FOOD MILES
Food Miles represent the distance your food travels from where it is grown to where it is eaten. Scarce energy is used to transport food over these long distances, not to mention the carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
Did you know…
Each Irish person eats on average a tonne of imported food a year, despite more than half of consumers saying they are concerned about its quality. From teabags to ice-cream, sugar and biscuits to vast quantities of milk, beef, chicken and potatoes, some 3.5 million tonnes of the food we consume each year originates somewhere else.
Recent figures from the Central Statistics Office show importers are bringing in €5bn worth of foreign food and drink each year.
Imports include €799m worth of cereals, €958m worth of fruit and veg, €282m worth of poultry and €711m worth of drinks (and
that’s only at wholesale prices).
Some imports of course are down to our climate as we obviously can’t produce coffee, cocoa or oranges. The total also includes €619m of animal feed and some food that is processed and re-exported. Even when it comes to the potato, we are shipping in a staggering 124,250 tonnes of them, some €75m worth.
Here’s a few websites if you want to know more !
• https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring–assessment/waste/national-wastestatistics/food/#:~:text=Food%20waste%20is%20a%20global,10%25%20of%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions.
• https://www.bordbia.ie/globalassets/bordbia2020/industry/brexit/supply-chain/bord-bia-supply-chain-guide-002.pdf
• https://environment.ec.europa.eu/news/field-fork-global-food-miles-generate-nearly-20-all-co2-emissions-food-2023-01-25_en
