How realistic is a sustainable supply chain, asks Liz Hamson
Local sourcing would be the single most effective way to reduce food miles, it suggests. However, it adds that this would not necessarily have any bearing on energy use, another important factor in sustainability. Take the case of a whole chicken versus a chicken ready meal. The former demands significantly more energy to get from farm to plate, because of the energy required by a domestic cooker to prepare it. And then there is the whole question of how the consumer will respond to the inevitable increase in prices that lower food miles would translate to.
There are no easy answers, admits Tim Lang, professor of food policy, City University, who invented the concept of food miles. “Behind the notion of food miles, there are lots of complex issues, such as carbon dioxide emissions, HGV use, fossil fuel use.”
Are food miles - and specifically their reduction - the way to a more sustainable food chain? Short answer: maybe not. A fortnight ago, Defra’s The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development report hit the headlines with its stark calculation that food transport currently costs £9bn a year in terms of environmental, social and economic costs.
Food miles were bad and needed to be reduced, the national press reported, and who was to blame? The supermarkets, of course. Had they read the full report, a rather more complex picture would have emerged.
Yes, Defra highlights the critical role played by the supermarkets. It points to imports. “Over half of the food imported in 2002 was indigenous, ie at the time when it was imported, it could have been sourced from the UK. Sometimes this is partly attributed to consumer preference for certain varieties, but many would in fact prefer to buy British food and in these cases, an important driver is the supermarket chains’ own preference for dealing with suppliers who can supply large quantities of produce of a uniform quality and appearance year round,” it says.
However, it adds, the relationship between the supermarkets’ activities, food miles and sustainability is difficult to gauge. “Centralised distribution does not always lead to an increase in food miles. Single sourcing can benefit the transport operation by consolidating inbound flows of supplies, allowing firms to achieve higher load factors and lower delivery costs per head, particularly important where they are operating within a Just In Time regime.
“JIT would be expected to lead to an increase in the ratio of vehicle kms to tonne kms, because it is associated with smaller, more frequent deliveries. However, payloads have increased over the past two decades suggesting the potentially adverse affects of JIT have been avoided.”
In other words, it adds: “Whilst food miles have impacts in all three areas of sustainability: economic, environmental and social, it is not always clear whether a decrease in food transport would necessarily lead to an increase in sustainability, and there may be some cases where the reverse is true.”
The report nevertheless recommends that efforts be made to reduce food miles. It argues that if the competitiveness of UK suppliers could be improved through a more effective code of conduct, that would enable them to compete more effectively with suppliers in other countries and food miles from imported produce could then be reduced, it says.
However, he adds: “The joy of food miles is that they are simple. If food miles go up, something bad is happening. The revolution in supermarkets and logistics, while brilliant on its own terms, is stark-staring mad. We now know that this can’t go on.
“Food miles are too crude but there’s something important there when you unravel them. Not to knock the food and drink industry, but this says it has to change.”
If it doesn’t get to grips with the impact of its supply chain, warn both Lang and Defra, whether that impact is measured by food miles or not, the prospect of a sustainable supply chain will recede ever further.
Local sourcing would be the single most effective way to reduce food miles, it suggests. However, it adds that this would not necessarily have any bearing on energy use, another important factor in sustainability. Take the case of a whole chicken versus a chicken ready meal. The former demands significantly more energy to get from farm to plate, because of the energy required by a domestic cooker to prepare it. And then there is the whole question of how the consumer will respond to the inevitable increase in prices that lower food miles would translate to.
There are no easy answers, admits Tim Lang, professor of food policy, City University, who invented the concept of food miles. “Behind the notion of food miles, there are lots of complex issues, such as carbon dioxide emissions, HGV use, fossil fuel use.”
Are food miles - and specifically their reduction - the way to a more sustainable food chain? Short answer: maybe not. A fortnight ago, Defra’s The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development report hit the headlines with its stark calculation that food transport currently costs £9bn a year in terms of environmental, social and economic costs.
Food miles were bad and needed to be reduced, the national press reported, and who was to blame? The supermarkets, of course. Had they read the full report, a rather more complex picture would have emerged.
Yes, Defra highlights the critical role played by the supermarkets. It points to imports. “Over half of the food imported in 2002 was indigenous, ie at the time when it was imported, it could have been sourced from the UK. Sometimes this is partly attributed to consumer preference for certain varieties, but many would in fact prefer to buy British food and in these cases, an important driver is the supermarket chains’ own preference for dealing with suppliers who can supply large quantities of produce of a uniform quality and appearance year round,” it says.
However, it adds, the relationship between the supermarkets’ activities, food miles and sustainability is difficult to gauge. “Centralised distribution does not always lead to an increase in food miles. Single sourcing can benefit the transport operation by consolidating inbound flows of supplies, allowing firms to achieve higher load factors and lower delivery costs per head, particularly important where they are operating within a Just In Time regime.
“JIT would be expected to lead to an increase in the ratio of vehicle kms to tonne kms, because it is associated with smaller, more frequent deliveries. However, payloads have increased over the past two decades suggesting the potentially adverse affects of JIT have been avoided.”
In other words, it adds: “Whilst food miles have impacts in all three areas of sustainability: economic, environmental and social, it is not always clear whether a decrease in food transport would necessarily lead to an increase in sustainability, and there may be some cases where the reverse is true.”
The report nevertheless recommends that efforts be made to reduce food miles. It argues that if the competitiveness of UK suppliers could be improved through a more effective code of conduct, that would enable them to compete more effectively with suppliers in other countries and food miles from imported produce could then be reduced, it says.
However, he adds: “The joy of food miles is that they are simple. If food miles go up, something bad is happening. The revolution in supermarkets and logistics, while brilliant on its own terms, is stark-staring mad. We now know that this can’t go on.
“Food miles are too crude but there’s something important there when you unravel them. Not to knock the food and drink industry, but this says it has to change.”
If it doesn’t get to grips with the impact of its supply chain, warn both Lang and Defra, whether that impact is measured by food miles or not, the prospect of a sustainable supply chain will recede ever further.
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