The True Cost of Food
It’s ironic, following on from our post about why we love being different to supermarkets, that a supermarket is one of the inspirations for this post. A German retail chain recently hit the headlines by fixing two price labels to some of its food items: one the cost to the customer, and the other the ‘true cost’: the actual cost of food that takes into account its impact on the climate, biodiversity, water and air pollution, plastic waste, and diet-related illnesses.
Price is the main reason people give for shopping in supermarkets over independent shops like the Crunchy, and it’s the main reason we little guys struggle to stay afloat in competition. Yet researchers have shown that for every £1 we spend at the checkout, another £1 is generated in hidden costs.
What if the price at the till is hiding much greater costs, that are unevenly distributed through society but that we will all end up paying in some form? Is it worth paying less for cheap ultra-processed food now, and risking dietary ill health later in life? And what does it say about our current food and social systems that for many people this isn’t a choice they are able to make but an economic reality forced upon them?
A recent episode of the BBC’s Food Programme caught my ear as a fantastic case study for True Cost Accounting. “How has a small island become the nation with the highest rate of obesity?” explores how the exploitation of Nauru for its phosphate deposits has impacted its inhabitants. This tiny Pacific island was mined to destruction, sending profits to big companies and leaving the land unsuitable for growing fresh food. Now, the islanders’ forced reliance on imported ultra-processed foods, combined with the breakdown of social ties, chronic stress and the toxic effects of poor air quality from mining means over 60% of Nauru’s adults are now living with obesity and its related chronic health conditions – 66% of 55 year olds have diabetes type 2.
All those things are linked to the food industry and are hidden costs that are not reflected at the checkout: farming relies on phosphate fertilisers because intensive practices strip soil of its nutrients, and also because we demand unseasonal foods that are grown in places unsuited for them. The link between ‘value-added’ ultra-processed foods, obesity and non-communicable disease is becoming increasingly well researched. Changing food habits is one thing that leads to the breakdown of traditional social ties.
Sheila Dillon says: “It seems we’re now all caught in a trap of valuing only short-term financial gains. Businesses from mining to farming to food processing still don’t add to their balance sheets the real cost to lives and the natural world. They are outside our economic calculations.”
The Sustainable Food Trust’s report The Hidden Cost of UK Food tells us that: “UK consumers spend £120 billion on food each year yet there are serious environmental and health-related costs that generate a further £116 billion. These costs are not paid for by the food and farming businesses that cause them, nor are they included in the retail price of food. Instead, they are being passed on to the public through taxation, lost income due to ill health, and the price of mitigating and adapting to climate change and environmental degradation.”
Globally, if we don’t change our food system, these costs are only going to mount up for future generations.
Our health is being sacrificed on the altar of cheap food, but our children are predicted to pay an even higher price. In 2019 there were an estimated 60,000 deaths in England attributable to poor diets, but on current trends more than 80% of children born in 2022 who survive to the age of 65 will be overweight or obese. At least one in 20 of them will already have died.
This creates a vicious cycle: cheap food = ill health = reduced ability to work = lower incomes = cheaper food. A report from The Health Foundation highlights that: “More than a third of those aged 25–64 in areas of England with the lowest healthy life expectancy are economically inactive due to long-term sickness or disability.”
As well as the costs to our health, environmental destruction is a huge hidden cost of food. Each year the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization publishes The State of Food and Agriculture report (SOFA). SOFA 2023 used true cost accounting to calculate that the global cost of the agrifood system in 2020 was up to $12.7 trillion more than consumers paid at retail. The majority of this is in health-related costs, but nitrogen runoff, ammonia emissions, deforestation, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions combined represent about 20% of the global hidden costs of food production. This doesn’t even include a range of other environmental costs, such as those associated with species loss and pesticide exposure, which are not included in the SOFA analysis.
Wholesale structural reform of our food systems is now being called for, reform that will need to revolutionise the way we produce, buy and eat food. For example, one of our suppliers, Scotland The Bread, has pushed for some time for a ‘number nourished’ metric, which they have worked on with the University of Edinburgh. The argument is that calculating the number of people and jobs nourished per hectare could better inform land use in Scotland than yield alone. See some figures here and more info here.
The Health Foundation tells us that: “People’s ability to adopt healthy behaviours is strongly shaped by the circumstances in which they live. That includes the education and support they receive in their early years, the resources they have to buy healthy food, the shops in their local communities, and whether there are green spaces and safe streets to be physically active in.”
Supermarkets are a huge part of a food system that prioritises cheap ultra-processed food over whole and minimally processed foods, and that make it harder in many ways for people to base their diets around the latter. We believe that shops like the Crunchy Carrot, that prioritise and support small scale growers and producers working with not against nature, are a key part of the system change that needs to happen for these hidden costs to come down and for a more equitable, affordable, healthier food system for all.
Sources / more info:
The Health Foundation, Addressing the leading risk factors for ill health: A review of government policies tackling smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity and harmful alcohol use in England Feb 22 file:///C:/Users/hjekn/Downloads/Risk%20factors_Web_Final_Feb.pdf
UK Gov Diet-related Health Inequalities Research Briefing, December, 2022 https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0686/
Food Foundation The Broken Plate 2022 Report https://foodfoundation.org.uk/press-release/major-report-highlights-impact-britains-disastrous-food-policy
The Rockefeller Foundation July 2021: The True Cost of Food: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/True-Cost-of-Food-Full-Report-Final.pdf
The Sustainable Food Trust, True Cost Accounting https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/our-work/true-cost-accounting/
https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/what-is-the-true-cost-of-food