The future of the food system is probably not something that is going to keep most Canadians up tonight. Thanks to technology, cheap inputs, externalization, and the economies of scale, the average Canadian spends only a small fraction (~10%) of their income on food, and consequently is content to live in blissful ignorance of where their food comes from and how it came to be in their grocery store, restaurant, etc. By isolating ourselves from the food system, we place the responsibility for our food supply in the hand of a relatively few large corporations, aka the food industry. For most commodities and services, the conventional capitalistic model, while morally heinous, functions. Although the current entrepreneurial approach to the food system appears to be working well, it is really a matter of perspective.
So how is the food industry different, and why is it deserving of special consideration? The simplest and most obvious reason is that that we all dependent upon a steady supply of food for our continued survival as individuals and as a species. Another, and perhaps more important point, is that the demand for food as a commodity is relatively finite. According to Statistics Canada, the Canadian population has grown less than 5% in the last five years. This inherent limitation of the food system expansion, the stomach factor, does not exist in other industries.
The stomach factor places an incredible amount of strain on food companies to find other ways to increase profits, which they must do. The options include, but is not exclusive to:
- Get people to eat more
- Increase their share of the market
- Sell their products for more
- Produce the products for less
- Find other uses for their products
All of these options are potential threats to food security,
a basic human right that is upheld when all individuals in society have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food that is culturally-appropriate, sustainably-produced (ecologically, economically and socially), and is obtained in a manner that upholds the dignity of the individual
It goes without saying that food security is something that the Canadian government does very little to guarantee (a topic for another day).
1. Get people to eat more:
This has been a "big" success. According to a Statistics Canada report, estimated per capita calorie consumption rose ~1-3% each year between 1993 and 2003; however, a more recent report indicates that this trend has appeared to plateau since then. The success of this method is apparent by our expanding waistline and diminished health. I recently shared a case study of a 2-year old child that was consuming ~3,000-4,000 kcal/day with consequent liver disease. Sadly, the up-and-coming generation of increasing obese children is a real boon for the food industry who actually can measure profits in pounds. Not only will they likely require more calories, they will lend support the "niche" market of weight loss products in their almost futile attempts to look like _______ (insert celebrity name).
The burden of their success is that obesity is now on the radar of most people, and serious efforts are underway to stigmatize overeating, limit portion sizes, and make people more calorie-savvy. It is possible that the simultaneous attempts to increase physical activity (if successful) could help to curb the decreases in food consumption related to living healthier. Another way around this problem is to alter the composition of the calorie-providing nutrients in food to make it so we can't absorb them (aka fat and sugar substitutes). The added advantage of this approach is that the corresponding products can be sold for more - nothing like having your Splenda cake and eating it to.
2. Increase their share of the market:
Ultimately, it is difficult to know for sure whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing. If people start consuming more fresh fruits and vegetables at the expense of convenience foods, it would be wonderful. However, I cannot really remember the last time that I saw an advertisement for broccoli. This is partly because there isn't a lot you can do with fresh broccoli to increase value (pre-chopped for convenience?), making it a poor investment for food manufacturers. Yet, this doesn't correspond to a cheaper, more competitive product that is able to dominate the market. As most people have become aware, the cheapest foods are often those that are mass produced with excessive inputs, and are heavily processed and packaged. These products maintain the lowest price in spite of the costs related to manufacturing and advertising. This paradox is made possible by government subsidies, which permit the sale of certain crops, those that drive the food manufacturing industry (mostly corn and soy), at less than the cost of production. With all foods lobbying for position in our stomachs, when a select few crops start to dominate, our food supply loses its diversity. This has implications for both the sustainability of the food system and the nutritiousness of the food supply. One of the tenets of healthy eating is to eat a variety of foods - this is meant to decrease the likelihood that a nutrient is deficient and/or provided in excess.
A related battle is between food we prepare ourselves and that which we eat outside the home. If a greater proportion of the food was prepared by ourselves from scratch, it would undoubtedly be healthier for us and better for the environment. Again, your stove doesn't advertise, but the restaurant industry that would like to increase its share of the market will, and convincingly. We are so convinced that we consume the majority of our meals outside the home. The downside of this is that, unlike in your home, the restaurant industry wants you to eat more of their food, and will attempt to accomplish this by increasing portion sizes and/or providing incentives for eating more - would you like to increase that to a large for just 25 cents more?
Assuming that the proportion of the food market occupied by convenience foods and restaurants continues to increase, the problem will propagate itself by increasing their political clout and nefarious advertising, and perhaps most concerning, by reducing our self-efficacy for meal preparation. As we lose the ability and confidence in preparing meals from scratch, we become more dependent of the food industry to feed us, and relinquish our control of what goes into our food. The current excess consumption of salt is just one example of an additive that we are unlikely to use so liberally in meals prepared at home.
3. Sell their products for more:
This has typically been accomplished by adding value to products, usually in the form of nutritionism and/or convenience. Unfortunately, it is usually the least healthy products that have the most perceived value, and are able to be sold for more. For example, adding fish oil to sugar-sweetened yoghurt and advertising it as important for a child's brain development. Sometimes the added value is nothing at all. Most recently, I bought some raison that are "cholesterol-free". For those who aren't aware, no plant-based food contains cholesterol, but it certainly sounds good.
Another interesting approach, which I have noticed more often, is providing low-calorie (smaller) versions of products for the health conscious consumer. My favorite is the 100 kcal chocolate bars that are sold for almost the same price as the regular chocolate bar, although the 100 kcal yoghurts are a close second. I'm guessing somewhere in the proprietary world of research there was a study demonstrating that consumers viewed 100 kcal as being a healthy snack amount. Either way, I suspect that these smaller portioned products that are able to be sold for almost the same price as their larger counterparts are going to become more pervasive in our food supply in the years to come.
4. Produce the products for less:
Cost-saving measures are almost never going to be beneficial for all involved. Attempts to streamline agriculture processes have resulted in the current landscape of massive monocultures and factory farms, both of which are vulnerable and generate large amounts of wastes. They are made vulnerable by both a lack of genetic diversity, but also by the fact that should the inevitable happen (food borne illness, mad cow disease, etc.), literally millions of pounds of food need to be pulled from supermarket shelves. Case in point, in 2008, 143 million pounds of ground beef was recalled following an animal cruelty scandal at the slaughterhouses. That same year, several lives were lost, and over a 1 million pounds of meat was recalled following the listeria outbreak from Maple Leaf. While the likelihood of these events may be similar in a small operation (unlikely), the consequences are greatly reduced.
Probably the most effective way to reduce the cost of production is to increase biomass disproportionate to the increase in cost, which is made possible in conventional agriculture thanks to cheap inputs. However, as the cost of energy increases, so does the cost of conventional agriculture, and the amount of government subsidies needed to maintain the current system of cheap, processed foods.
5. Find other uses for their products:
This relatively recent venture is mostly limited to the crops that are so well subsidized that other industries want to take advantage of the cheap inputs. In particular, the deconstruction of crops such as canola into basic chemical components allows us to do almost anything with it, most notably producing plastics and fuel. This new market has been great for producers as the increase demand drives up the price. However, given the limited amount of arable land, this trend towards growing crops for non-food uses places greater strain on the available land and food industries.
I have discussed 5 ways that the food corporations can continue to thrive in a capitalistic model. Most of these approaches contribute to food insecurity, something that future generations will probably have to deal with. It is unlikely that we can stop the food industry machine as too much of our food supply is tied up in it. However, it may be possible to regain back some of the control that we have lost over our food by simply ensuring that each and every day that majority of things we put in our face are actually food that we prepared. It won't save us money and will take time out of our busy day, but it will be healthier (in most cases), and will provide hope for the future of food.
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