Food miles, and miles, and miles....

[Arch]

I found a box in the recycling the other day, a gift item from BHS, consisting of sachets of various coffees and some little choc chip cookies. Since the contents were intact and sealed, I took it back and we had coffee and cookies.

Only afterwards did someone spot this on the label:



So. Those biscuits were made in the UK, shipped to China for packing, and then shipped back to the UK, for BHS to sell them to someone, who gave them to someone, who THREW THEM AWAY UNOPENED!

    

They weren't even all that nice.  Alright, but not delicious. But thank god, at least we ate them!

[hellymedic]

It isn't just food that travels too far. Andrex fresh (moist) is made in the USA.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've noticed garlic imported from China, too, both in UK and Poland. I've even bought it (unwittingly, in fact) and it was rather tasteless. But cheap, of course.

Arch's example above has to take the biscuit though (sorry). The only vaguely reasonable explanation I can come up with is that though the biscuits are made in UK they are sold all over the world, and this is merely one variant of a whole range of packagings and selections they are sorted into in China.

[Arch]

Possible. But why can't we pack all those different packs here?

I wouldn't mind so much if we baked the biscuits here and exported them to China. Or if they were baked there and packed. But to send them there and all the way back again.... 

The coffees, of course, have to come from all over the world - the point of the product was that there were different varieties from different countries. Presumably they were exported straight to China for packing.

[geraldc]

As long as food goes by boat it's not too bad. Driving stuff to or from the ports and the subsequent driving to the shops doesn't help

[Cudzoziemiec]

I expect the reason they are packed in China is cost and convenience.
Cost is wages, packaging materials, power, property costs, taxes, transport, waste disposal (they need more Arches!) and a zillion little things I can't think of, all cheaper there.
Convenience: biscuits from UK, coffee from (say) Kenya, Brazil, Vietnam. To be sold in: UK (as BHS), France, Russia, USA, Australia, Brazil, Kenya, Vietnam, Greenland. All has to come together in one place, and China has the labour, the materials and the links to do it best, on average, for the whole world.

That, at least, is what I guess. I'm not saying it's necessarily a good thing, just that it does make sense in its own way.

[rafletcher]

Possible. But why can't we pack all those different packs here?

Because BHS is just buying a branded gift pack from a wholesaler who offers "promotional merchandise" to businesses all over the world. So, we get to export the biscuits, and a few end up back here.

[Arch]

I guess I can see why it's done, I'm just sad about it.

Especially as the whole lot was then just thrown away, and if it wasn't for our willingness to eat binfood*, utterly wasted.

*generally only stuff that is reliably sealed and unused. Although we once found a whole pizza style garlic bread that was clearly only from the night before, untouchded, wrapped up tightly inside a plastic bag, and that did very nicely microwaved.

Another plus side to people's wastefulness, is that thanks to some people's inability to use the dregs of washing up liquid and laundry liquid (especially thos 'gel' varieties), I haven't had to buy either in the two years I've been in the job!

[geraldc]

BHS don't normally do food. So it was most likely in a pack that included mugs or a tea set.

[Arch]

Yes, it was clearly a gift item, probably from last Christmas. The decorative shape of the box (hexagonal, made from 6 prism shaped sections) suggested it was a stand alone thing to me, but who knows. They probably threw the mug away the week before....

[Frere]

Am a sucker for blueberries in my morning yoghurt, and always check where the blueberries have come from. Europe including Poland is my food miles limit, but recently these have been imported from Australia - thats plain silly and absurd.

Frere

[Cudzoziemiec]

Funny you should mention Polish blueberries, as - well, what sort of blueberries do you mean? Poland produces lots of the small, almost black ones which are the same colour inside and out - mostly these are collected in forests where they grow wild in huge quantities, but I expect some are cultivated. What's weird, though not miles-related, is that I've seen blueberries sold in UK labelled as grown in Poland, but they are the larger, sweeter (and to my taste blander, but that's just my opinion) North American species with white flesh. These seem to be grown almost entirely for export.

As to Australia, I presume it's actually cheaper (in money terms and possibly even energy - ? ) to import them from Australia than grow them in heated greenhouses, as would be necessary at this time of year, in Europe. So perhaps you should wait till summer for your blueberries, or get dried ones.

[Exit Stage Left]

It's just a by-product of trade. When we used to import nitrates from Chile the ships used to be ballasted with bricks on the outward jouney, so Valparaiso was built with bricks which came from Britain. A similar thing happened in Australia, we sent them ornamental ironwork and brought back wool and grain. Once the connections are made, especially if the journeys follow a pattern, all manner of stuff gets moved about.

[Ashaman42]

I'm sure I read something a while ago about wine and food miles.

British 'booze cruisers' going across to France to buy wine, from the Tesco in Calais (Dieppe?), which had been stocked from British Tesco warehouses, which had been supplied from French vineyards.

The same wine making three trips across the Channel just to save a few quid.

[Exit Stage Left]

I'm sure I read something a while ago about wine and food miles.

British 'booze cruisers' going across to France to buy wine, from the Tesco in Calais (Dieppe?), which had been stocked from British Tesco warehouses, which had been supplied from French vineyards.

The same wine making three trips across the Channel just to save a few quid.

One of the crazier results of the EU is that the Fosters lager in French Polynesia is brewed in the UK and shipped from Felixstowe. When Australia is a lot nearer.

[Ashaman42]

It's all quite mad. Part of me would like to try and only eat seasonally and locally. On the other hand being able to have a bananana whenever I fancy is quite handy.