Small Steps to Health

Fresh Produce, Food Miles, and Country of Origin Labeling

September 9th, 2008 by asithi · 7 Comments

Tagged Healthy Eating, food marketing, healthy eating, supermarket

Photo by Natalie Maynor

Even during ancient times, food spoilage during transport for trading is a big issue.  Trading food required some method to prevent spoiling.  In those days, food is often salted, dried, or sugared (jams and jellies).  When the food is not spoiled, it is considered “fresh.”

Fast forward today and our standard for “freshness” is much higher.  50-60 years ago, the produce sections of supermarkets were limited in variety to whatever was in season, grown locally, or brought in from places no more than a few days away.  But refrigeration in trains, trucks, and airplanes forever changed our definition of “fresh produce.”

This post will discuss the definition of “fresh produce” (the supermarket’s definition that is), food miles, and country of origin labeling.

The definition of fresh produce

The “cold chain” is the ability to keep fruits and vegetables cold from the instant they are picked to the moment we put them in our shopping cart.  Refrigeration during transport means that the produce sections are no longer constrained by growing season or location.  We have come to expect the ability to buy almost any type of fruit or vegetable year around.

I am lucky to live in California.  Most of the fresh produce found in this country is from this state.  When in season, the produce I buy spend less time in the cold chain than people buying the same produce in New York.

For a large supermarket chain with it own distribution system, the produce undergo an epic “cold chain” journey like this:  farm, local warehouse, regional distribution center, refrigerated truck or railcar, regional distribution center at the destination, another refrigerated truck, destination supermarket, backroom stocking area, floor, and finally shelf.  All this can take 7-10 days.  It is unlikely the produce is kept cold throughout this entire odyssey during transfer in and out of trucks and warehouses.  So if you are eating a California nectarine in New York, it is at least 7 days older than the one I am eating, but it would still be consider fresh by supermarket standards.

Supermarkets’ definition of “fresh” refers to food that spoil quicker than others (such as packaged goods).  It does not mean that the produce were picked earlier in the day or even that week.

Some “fresh produce” are subjected to processing before they even hit a supermarket shelf.  Bananas and tomatoes are often picked while still green, then chilled, warmed, and treated with gases to make them ripen.  Bagged vegetables and salads have been washed, cut, and subjected to modified atmosphere packaging (changing the proportion of oxygen and carbon dioxide to delay spoilage).  Notice how bagged salad spoil faster when you keep them outside of the bag it came in?  And baby carrots are anything, but baby.

Food Miles and Country of Origin Labeling

Produce grown in California and shipped to New York have to endure about 3,000 food miles.  Food ecologists use food miles as a way to measure the social and environmental costs of commercial food production such as the pollution of farmland or water supplies, the health of farm workers, or the depletion of fossil fuel.

Knowing the origin of our produce not only help us make social decisions about its environmental impact, but it help us guess its freshness and nutritional value.  In 2002, Congress passed a law requiring “country of origin labeling” (aka COOL labeling) to take effect in 2004.  Since then, it has been pushed back to late 2008.  I have yet seen this in supermarkets, other than some voluntary labeling.

COOL labeling is universally opposed by the food industry, calling it an “undue burden.”  Instead they rather change this bill into a voluntary country of origin labeling.  Food suppliers think that COOL labeling would hurt their profits by forcing them to track the source of their foods, keep foods from different locations separated (this is a biggie since food from different countries are often mixed in the same pile), and labeled food accordingly.  But most of all, they are afraid that once we know the source of our produce, we might reject foods from places we distrust either because of safety concerns or political reasons.

Would you stop buying certain type of produce if you know the produce you are buying is from thousand of miles away?  Would you pick the local ones instead?

For my readers in Europe, I believe country of origin labeling is already in place in Europe.  Has that impact how you grocery shop?  My guess is that most people do not think too much about it.

Until next time and thanks for stopping by Small Steps to Health.

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