How the food system has changed - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

Almost every newscast on TV these days deals with the high cost of groceries. One story I read says the price of groceries has increased 30 per cent in the last five years ­- 3.9 per cent in June, alone.

 

We have crowded scenes at food banks where more and more people go to help fill out their diets. And it’s bound to get worse. I saw a story on TV where an Atlantic province milk producer said with the higher gas and diesel prices caused by the U.S. war on Iran, he’s losing money.

 

With both partners in most marriages now working, we don’t garden much anymore. A friend of mine who lives in the city rents space in a community garden to grow food, but most people don’t.

 

Growing our own food was a big part of rural life when I was young. We had a large garden and my mother preserved fruits and vegetables, cutting our grocery costs. Though we had neither a refrigerator or a freezer, we rented a freezer compartment in town for the beef or pork from our own farm. 

 

Today, even though we have our own fridge and freezer, we don’t grow our own food. Some people say they’re too busy, while I’m just too old to grow a garden anymore.

 

Some people blame the farmer for the high cost of food, but an article in a farm paper recently shed some light on food costs.
Farmers, the article said, receive about 11 per cent of every dollar spent on food. Processors get 23 per cent. Wholesalers get nine per cent. Transportation accounts for seven per cent. Energy and utilities get six per cent, Retailers receive 16 per cent (remember the farmer who grows the food gets 11 per cent). If you eat a meal in a restaurant, the restaurant makes 23 per cent.
The food business has changed so much since my young adulthood. Each town and village had several small grocery stores back then. These were replaced by local supermarkets, but that’s too small for many people who travel to Listowel or Goderich to Zehrs or Walmart, stores that have about as much space as our entire main street had years ago.

 

Inside, these grocery stores offer different foods. How many people actually cook supper anymore? We have all sorts of frozen meals that we heat up when we get home from work.

 

I remember when stores used to give away cookbooks to lure people in. We have two shelves of recipe books at home. Most younger people don’t have many recipe books today. If they’re cooking from scratch, they can get the recipe off the internet.
Once, long ago, most farmers kept chickens and would slaughter a chicken for Sunday supper. Today, in the stores I shop in regularly, you can’t even buy a whole chicken. Most of the meat is in pieces that have been cut up so they can be cooked in a short time, sometimes even with the bones removed.

 

And this is why so many people are getting a cut of our food budget: processors, wholesalers, truckers, retailers. I suspect many more meals are eaten in restaurants today than when I was young.

 

This is fine for the people who have the money to afford it. I suspect that many people - the homeless or the people who go to crowded food banks - just don’t have the money to survive this way.

 

A recent report in Manitoba tells a story. “Grocery prices are shaped by a complex interaction of global forces, domestic supply chains, production costs and market structure. While inflation and international disruptions have contributed significantly to rising food costs, concerns have also emerged regarding  competition, market concentration and the growing use of data-driven pricing technology. Understanding these drivers is essential to identifying effective policy responses.”

 

In rural areas, we used to see the people who were responsible for our food. Most main streets had a butcher shop where most meat was processed and sold. We had bakeries that baked bread and desserts. We saw the people who made our food.
Today, with our larger supermarkets, we never see the hundreds of people who prepare our food for sale. Food preparation is more urban oriented than in the past and it’s a much bigger industry than when we had a butcher shop and bakery on main street.

 

We didn’t choose this system, we just sort of fell into it. In small towns we saw how people in large centres shopped and we wanted that too.

 

But it all adds to the cost of eating  - all those people working behind the scenes to get our food conveniently onto supermarket shelves and coolers. Now we’re stuck with this system whether we can afford it or not. Here’s hoping you can.