Episode Summary

When we talk about the future of food, we usually picture what's growing in the fields or what's on our dinner plates. But maybe we should pay a little more attention to everything happening in between. Processing and packaging consumes the largest share of fossil fuels in our food system— more than 40%. Our growing reliance on ultra-processed foods, and plastics across the supply chain is making food production more energy-intensive than ever before. 
 

[ Transcript available ] 

About the Experts

Errol Schweizer is a member of the IPES-Food panel with other 25 years in food retail and supply chain expertise. He has have worked with Whole Foods, Patagonia, Annie’s, General Mills, Fairway, Good Eggs and National Co-op Grocers. I co-founded HERBL, Good Catch, Basics Market and other brands. Errol writes a weekly substack called the Checkout, the essential take on the 1 trillion dollar grocery industry.

Emma Priestland is the Global corporate campaigns coordinator at Break Free From Plastic Movement and freelance consultant. Through campaigning and advocating for new laws, Emma was instrumental in drastically reducing the use of plastic bags across Europe and played an important role in passing legislation to ban single use plastic items across the continent.
 

Rachel Muncrief is the Acting Executive Director of the International Council on Clean Transportation. Dr. Muncrief is a chemical engineer with more than 20 years of experience working to mitigate the health and climate impacts from the transportation sector.         
 

Georgina Catacora-Vargas is a member of the IPES-Food panel, and professor at the Academic Peasant Unit ‘Tiawanacu’ of the Bolivian Catholic University. She is president of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology, and advisor to the Agroecology Fund. She is an agricultural engineer with a PhD in Agroecology.    

References and Recommended Resources

News article: Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Outnumber National Delegations, Scientists, and Indigenous Peoples at Plastics Treaty Negotiations (CIEL, 2024)
 

Journal Comment: A toxic relationship: ultra-processed foods & plastics (Joe Yates et al., 2024)
 

Podcast: Neena Prasad on the power of ultra-processed foods (Feed, 2024)
 

Notes from a Press Conference: Global Plastics Treaty: Working Towards Real Solutions (Emma Priestland, 2023)

Report: Power shift - why we need to wean industrial food systems off fossil fuels (Global Alliance for the Future of Food, 2023)

Journal article: Food insecurity and ultra-processed food consumption: the modifying role of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (Leung et al., 2022)

Journal article: Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions (Mengyu Li et al., 2022)
  

Publications by International Council on Clean Transportation for their work on decarbonizing transport