A report by the Food Ethics Council on the future of food distribution has found that calls for local food are prone to overstating the climate benefits of short supply chains, and risk excluding ethnic communities in the UK, for whom speciality produce forms an important part of diet and culture.

The report - Food distribution: an ethical agenda - stated: “Local food initiatives and campaigning can be parochial, downplaying the benefits of international trade and alienating ethnic communities in the UK. The local food movement should embrace a broad understanding of community and solidarity by welcoming global trade where it is important to minority ethnic communities in this country, or benefits producers in poorer countries.”

It calls on retailers to challenge the assumption of 12-month availability across fresh produce lines, pointing to “energy-intensive production systems” and “top-up airfreight”.

But the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC) believes the report itself is too parochial and its chief executive Nigel Jenney said: “Although fresh produce is often singled out as a guilty party in the carbon footprint debate, fruit and vegetables account for just 2.5 per cent of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions.”

The FPC believes the debate about the future of UK food transportation needs to be placed in the wider context of the global market, and prioritise the encouragement of more people to enjoy a healthier diet.

Jenney added: “Rather than focusing on the means of transporting produce, the carbon footprint of the whole product supply chain should be considered. That way the fresh produce sector can provide consumers with meaningful advice on which to make informed decisions. The FPC is working with the Carbon Trust and others to do this.

“Without airfreight, a large section of the grocery aisle would become out of bounds: yet if we swapped red meat for vegetables one day a week we could achieve more greenhouse gas reduction than buying all our food from local sources.”

Topics