Manufacturers offer alternative food labelling

[Anthony Butcher]

The problem is that there is no workable scheme for calculating foodmiles, yet there is still a demand from customers to know how far it travels. There is going to have to be some leeway in what qualifies as local to make it workable. That might include removing pesticides from the calculations for the sake of getting a working scheme.

You could also specify that food that had been air-freighted could not be called local under any circumstances.

I think that as long as 90% of a meal is made from produce bought within a certain mile radius it should be able to qualify as local. There is simply no way that a restaurant can investigate where each supplier purchases its pesticides and fertiliser.

[Astrocat]

The problem is that there is no workable scheme for calculating foodmiles, yet there is still a demand from customers to know how far it travels. There is going to have to be some leeway in what qualifies as local to make it workable. That might include removing pesticides from the calculations for the sake of getting a working scheme.

The first question to be considered would be "is it possible to have a workable food-miles scheme among the general populace, which is also meaningful enough to be worth having ?"

You could also specify that food that had been air-freighted could not be called local under any circumstances.

This seems illogical to me.

If a company is in Wick and has produce flown to Kirkwall via air..... then that produce is surely no less "local" , than if the same company sent the same produce across the Pentland Channel on the ferry.

As far as I am aware, presently Waitrose is the only supermarket which has bothered to define what it thinks is "local" .... that being anything which was grown within 30 miles of the store where it is sold, regardless of any transportation involved to grow the food, the manner in which it is transported over those 30 miles, how native or alien the produce is to the area where it is grown, etcetera.

Would you consider their opinion on local produce to be acceptable ?

[Anthony Butcher]

Originally Posted by Astrocat

The first question to be considered would be "is it possible to have a workable food-miles scheme among the general populace, which is also meaningful enough to be worth having ?"

I don't see why not. As long as it is acceptable to the majority of consumers then it is workable. Obviously there will be disagreements about what constitutes local, even once a scheme is put in place.

Originally Posted by Astrocat

If a company is in Wick and has produce flown to Kirkwall via air..... then that produce is surely no less "local" , than if the same company sent the same produce across the Pentland Channel on the ferry.

The whole ethos of local food is not the mileage, but the transportation involved I think. I imagine that most people wouldn't approve of unnecessary flights, but this isn't really a big issue for local food.

Originally Posted by Astrocat

Would you consider their opinion on local produce to be acceptable ?

Thirty miles isn't a very large area.

[Astrocat]

As long as it is acceptable to the majority of consumers then it is workable.

That didn't answer the question, though.


What I had asked, was :
"is it possible to have a workable food-miles scheme among the general populace, which is also meaningful enough to be worth having ?"


Whether or not something is acceptable to the majority of the general masses, that in itself is irrelevant in deciding whether or not that thing is meaningful.

Thirty miles isn't a very large area.

Oh ? It seems pretty large, to me....
For example, when is the last time that you walked 30 miles ?

That's around the width of the island where I live.

You didn't mention...
Do you agree with them, when they say that within 30 miles ought to be considered 'local' , while outside 30 miles ought not to be ?

The whole ethos of local food is not the mileage, but the transportation involved I think.

It really does seem that way to me sometimes, and it seems so ridiculous.
Some people like to make a big moral brouhaha regarding the transportation element of carrots which have been flown from England to Scotland - but at the same time, will quietly tuck into their ship-freighted-then-trucked-for-hundreds-of-miles peas from Germany, apples from france, and olives from Greece without a concern in the world.

Because, you know, they haven't been flown anywhere - so what's the problem ?

Doesn't that seem a bit inconsistent to you, though ?
It certainly does, to me.