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Where Does You Lunch Come From?

© Bob Ewing

Where does you food come from? How far does it travel? What are the alternatives? The answers to these three questions are helpful when we set out to explore the journey that our food makes from the farm where it is produced to your kitchen where it is prepared. For the majority of people, the grocery store is where they purchase their supplies.

Grocery shopping where I live in Thunder Bay, Ontario provides an interesting perspective on how far some "fresh" food actually travels before it arrives in the kitchen. Thunder Bay is located on the North Shore of Lake Superior where we have fewer than 100 frost free days each year. This means that we need to import much of our produce but when I see that even in September the apples on sale are coming from California, I must question how sustainable is this food delivery system and how fresh are the apples?

The journey your dinner takes is anything but simple. Of course, if you grow your own food, you will simplify the process tremendously, because you only have to step out to your garden. Pick what you need and prepare it. The farther your meal has to travel, the more complex the infrastructure that is needed to make that travel possible.

The food system can be as simple as the grow-your-own example or it can involve hundreds of people, thousands of miles and tons of machinery to move it from where it is grown to your kitchen. For example, industrial agriculture is designed to produce large quantities of a particular product for a vast market. However, there are alternatives.

Creative partnerships have emerged which are designed to reduce the cost both economically and environmentally of industrial food production and increase the fresh food supply. How far you have to ship food is a core issue. If you stop and think about it, which is fresher, an apple picked in a local orchard or one picked two thousand miles away, packed in crates, then in a container and loaded unto a truck or train? Some organizations have developed innovative ways to produce and deliver food. Other organizations have examined rural areas looking for ways to diversify the economic base while remaining eco-friendly.

There has been considerable research conducted to increase our knowledge about how food systems can provide a profit for the producer and good, healthy food, at a reasonable cost, for the consumer. What we need is a sustainable and accessible food supply sytem.

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