The Food Scout

In case you’re not aware, now that “organic” is so terribly institutionalized and mainstream, and no longer exclusive or elusive, it’s time we move on. The next enviro-friendly challenge is “carbon footprinting.”

The beautiful thing about the Food Miles trend is that, unlike organics, which have stodgy certification programs and government guidelines, this concept is so new and full of marketing promise that it appears to have even more potential than “creative” (some might suggest “misleading”) health claims on packaging prior to the U.S. government’s Food Labeling Act of 1992.

When it comes to Food Miles claims, runners know something that food companies will now have to get hip to: Training for sprints is very different than training for marathons - and you can’t do both well. In other words, companies are going to want to choose one camp or another for their products: Either they will want to “play down” how many miles a product traveled, or they will want to “play up” the distance. Heaven forbid anyone be caught in the middle. Let me illustrate.

For the sprinters, shorter will be better, and it will be mostly a matter of energy efficiency. Remember GMOs on food labels? Well, now the country that perfected afternoon tea, imperialism and GMO labeling has funded an organization called the Carbon Trust. And they are trying to create awareness of what contributes more or less to Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” by having companies print the “carbon footprint” of its foods on packages.

Now, not only will consumers need to count calories and fat grams to make a buying decision, but they will also want to consult the Carbon Footprint on labels. Carbon footprint calculations are not an exact science, but there are some guidelines. In the case of Walker’s, a crisp (potato chips) company in the UK, it has calculated the carbon emissions of a bag of its chips, which includes the production of raw ingredients (potatoes, sunflower oil, and seasonin)g; the manufacturing, packaging and distribution of the chips, and the disposal of empty bags.

In case you’re wondering, it turns out the carbon footprint is a small burp of 75g. In contrast, a futurist named Jamais Cascio calculated the carbon footprint of a hamburger, which he says is a whopping 2850 to 3150 grams per burger. Even more amazing (that someone sat down and calculated this), the carbon emissions from all the burgers eaten by Americans in a year equals the carbon emissions of about driving about 15,000 SUVs in America during one year.

(See Part 2 for the rest of the story)