Why ‘food miles’ could be Trump’s new best idea
Instituting food miles labels on packaging would create jobs, improve health (and not hurt the environment either)
What’s a food mile
Food miles, like a calorie count, is an official label placed on the side of all commercially sold food which shows the sum of the number of miles each ingredient has travelled from its point of origin to its final point of sale.
For example, a loaf of bread consisting of flour, water, salt, and yeast would contain the number of miles between: the wheat field and the mill + the mill and bakery + salt mine to the processing plant + processing plant to the packaging site + packaging site to the bakery + yeast production site to the bakery + the bakery to the super market distribution centre + the super market distribution centre to the store.
This sounds like a lot of work, but with the advanced tracking systems we have today and the advanced ERP (business resource planning software) systems which most business have setup this process is actually relatively straight-forward. And making this change will benefit not only customers, and local farmers, but businesses as well.
As a life long food eater (and after working as a consultant with several major food producers) this is something which I see as entirely do-able and I’m astonished does not exist already!
Why Trump should establish it
Food miles provides a way for Trump to create jobs in the US while demonstrating that his administration cares about the health of its population. To those who still view food miles as a emissions reduction ploy (the science does not appear to support this - see below) it will also signal an environmental commitment. As this article cleverly points out, it is protectionism wrapped in a feel good peel.
Just as nutrition labels on food gives us information on how our food may effect our bodies food miles will give us an indication of how our food effects our world. And, just as nutritional labels give health conscious people the ability to choose foods which positively effect their health, food miles labels will give environmentally and economically focused people the chance to choose foods which positively impact their nation.
Because of the way the food miles are calculated its relatively obvious that unprocessed, local produce will have the lowest number of food miles. This has a number of benefits which start at the personal level and echo through to a global benefit.
Firstly, food miles will encourage consumers to avoid highly process, complex foods with large quantities of ingredients. Imagine a consumer choosing between two fruit bars. One contains a collection of different sugars, stabilisers, preservatives, fruit extracts, and food dyes. The other contains dates, apples, and nuts. Because of the laundry list of esoteric ingredients derived through all kinds of chemical processes and shipped from a wide variety of processing facilities the first bar might have millions of food miles. The second might have a few thousand.
Secondly, food miles will sustain local farming jobs and may even create some. Food miles provides consumers with a tangible reminder that one head of lettuce in the store was grown down the road, whilst another head lettuce may have been trucked up from Guatemala. Those who are interested in buying local will now be able to identify local foods. The more interest in local produce, the more jobs their will be.
This is not the only jobs food miles will create. There are many products which require food additives, preservatives or other chemical ingredients. Manufacturers interested in lowering the food miles of those products would look first for local producers of these additives, which would in turn lead to an increase in small batch manufacturing.
All of this will likely cost food manufacturers substantially, but it is not totally without upside to them either. Carefully tracking and sourcing ingredients requires more thoughtful procurement and accounting procedures — facets of business which are usually neglected in small to medium enterprises. As these are fleshed out to create the required systems to calculate food miles it is likely that cost savings and quality improvements will follow.
Finally, there will likely be an impact on carbon emissions related to food production. Though you might at first think that this would be the whole point of the exercise it turns out that choosing more locally grown food does not guarantee less carbon. Take buying tomatoes from Mexico versus growing them locally in Denver. While it saves you a semi-truck driving up from the border that emission is offset by the need to heat the Denver greenhouse for two months of the year, something that they don’t need to do in Mexico. This has probably been the most explored aspect of the food miles idea and is well covered in this paper, and this one.
How we get it done
All of this sounds pretty exciting right? Better food, local jobs, and good for the planet to boot! But how do we actually get it done?
One option is to establish an independent non-profit rating organisation — similar to the way the organic labelling was established. This organisation would offer to assist the manufacturers in setting up food miles calculations on the theory that this will help them drive sales. At the same time they would work to convince stores -especially the Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s of the world — to require this certification of their suppliers. This would take time and its likely that only those companies who manufacture comparatively low food miles products would be willing to sign up.
The other, and in my mind better, way is to institute food miles the same way we introduced calorie counts. In this version of events the FDA ultimately requires food manufacturers to display the food miles of their product on their packaging similar to the nutrition label requirement which is in place today. This is the best solution, since it will get all food labelled for comparison and make auditing the responsibility of the government which has the power to enforce these rules. It also seems like the natural extension of the consumer information trend we have been on for the last few decades.
Depending on who you are there is a lot you can do to get the process started:
+ if you are a student or an academic, researching and better characterising the economic and health benefits of the program
+ if you are a food manufacturer or retailer, preemptively adopting the standard for your products or store
+ if you are a citizen of the United States, signing this petition, actively requesting food miles be instituted
+ if you believe this is a good thing to do, clicking the heart 💚 and starting to get the word out
