Hey there,
Love food? Yeah, me too. But food is more than what we pick up from the grocery stores and throw in our pantries. There’s a whole world of food before it reaches our cutting boards that intersects with politics, access, the environment, and more.
Welcome to Before the Cutting Board, a weekly round-up of food + supply chain hot topics to help keep you up to speed on what’s going down with your food. The “This Week” section focuses on news and current events, while the “Food Fights” section explores some of the interesting debates flying around the food news world.
For more on why I started this newsletter, check out my Welcome post. Long story short, as I was sending out monthly updates on Point of Origin, I realized how much I enjoyed putting together the 'What We’re Reading This Month’ section and how well our readers responded to it. Food and supply chains are kinda my thing, and I’m a big believer that building deeper relationships with our food is the starting point for a lot of good change.
Enough of that, let’s dig in.
-This week-
Putin’s Bread Problem
By now, you’ve probably heard of the escalating tensions happening in Eastern Europe. For the last two weeks, we’ve been told everyday that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine. What you likely haven’t heard is how a Russia-Ukraine conflict could impact food supply across the world.
Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, and together, Russia and Ukraine are the source for over a quarter of the global wheat trade. The threat of war between the two countries is already messing with international wheat prices, and an actual conflict could send them soaring. This comes at an already precarious time when global food prices have risen by nearly 30% - the highest in a decade.
Egypt, Turkey, and Bangladesh - the biggest importers of Russian and Ukrainian wheat - will be hit the hardest. But several countries across Africa and Asia will see wheat supply hit if Russia and Ukraine go to war. This fiasco is another glaring reminder of how globalized our supply chains have become, how rooted they are in colonial power structures, and how fragile they can be.
Avocad-oh no
Did you know that 7% of all annual avocado consumption (that’s about 1.5 billion pounds) happens on Super Bowl Sunday? In a crazy turn of events, as Americans stocked up on avocados for their Super Bowl snacks, news broke that the USDA placed a temporary ban on all avocados coming from Michoacàn, Mexico. This area of Mexico is the only Mexican state approved to export avocados to the US, and 80% of all avocados in American grocery stores come from Michoacàn.
This move will devastate Mexican avocado growers, who already have to navigate cartel extortion and huge environmental sustainability pressures with little adaptation support. Mexican avocado pickers are already out of work as growers scramble to determine how they will make a profit if they’re restricted to the domestic, Mexican market. Meanwhile, finance experts forecast that US consumers will see a spike in avocado prices in as soon as 7 to 10 days.
The USDA says the ban stems from verbal and physical threats made to US safety inspectors working in Mexico, implying that the US government was drawing a line for cartel and gang presence in Michoacàn.
While California produces avocado, the Golden State cannot produce enough to meet domestic demand. If the ban persists, it is likely that other avocado producing countries - like Peru, Colombia, and Chile - will start driving production to fill the gap.
However, the question remains: will the US, which has intentionally created a pipeline of avocado trade with Mexico, leave Mexican growers in the dust?
-Food Fights-
Food biotech is bringing us lab-grown lobster. What’s next? Fake caviar?
Earlier this month, Forbes columnist Michele Simon pointed toward the production of lab-grown lobster as a sign that we need to start asking if the frenzy to make alternatives to animal products is outpacing consumer demand. And, I can’t help but somewhat agree.
I’m less concerned about consumer demand, per se, and more curious about the association these types of products have built with impact and health in spite of the target market they seem to be focused on. Seriously, who is lab-grown lobster for? Yes, as Simon points out, lobsters are overfished. But food processing companies largely drive the demand for lobster. Is Upside Foods going to market this lobster alternative to food processing companies? Does this result in a price mark-up on the final product?
I’m all for animal alternative products, but I do think we need to take seriously the lessons we’ve already learned in other arenas when we get obsessed with throwing tech at a problem. This big food biotech push seems more oriented toward the elite segments of customers. Meanwhile, a lot of the troubles in our food systems are a result of how we exclude the most marginalized from sustainable and nutritious food access and fair food worker wages.
Tony’s Chocolonely: How to be rewarded for child labor?
Last week, the self-proclaimed ‘anti-slavery chocolate brand’ Tony’s Chocolonely admitted that it found over 1700 cases of child labor in its supply chain - a rise from 387 cases the year before. It would be reasonable to expect this news to bristle those who are familiar with Tony’s. For context, one of the brand’s most well-known stunts is when the founder, Teun van de Keuken, went to a Dutch police station and asked to be arrested and put in jail for contributing to child slavery in the cocoa supply chain. He went as far as bringing a former child laborer from Burkina Faso to testify against him before a judge put an end to the stunt.
People were, understandably, pointing out the hypocrisy between using the slogan “Let’s make chocolate 100% slavery free” and then finding increasing cases of child labor on top of partnering with a trader notorious for the prevalence of child labor in their supply chain.
However, even more curiously, many were actually praising Tony’s Chocolonely. I was scrolling LinkedIn last week and noticed many folks that I used to work with in the chocolate space posting words of support for the brand. Even Anti-Slavery International condoned the move. Tony’s itself released a statement saying that finding child labor cases and taking responsibility for what’s happening in a supply chain is an important step toward change.
I found this interesting. On one hand, Tony’s transparency is both impressive and unique, especially in the chocolate space. But on the other hand, at what point does this type of move become posturing and marketing when your entire brand is built around upending the chocolate industry?
That’s it for this week. If you enjoyed reading this, please forward to a friend. Even if you didn’t enjoy reading it, still tell your friends - misery loves company :)