We must take back control of our food, before it's too late

Big ideas are needed to protect the world's food resources, but that's unlikely as long as huge supermarket chains are in charge

Matthew Herbert
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 May 2012 11.35 EDT


We are living through a delicious disaster. Never has so much food been offered to us from so many parts of the world, and in such elaborate combinations. The average supermarket carries over 45,000 different product lines, and yet the provenance of most of these products are utterly opaque. The government has handed control of the food chain over to the supermarkets – and with it, any meaningful sense of the common good.

Take fish. There is a crisis in our oceans – according to the WWF as many as 90% of all large fish have been fished out – yet there are no gaping holes on supermarket shelves, or an absence of fish on our menus. Instead, you'd think nothing was wrong. Likewise, our fruit and veg is often harvested by illegal immigrants living in hideous conditions, but their stories are absent from the packaging. Instead, we have pictures of prairies on chicken packets, despite the packaged chickens having rarely, if ever, come in to contact with grass. And that tractor sticker with union flag wheels? It doesn't mean the food was made or harvested in the UK, but to UK standards. It's a massive con trick designed for the benefit of big business, yet sold to us as the natural consequence of choices we've made along the way.