Hey there,
Welcome back to Before the Cutting Board, your sometimes weekly, sometimes “Lindsey is tired, so let’s try again next week” roundup of food + supply chain hot topics to help keep you up to speed on what’s going down with your food.
Let’s dig in.
-This Week-
Surging port emissions
Earlier this month, the LA Times reported on an announcement from Port of LA and Port of Long Beach officials acknowledging that port emissions have surged over the last two years. The ports attribute the pollution spike to the supply chain chaos that led to over 100 ships stuck in San Pedro Bay, but activists from surrounding communities say that this is the culmination of a long record of ignored concerns. Interestingly, the article also touches on how the ports’ clean-air transition strategies for ships were apparently thwarted by California’s heat-strained power grid. It highlights that it will be important to monitor what trade-offs are prioritized (and why) as large scale emitters attempt to make clean transitions.
More money, more problems
By now (hopefully), you’ve likely heard that two of the largest grocery companies in the US - Krogers and Albertsons - have proposed a $25B merger. Writing for Forbes, Errol Schweizer breaks down why we shouldn’t need another lesson in how consolidation weakens our food systems. Meanwhile, the two grocery mammoths are planning a $4B shareholder payout before the merger has even been reviewed by federal authorities; a move that has sparked ire from at least 6 state attorneys general.
What else I’m reading:
>The talk of food system folk this week: UC Santa Barbara researchers published a study finding that five countries contribute nearly half of food’s global cumulative ‘footprint’. Here’s how Civil Eats describes it:
“On Monday, researchers from U.C. Santa Barbara published a landmark study on the environmental impacts of global food production. Instead of merely assessing and comparing foods on greenhouse gas emissions per unit, it also measures the scale of cumulative emissions, water use, habitat disturbance, and nutrient pollution. And the researchers found that five developed nations, including the U.S., contribute nearly half of food’s cumulative global footprint.”
The five country callout in the abstract is quite the cliffhanger. Looking forward to digging into it this weekend.
>Point of Origin’s FYI on pumpkin waste in landfills
>This NBC news piece about the broad coalition continuing to form against the Summit Carbon Pipeline in Iowa as Cheyenne River Sioux activists speak out against the proposed pipeline. I’m still wondering when reports on the pipeline are going to dig further into the link between Summit CEO Bruce Rastetter and the well-documented pollution of confined animal feeding operations.
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 :)