Full report at Times Online

Why long-haul food may be greener that local food with low air-miles

Food miles were pushed by a '90s advocacy group as a major enviro concern - more food was travelling as supermarkets tightened their hold on the distribution of food. Food was being trucked to a central depot then trucked again to local markets.

Even so, the food mad media started screaming that it was the world travelling food that was making a hole in the ozone over the north pole.

But wait a minute.

At a conference last month on the economics of food, Chris Foster of Manchester Business School presented some startling conclusions from a review of the evidence.

The biggest environmental impact of many food products, he said, came from their production. Bulk transport by land or sea was of “low significance”. And he suggested that policy-makers should “critically unpick the ‘local food’ agenda”.


Foster points out that local production and a distribution system involving lots of vans and cars miss the environmental benefits of economies of scale.

Just over a ton of goods moved six miles as part of a 22-ton lorry load generates about 14oz of CO2; moved in 50 cars, each carrying 40lb, it generates about 22lb. (Incidentally, the customers driving to and fro markets are among the biggest generators of CO2 in Britain so think of the impact of North American drivers going to market.)

Researchers now prefer what they call the “life cycle assessment” (LCA) of food products - the environmental impact from farm to fork. The results are often counter-intuitive. Tomatoes grown in the natural heat of Spain have less “global warming potential” (GWP) than out-of-season British tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses.

As well, researchers in New Zealand claim that antipodean lamb and apples use less energy – even after being transported 12,000 miles – than the same products from Britain. A study by Lincoln University in New Zealand compared the use of fuel, electricity, pesticides, fodder, transportation, storage and other items and calculated that a ton of New Zealand apples generated the equivalent of 407lb of CO2 compared with almost 600lb for UK apples.

The difference was even more marked in lamb. The study claimed that a ton of New Zealand lamb carcass generated more than half a ton of compared with about three tons for British lamb. Much of the huge CO2 disparity was down to the use of electricity and fertiliser in rearing the British lambs.

Peter Gordon, a New Zealand chef who runs Providores restaurant in Marylebone, central London, believes that such considerations justify using imported products. “We source lamb from New Zealand as well as Wales. Food miles is a great term, but in reality the big issue is sustainability,” he says. “Consumers will look at a pineapple from Ghana and won’t buy it because it has terrible food miles. But the Ghanaian farmer has a tiny carbon footprint.”

Jetting food does gobble carbon miles - but very little food is flown.