I enjoy this concept for it's simplicity and thus it's ability to communicate a complex set of ideas.

The background is simply that food is often imported, and flying food around the world adds significantly to pollution, as well as detracting from local produce, markets and varieties. Imported food is often specially treated to last a journey, less fresh and not ripened naturally leading to less flavour. Some people simply like the fact that certain foods can only be bough at certain times of the year, keeping us much more in touch with the seasons. Do we really need to be able to buy strawberries in January?

So the concept is to measure how many miles your food has travelled from point of production to point of growing.

As supermarkets centralise their operations, food often travels a great distance even within the UK. For example produce in Kent might travel hundreds of miles to be sorted, weighed and packaged, before being transported back again to be sold in Kent.

Thus, even if you buy local produce in supermarkets, chances are that it has travelled a great distance.

The solution is to purchase from local suppliers through markets, farmers markets or a vendor that will give you certain guarantees about food miles. Many organic box delivery companies do this for example.



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