Podcasts

Food safety and industry concentration How the back seat of a car is like a bag of leafy greens

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:02 — 13.2MB)

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In the previous episode, I talked to Phil Howard of Michigan State University about concentration in the food industry. Afterwards, I realised I had been so taken up with what he was telling me that I forgot to ask him one crucial question.

Is there any effect of concentration on public health or food safety?

It seems intuitively obvious that if you have long food chains, dependent on only a few producers, there is the potential for very widespread outbreaks. That is exactly what we are seeing in the current outbreaks of dangerous E. coli on romaine lettuce and Salmonella in eggs. But it is also possible that big industrial food producers both have the capital to invest in food safety and face stiffer penalties when things go wrong.

Are small producers and short food chains better? Marc Bellemare, at the University of Minnesota, has uncovered a strong correlation between some food-borne illnesses and the number of farmers’ markets relative to the population.

Phil thinks one answer is greater decentralization. There’s no good reason why all the winter lettuce and spinach in America should come from a tiny area around Yuma, Arizona. Marc says consumer education would help; we need to handle the food we buy with more attention to keeping it safe. Both solutions will take quite large changes in behaviour, by government and by ordinary people.

Right now, it probably isn’t possible to say with any certainty whether one system is inherently safer than the other. But even asking the question raises some interesting additional questions. If you have answers, or even suggestions, let me know.

Notes

  1. Phil Howard’s work on food-borne illness is on his website.
  2. Marc Bellemare’s work on farmers’ markets and food-borne illness has gone through a few iterations. He’ll email you a copy of the final paper if you ask.
  3. An episode early last year looked at aspects of food safety in developing countries. Spoiler: shorter food chains are safer there.
  4. Banner photo, norovirus. Cover photo, E. coli. Both public domain to the best of my knoweldge.

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Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 077

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7 May 2018

  1. Sure you can recreate 17th century recipes, but are you using “authentic” ingredients? In a new approach to food history, researchers are sending their raw (and cured) materials across the Atlantic – by sailing ship.
  2. Which is a far cry from how wine crosses the oceans today – in a wine box, but not as we know it. Rachel Laudan writes about another case in which industrial processes deliver better quality to more people.
  3. There are, apparently, more than 460 different “ecolabels” – 59 of which are about food. But guess what? Many of them are so keen to get big players on board that they may well be doing more harm than good, “providing ‘green cover’ for firms that are destroying the environment”. Maybe we need some concentration in the food certification industry?
  4. To soak or not to soak, that’s the bean question. I do, starting with warm water, but Steve Sando says it doesn’t much matter either way. And he should know; he’s the man who started Rancho Gordo beans. You may have seen the profile of him in The New Yorker. I suspect it is all down to freshness.
  5. And a follow up to the article in the previous newsletter, about mothers’ milk offering niutrition to good bacteria. Alison Aubrey did an interesting report for NPR, featuring research from UC Davis. Probiotics are, of course, a huge industry.
Extra Matter

Beverage skullduggery Drinker beware

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Byron Bay Pale Lager comes with “labelling that incorporated the name Byron Bay Pale Lager, a pictorial representation of a lighthouse, text regarding Byron Bay and a map of the Byron Bay region showing the location of the Byron Bay Brewing Company,” according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Fair enough. Byron Bay is the kind of hippy dippy place where a little local brewer might be concocting some fine craft beers. And Byron Bay Brewing Company does in fact make a Pale Lager. As the bottle’s label explains:

We’re housed in an historic location, a birthplace of much of the fame and spirit of Byron Bay which has attracted local and international musicians, artists and alternative thinkers since the ’70s. Next time you’re in town, drop in and have a beer.’

So what’s the problem? Unless you were actually in that historic location, the Byron Bay Pale Lager you were downing was actually brewed by Carlton & United Breweries at a site hundreds of kilometres to the south, near Sydney. The ACCC fined Carlton & United a piddling amount — $20,400, AUD presumably — for misleading consumers. CUB promised not to do it again (at least for three years), and to “provide supplementary training for senior managers within CUB’s marketing department”.

And, of course, Byron Bay Brewing Company was more than happy to take CUB’s money at the outset, as are lots of craft brewers in Australia and elsewhere.

Everybody’s doing it

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this happened in Australia, the place that may have invented faux dough “sourdough” bread. But the business of crafty marketing seems global.

And as heard in the podcast, the practice is rife in America. I’ll bet there are plenty of other examples around.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the whole David and Goliath nonsense is the Budweiser Superbowl adverts in 2015 and 2016. Someday, I predict, and probably quite soon, nascent marketeers will write wordy theses about the story, none of which will do anything to dispel the sheer delight of the advertisement and its exegesis.

Also at Jeremycherfas.net.

Podcasts

Who owns whom in the food industry Made from concentrate

 , , 17

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:48 — 18.5MB)

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Philip Howard
It came as quite a shock to me to discover that a couple of my favourite craft beers in America were nothing of the sort. Both are brewed by behemoths. That’s just one of the revelations in a recent study by Phil Howard, Associate Professor of rural sustainability at Michigan State University. He’s probably done more than anyone to uncover the ownership relationships offering what looks like a mind-numbing assortment of brands.

In most sectors, from seeds to prepared organic meals, very few companies lie behind that cornucopia of apparent choice. In addition to charting trends in patterns of ownership, Howard also explains some of the ways in which the concentration of power hurts both ends of the chain, those who grow ingredients and we who eat and drink.

Notes

  1. Phil Howard’s website offers access to all his work. It is an eye opener.
  2. Reading around the topic, it quickly became clear that a Budweiser commercial broadcast during the 2015 Superbowl might, possibly, represent a tipping point of some sort. It’s all rather funny. See for yourself. And read all about it. And then tell me: why can’t AB-InBev just leave people who don’t want to drink their beer alone? ((I know, it’s business. But why?))
  3. Incidental music by Podington Bear.

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Extra Matter

Farm operators are not farmers

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Having linked to the original piece at 538, it would be remiss of me not to link to these two threads rebutting its main conclusions.

Alas, I have no idea what will happen to those threads in the future. I do wish people would not entrust their only copy of these things to a place they cannot control.