them think twice before buying it. After all, it helped Fairtrade to grow and is driving demand for organics as well.
The international fresh fruit and vegetable business should brace itself for the fallout from the debate on food miles. It’s almost too late already. And without delay it must rehearse the arguments that need to be made to defend this business, not simply for airfreighted produce but also for the global sourcing of fresh fruits and vegetables in general.
With the single exception of the Kingdom of Thailand, one doesn’t usually turn to royalty for advice on the big issues. However, the future king of England could be about to change all that.
Never shy of an opinion on the absurdity of much modern architecture or the value of complementary medicine, HRH Prince Charles now wants his subjects to recognise that the food they buy may contribute to global warming.
According to newspaper reports, the Prince of Wales is keen that products marketed under his Duchy Originals brand carry information about the greenhouse gases emitted in their manufacture.
“Charles hopes Duchy customers will be able to use the detailed information on his products’ labels to make ‘green’ choices in the supermarket, which in turn will encourage other food companies to do likewise,” reports The Sunday Times newspaper.
Duchy Originals is a multi-million-euro food business set up by Prince Charles in 1990 (www.duchyoriginals.com) to focus on supplying high-quality organic and premium products. Annual profits of some £1m are donated to his charities.
Although fresh fruits and vegetables are not yet part of the extensive product range, the odds are shortening fast as to when they will do. Let’s not forget, the heir to the British throne is, among many other things, a keen horticulturalist.
Prince Charles was due to outline his plans on food miles labellling to a meeting at St James’ Palace in central London in mid-December, just before this magazine went to press.
Already well in advance the press was speculating busily just how Prince Charles’ labelling scheme might work. Would it look at the weight of gas? Or would it focus on the percentage of a daily “personal carbon allowance”, something that Tony Blair’s government is also looking at, to help people make their lifestyles more “eco-friendly”.
As reported in these pages in recent months, food miles is becoming a big issue in the UK. It also features strongly in the environmental debate across Western Europe, where governments are keen to show their green credentials.
At the same time, shoppers are also catching onto the idea. Europe’s warmest autumn in years will convince many that global warming is an issue that needs to be tackled right away.
And in an effort to do something, shoppers would be forgiven for paying much more attention to what they put into their trolleys on their weekly trip to the local supermarket.
However, as New Zealand agriculture minister Jim Anderton points out in this month’s Trade New Zealand supplement (see p18), the issues around food miles are more complicated than the average shopper might think.
“A standard British shopping trip of 6.4 kilometres in a large family car to collect 20kg of food uses 25.6 megajoules of energy, the same amount of energy as is used to transport the food over 8,500 kilometres by sea,” says Mr Anderton.
Nevertheless, shoppers are expert at making ill-informed choices every day, not least because so much of shopping is driven by psychological need. We’d be fools if we kid ourselves that a label telling shoppers the distance a food has travelled will not make them think twice before buying it. After all, it helped Fairtrade to grow and is driving demand for organics as well.
The international fresh fruit and vegetable business should brace itself for the fallout from the debate on food miles. It’s almost too late already. And without delay it must rehearse the arguments that need to be made to defend this business, not simply for airfreighted produce but also for the global sourcing of fresh fruits and vegetables in general.
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