Local Foods Memo: Tesco's 1,000 Mile 'Local' Scottish Chickens

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get into the truck for its 1,000-mile round trip of course.

Retail giant Tesco, the world's number three retailer and the UK's largest supermarket chain, is coming under fire from environmentalists and shoppers today in the United Kingdom (UK) for labeling chickens sold in it's stores as "local" despite the fact the birds' actually have taken a 1,000-mile round trip to be slaughtered, packaged and then transported to the grocer's stores in Scotland.

The thrust of the matter regarding the "local" labeled but well-traveled birds is that the grocery retailer is currently selling chickens in its Scotland stores that have been raised at a chicken farm in North-East Scotland, then sent 499 miles to Essex to be processed, before then being shipped back to the Scotland stores to be sold. Perhaps Tesco should change the label to "locally raised for now. Or, use another local packaging plant.

But, that seems to be the crux of the problem. According to the UK industry trade publication Meat Trades Journal, the chickens killed at the Grampian Country Foods slaughterhouse in Perthshire, Scotland (local so far) are being shipped (at least until today perhaps) to Witham in South-East Essex (499 miles away) for packaging because the regular packaging plant in Banff, Abberdeenshire (which is close to Perthshire) shut down last year. So much for outsourcing locally and then not finding another local packaging plant right away.

UK environmental groups such as Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, are accusing Tesco of a lack of full-disclosure by still labeling the birds as "local." The "green" groups' also are saying the chickens' 1,000-mile round trip--from near the Scotland stores to 499 miles away and back again--is creating unneeded extra food miles and adding to the country's already growing carbon emissions. Sounds logical to us.

Another UK environmental group, Friends of the Earth, also issued a statement today about the non-local, "local chickens." Vicki Hird (rhymes with bird), a Friends of the Earth spokesperson, said: "Consumers thinking they are buying 'greener,' local and Scottish are actually buying pretty travel-sick chicken." In all fairness (at least to the birds) chickens travel much farther than 1,000 to get to the grocery store and are still tasty. But we do get Ms. Hird's point.

Tesco, the world's third-largest retailer, defended its travel itinerary plan for the birds in a statement saying basically it didn't have any option because the local packaging plant closed and they needed to get the chickens packaged for sale at the stores. A Tesco spokesperson didn't comment on how many chickens are being sent on the 1,000-mile round trip journey However, the retailer said it hopes to have the situation solved very soon

The local Grampian Country Foods' packaging plant closed last year (about six months ago), according to Max Tooley, Tesco's technical meat manager for poultry. Tooley added that although the situation has been going on for about six months (then why still label the birds as local we wonder?) it should "hopefully be solved in about two weeks," with the pending approval of a new packaging plant at a new site nearby where the chickens are slaughtered. We're glad it will be solved in two weeks. But that could be a long two weeks if Tesco doesn't take the local label off the chickens' packaging or the shelf.

Tesco shoppers weren't very happy today upon hearing the news that the "local" birds aren't really all that local because of their travels. Consumers buy "local" foods not just because they are raised locally, but also because they are processed and packaged locally as well. In other words, one of the keys to "locally grown" is that the products don't have to travel excessive food miles to get to the stores where shoppers buy them. Local equals a lower carbon footprint.

The locavore (local foods) movement defines a locally-produced food product as one that generally comes from no more than 100 miles from where it is sold at retail and purchased at the grocery store, or elsewhere, by a consumer. This local definition includes the food product being grown, processed, packaged and distributed within that 100-mile distance. Obviously, in the case of the 1,000 mile chickens, they don't quality under that definition.

Meanwhile, the revelation about the well-traveled "local" chickens is a serious hit for Tesco. It's CEO, Sir Terry Leahy, has been arguably the most outspoken of all UK retailers on the need for the supermarket industry to reduce its carbon footprint. In fact, under a plan of Leahy's, Tesco plans to eventually label all of the food and grocery products it sells in its stores with a "carbon footprint" label.

The label, similar to nutritional labels on packaged foods, will inform the consumer where the product was produced, processed and warehoused, and how many food miles it traveled to get to the Tesco store.

Tesco in the UK also has been a major proponent among UK food retailers of buying and selling locally-grown foods in its stores, including beef, pork, poultry and other food and grocery products. Local foods is a major issue among UK consumers, not only as part of the nation's popular and fast-growing green movement, but also as a way of preserving it's shrinking farming industry.

To the latter point, the Tesco chickens are raised locally. However, to the former point, the 1,000- mile journey--to the packaging plant and back again--violates the "green" aspects of the "buy local" movement.

It seems even without their wings, these particular Scottish Tesco chickens are still well-traveled birds.

Local Foods Memo: The Twenty-Mile Aisle Concept...and Other 'Local' Musings

Canadian writer Noah Richler, who's book This is My Country, What's Yours? won the 2007 B.C. award for Best Canadian Non-Fiction, has an essay in today's Toronto Star , in which he talks about the selling, buying and eating of local foods.

In his essay, Richler suggests supermarkets should create what he calls 100-mile aisles, or even 20-mile aisles, where grocery stores' feature a large selection of locally-grown and produced food and grocery products for sale.

The foods offered for sale in such aisles would come from no more than 100 miles (or 20 miles) from the store's location. The Locavore (local food) movement defines a Locavore as a person who buys and eats foods produced from not more than 100 miles from where they live. (Note: We believe 100 miles is just fine, rather than 20 miles. Let's not get too ridiculous.)

In addition to the local "miles-aisles" concept, Richler wants Canadian grocers to consider building smaller stores that focus almost exclusively on merchandising and selling local foods.

Although Richler is addressing Canadian grocers specifically, his ideas and suggestions obviously have international implications. He argues in his essay that labels like "food miles" and "organic" are often terms used merely to mask lousy food. Richler says regardless of such terms, the basic goal should be to make as many fresh, locally-produced foods available to consumers as is possible. (Read Richter's essay here.)

The "miles-aisles" local concept isn't new, just different

The one-hundred-mile aisle or twenty-mile aisle concept Richler is proposing to Canada's food retailers isn't a new or foreign concept to a growing number of grocers throughout the world, or even in Canada for that matter.

Numerous large grocery chains, regional food retailers, and independents are offering locally-grown and produced foods in their stores more and more. Most of them are merchandising local foods in a store-wide manner rather then in a segregated store aisle. Of course, Richler's point isn't so much about how stores physically merchandise the local foods. Instead, his point is that more should do so, especially in Canada.

In the U.S., for example, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Publix, Wegmans, Safeway Stores and many other large chains have initiated local foods' merchandising programs in their stores. Regional chains such as Supervalu, Inc.'s Bristol Farms in Southern California, HEB in Texas, Raley's in Northern California and many others, are offering local foods selections, and actively searching out additional locally-produced goods to offer to shoppers.

The new Napa Whole Foods Market store sells thousands of locally-produced foods, like the wild mushrooms pictured above.

Whole Foods Market Inc.'s newest store, which just opened earlier this week in Napa, California, is featuring nearly every locally-produced natural, organic and specialty food product it can source in the new store.; from fresh produce, wine, craft beer and packaged goods, to wild mushrooms, cheeses and body care items. The grocer also is increasingly doing this in all of its stores in the U.S. and Canada (and in its one store in London). Selling local foods is a retail trend that's here, and growing fast.

In the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, selling local foods also is a growing trend among food retailers. in the UK, the large chains Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury's and others are increasing their local merchandising programs almost monthly. Asda, a UK division of mega-retailer Wal-Mart, recently announced it would make a major commitment to selling locally-produced food and grocery products in all its UK stores as well.

In fact, speaking of Wal-Mart, the retailer's Wal-Mart Canada division recently incorporated the merchandising and selling of locally-produced foods into its Canadian superstores in a big way. The retailer's Canadian Superstores are offering a large selection of local fresh produce, fresh meats, cheeses and packaged grocery products in all its stores.

The chain also is using its new, local foods program as a marketing tool. It's touting its commitment to buying from local producers in its advertising circulars and other retail marketing media messages, as well as inside the stores, using signage. (Read a short piece called "Wal-Mart-Canada Going Fresh, Local in New Superstores" we wrote in September, 2007 here.)

Everything is local at Brooklyn, New York's Urban Rustic grocery market

The Urban Rustic grocery store is urban-upscale on the outside (exterior) and rustic on the inside. It fits perfectly into its Brooklyn neighborhood.

Richler should be happy to hear about Urban Rustic, an independent neighborhood grocery store that opened last month in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

Nearly everything offered for sale in the store comes from no farther than 100-miles away. Most of the fresh produce is organic as well, as are many of the other items in the store.

Urban Rustic is the brainchild of film-maker Aaron Wolf, who wrote and produced the film King Corn, a documentary about corn and the key role that the crop plays in the North American food system. (You can read a piece we wrote about Woolf and the film here.)

Nearly all of the products that line the shelves inside the store are sourced from local growers and producers.

The approximately 3,500 square-foot neighborhood food store takes the concept of local seriously. In addition to its commitment to offering nearly all-local foods, the store also serves as a local neighborhood meeting place. It's in-store cafe encourages hanging-out, and is being offered to local neighborhood groups as a meeting place. The store also regularly holds meet-and-greet events between its customers and the local food producers it obtains its products from.

Urban Rustic's electric power comes from wind sources, and the wood used throughout its interior is from sustainably-harvested Adirondack, according to the owners.

Woolf says the store's philosophy and positioning is to connect Brooklyn urbanites with the farmers, growers and purveyors of their foods, along with offering local, fresh and packaged foods, which are produced sustainably, at a reasonable price. The few non-local products the store does sell are sourced from producers who follow ecologically-sustainable farming and production practices.

Urban Rustic is the first food store dedicated to trying to obtain and sell nearly 100% locally-produced food and grocery products we've been able to find in North America.

The philosophy of Urban Rustic and its owners is: "Everything's Local." This philosophy and practice extends all the way from the foods they sell, to the people the store serves.

Canada's Loblaws and local foods: What gives?

In his essay, Richler speaks directly to George Weston, Inc., the parent company of the Loblaws supermarket chain, Canada's biggest food retailer. Richler asks, as many Canadians currently are, why Loblaws hasn't initiated a comprehensive local foods program for its stores and started to offer a larger selection of locally-grown and produced foods.

At a recent shareholders meeting, Loblaws' CEO Galen Weston Jr. said the grocery chain was committed to "going local" in a big way, in addition to lowering prices in all its stores to better compete with the likes of Wal-Mart-Canada, which is building numerous new Supercenters throughout the country. Loblaws' sales and profits have been poor of late, and many analysts and others believe the chain needs to emphasise its hometown advantage by doing things like making a major effort in local foods' merchandising.

Despite Weston's "going local" comment at the shareholders' meeting, a recent survey of Loblaws' stores consucted by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), turned up no fresh meat (Canada raises lots of it) and very few fresh produce items in a number of the grocer's Superstores. Further, the CBC said they could find no Canadian-grown garlic (a common crop grown in eastern Ontario), and that all the apples (Canada grows lots of them) in the stores' produce departments were from outside the country.

Based on Loblaws' current performance, it would seem smart for the grocer to listen to Richler and the others when they encourage the hometown chain to put a major focus on local foods' selling. After all, even Wal-Mart, the retailer from the "bottom states," believes its a smart move to do so.

Emphasising local foods isn't going to cure all--or even most--of Loblaws' current sales and profit ills. However, it's a smart step not only in that direction, but in a nationalistic and community-based support direction as well. Big food retailers have big responsibilities. In addition to making money for their stakeholders, these responsibilities include supporting to the best degree possible the local communities where they do business.

By selling local foods, a grocery chain provides this support by encouraging and economically supporting local farmers, growers, producers, distributors and others. It's smart, ethical retailing, which is a trend more and more consumers are demanding of their food retailers. These same consumers also are rewarding these smart, ethical retailers increasingly with their shopping dollars.

Food & Society Memo: The Poor Get Diabetes, the Rich Get Local and Organic

In an excerpt from his new book, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, Mark Winne, a writer and the longtime director of the Hartford Food System in Hartford, Connecticut, analyzes and writes about what he says is a dangerous dietary split between those who have substantial economic means in the U.S. and those who don't.

Winne says the residents he worked with for 25 years in the low-income neighborhoods of Hartford knew all about organic and local fresh foods--and desired to have them--but were in the main unable to obtain the foods, not only for economic reasons, but because of logistical ones as well. Chief among these logistical or distribution reasons, is the lack of quality food stores in the inner-cities that offer healthy, fresh, organic and local foods at a reasonable price.

In his piece, Winne argues there are a variety of market-based and government-oriented public policy programs that could bring more fresh and healthy foods to poor people, especially those in the inner-city.

Further, he offers examples and potential solutions from his years running the Hartford Food System, and describes other innovative solutions to this serious problem being successfully implemented in places like Oakland, California, Massachusetts, and other places in the U.S.

Winnie's piece is thought-provoking, and offers some good solutions to this serious dietary problem faced by people living in America's inner cities (and rural regions as well).

The healthy "food gap" between America's haves and have-nots, as Winnie puts it, does continue to grow. Smart, creative and innovative solutions are needed to bridge this economic and social divide. These solutions also need to be provided in a partnership consisting of government, the private sector, non-profit groups, retailers and citizens.

We would also like to see America's food industry, especially retailers, work in partnership with food manufacturers, community groups and others to launch real, healthy food and shopping education programs in communities throughout the U.S., especially in the inner-cities and poor rural regions.

It's amazing how much money a person can save, and how much healthier they can eat, when they have knowledge. That knowledge needs to include a primer on how to shop economically: shopping weekly sales, the fact that "real" foods are cheaper than highly-processed ones, and other facts.

Home food preparation also needs to be a part of the classes. Scientific research has demonstrated that those people who cook and eat at home most often are far healthier than those who eat foods away from home most often. Cooking at home also is at least 50% cheaper overall than eating out regularly, even at fast food places.

Lastly--but far from least--there needs to be a nutritional element in these community-based classes. A primer on the basic food groups, differences between proteins, carbs and fats, and the importance of eating a balanced diet all need to be included.

These three elements--shopping economics, cooking at home, and diet and health--can be tied together easily in a series of community-based classes, and brought to community centers and churches throughout America's inner-cities and rural areas.

If done in a real, comprehensive way, and backed by both the private and public sectors, such classes--along with other private and public initiatives--will go a long way towards helping many people eat better, stay healthier, and live longer.

Read Winnie's piece, The Poor Get Diabetes, the Rich Get Local and Organic, here.

Farm-to-Food Memo: An Independent grocer's view

We are what we eat: A Boston, Mass. independent grocer talks about clean, organic and local food; sustainability, mass food production and society, and how his family market and cafe fits into the picture

Writing today at alternet.org, independent grocer Jamey Lionette says, "I am not a scientist, journalist or other specialist. I sell food. I help run a family-owned and operated neighborhood market and cafe that buys and sells predominantly local, clean and sustainable food."

In his article, Lionette, who with other family members runs Lionette's The Garden of Eden Market and the Garden of Eden Cafe, both located on Tremont Street in Boston's South End neighborhood, says "We Are What We Eat," which is the title of his piece. "I cannot speak about the reality of our food supply around most of the world," Lionette writes. "I can only speak of what is happening in the first world, where, unfortunately, only the privileged elite can choose to put real food on their dinner tables.

We believe Lionette's piece (and opinion) is an important one, especially since it comes not from a professional analyst, industry consultant, or pundit. Rather, it comes from an independent grocer, who deals with customers each and every day in his store and cafe. An independent grocer who spends much of his time buying from local growers, wholesalers and others, and has created a strong niche so that the store can not only compete against the large chain supermarkets in the region, but also can offer shoppers something more: that local touch only an independent grocer who lives and works in the neighborhood can bring when it's done well.

Lionette also discusses farming today, and how it impacts on his family's grocery store and cafe vis-a-vis his larger grocer competitors, such as Whole Foods Market, Inc., Trader Joe's, Wal-Mart and others. He further offers his opinion about the social implications of mass-production on the overall farm-to-food picture, and contrasts it with organic and local foods. But at what financial cost he asks, in discussing the prices of organic foods at retailers like Whole Foods and others.

We invite you to read Lionette's piece, which is excerpted from the book, Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed, edited by Vandana Shiva (South End, 2007), as an independent grocer's (as well as writer's and citizen's) analysis of modern farming, food manufacturing, marketing and retailing. It also focuses on the larger economic and social implications of all of the above.

We believe the independent grocer's perspective is more important today than ever before. It's the independent who's been the innovator in food retailing. The first mover if you will. The first to merchandise organic foods, local goods, specialty products and so much more. The independent also is the backbone of the community and neighborhood. He or she is often the first merchant to put out a fund-raising canister, the first to support local groups and food drives, and the one who sustains those efforts in the neighborhood over time.

Often, when people discuss "buying local," they tend to leave out "shopping local" when it comes to their food shopping. In other words, shopping at the local independent grocer's store. How often do you here someone say: "I bought some great locally-grown vegetables at Whole Foods?'" Or, (fill-in the chain store name) offers locally-grown fruits, and I buy them every week? The point is: "eating local" folks also should think more about shopping local as well. Often supporting ones local grocer is supporting those same ideals involved in buying local foods.

We agree with some of what Lionette says in his piece and disagree with other parts. However, that's not what's important. What's key, and what we hope you walk away with after reading his piece, is his perspective on the issue, along with some new knowledge you can think about and perhaps even put to work in your day-to-day business activities.

Read the full piece, We Are What We Eat, by Jamey Lionette