By Lauren Poulson
Lauren Poulson is a third year student from Issaquah, Washington double majoring in Linguistics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, with a passion for sustainability.
Supermarkets are an integral part of American culture. The way we shop for food is defined by the supermarket model, which allows us to one-stop shop for a wide variety of produce year-round. Although farmer’s markets and co-ops are increasingly becoming popular alongside supermarkets, they still aren’t the predominant way most Americans shop for most of their food. Farmer’s markets and co-ops seem like a luxury, while supermarkets seem like a necessity.
We are reliant upon supermarkets to provide us with a wider variety of produce, year-round, than farmer’s markets or co-ops generally provide, and we are reliant on supermarkets for cheaper prices and bigger bundles. The supermarket model is convenient and affordable for consumers, but it produces challenges to sustainability goals, including waste reduction, greenhouse gas mitigation and energy conservation.
First, the supermarket model “depends on great quantities of fossil fuels to heat greenhouses and to fly or truck long distances,” [1]. While transportation of food has become largely an efficient process due to fuel economy and subsidization of fossil fuels, it takes extra resources to provide seasonal produce all year-round. In the United Kingdom, the Sustainable Development Committee (SDC), which advises the UK government, found that many supermarket products fueled both obesity and waste, through “multi-buy promotions, over-packaging and non-recyclable packaging,” while food deliveries and customer car use also produce additional emissions [3]. Supermarkets are also notorious producers of food waste generated by inaccurate expiration dates, ugly produce, food prep scraps and leftover prepared meals.
What are more sustainable alternatives to supermarkets? A major impact could be made by eating locally and seasonally, but it would take a fundamental shift in behavior, which has significant challenges [1]. Despite this, increasing the amount of food grown locally is not such an insurmountable goal: according to a study by Professor Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced, School of Engineering, “most areas of the country could feed between 80 percent and 100 percent of their populations with food grown or raised within 50 miles” [2]. This requires more urban land to be dedicated to food production, or greenhouses, both of which present their own sustainability challenges. While indoor farming is still relatively a small enterprise in the United States, the growth in local indoor food production is unparalleled, with cities like Chicago leading the way [5].
Sustainable food production in a closed-loop system at Plant Chicago [8]
There are also ways to reduce supermarket food waste. In 2016, France became the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food, forcing them instead to donate it to charities and food banks [6]. In the United States earlier this year, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) introduced an initiative to standardize and reduce confusion in food expiration dates, to address grocery store food waste [7].
While supermarkets may be the easiest option when we’re buying food, we need to start thinking more deeply about the repercussions of what we buy and where we buy it from. Buying produce locally and targeting food waste are not panaceas or without challenges, but provide good first steps to buying and eating more sustainably.
Sources:
[1] Martinko, Katherine. “Are supermarkets facing the beginning of the end?.” TreeHugger. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “Are supermarkets facing the beginning of the end?”
[2] Anderson, Lorena. “Most Americans Could Eat Locally, Research Shows.” University of California, Merced University News, 1 June 2015. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “Most Americans Could Eat Locally, Research Shows”
[3] Eccleston, Paul. “Supermarkets attacked over sustainability.” The Telegraph, 16 Feb. 2008. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “Supermarkets attacked over sustainability”
[4] Delman, Edward. “Should It Be Illegal for Supermarkets to Waste Food?” The Atlantic, 29 May 2015. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “Should It Be Illegal for Supermarkets to Waste Food?”
[5] Frost, Peter. “Here’s why your winter produce tastes better.” Crain’s Chicago Business, 24 Feb. 2017. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “Here’s why your winter produce tastes better”
[6] Chrisafis, Angelique. “French law forbids food waste by supermarkets.” The Guardian, 4 Feb. 2016. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “French law forbids food waste by supermarkets”
[7] Jenae, Julia. “Grocers move to make food expiration dates less confusing.” First Coast News, 21 Feb. 2017. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. “Grocers move to make food expiration dates less confusing”
[8] Plant Chicago. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017. Plant Chicago