Coming Soon - air mile food labels
Excellent news that both Tesco and M&S are to introduce ‘air miles’ labels on their food.
The aircraft stickers will appear on produce at Marks & Spencer and Tesco from Easter. The logos are still being devised but the M&S version is likely to state ‘Flown’ on the label whereas at Tesco the favoured phrase is ‘Air- freighted’
The actual number of miles is not going to be displayed however, which may or may not be important. But of course, as the article points out, it can be that air-freighted products can be more environmentally friendly than out of season grown food - all those heated greenhouses have to get their power from somewhere.
Also surprising is that so little food is flown into the UK, only between 3 and 4 per cent. The costs making it prohibitively expensive.
The aircraft sticker is apparently based on a logo used 20 years ago to promote freshness. This is before my time - anyone have details or an image of what this original image looked like?
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i read an interesting article in the economist recently, which claimed that even air food miles may be more easily digestible when you know how much more energy-efficient you can produce in other countries… which means that the impact on the environment is not necessarily higher if you import fruit from israel or even NZ, rather than growing it in this country. i guess the coin’s always got two sides