Free From Thinking

The best solutions are the simple ones. The wheel. Paperclips. Knifes. Beer. Tomatoes. And when it comes to our basic survival, what is the essence of what we are here to do?

Eat and make babies.

Answer sounds a little glib, we need step away and look at how complicated we have made it. The difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom is our ability to manage our food supply. For them, it is still a fight for survival. We’ll chuck out a bag of salad, still in it’s plastic wrapping, before the sun has set on the ‘Use By’ date.

Imagine Sunday night nature programmes if animals have evolved closer to us! The male lion rises from the shady tree, a heavy-pawed swagger across the dry savanna to a makeshift gate, grabbing the nearest goat to present to the family. Lion wife disappointed at the lack of goat-free dining options. Son not interested as he now self-identifies as a Marmot and wants a plant-based diet? The male lion heads over to the Prime spot on the hill, he still has a heavy mortgage for, and contemplates where it all went wrong.

Lucky for David Attenborough, the tension brought about by many animals fight for food is captivating viewing. As anyone with pets knows, animals are walking stomachs. It’s more than a gut feeling - the Entric Nervous system (ENS) shares the chemical architecture our brain does. When we are anxious, we feel it in our stomachs, butterflies take off when we are excited, IBS is triggered by stress. The trillions of gut bacteria are constantly in communication with our brain, it’s no wonder our sense of taste and experience of food carries an array of senses and emotions. Building a more intimate bond with food improves our wellbeing and benefits our experience of flavour.

Much like the wild animals, our stomach has driven our evolution. It has guided our ability to find food, learn seasons, avoid dangerous plants, cook meat, preserve and farm. To develop and utilise tools to provide security, to give us a platform to develop society further than our ancestors. An improved diet and food stability has led to an increase in the size of our brains. And we have used the extra time we gained for more abstract thinking and the eventual invention of TikTock, Furbees and the music of Shed7.

So, once more with feeling, what are we actually trying to achieve?

1 – Eat more healthily – We have been dieting for years and the UK still holds the G7 record for obesity. Let’s face it, we aren’t doing a good job, or the diets don’t work. Habits pass down to the next generation, and with record numbers in childhood obesity, maybe they should all take up smoking?

2 – Afford to eat – Double Deckers’ used to be the size of an actual bus, now it’s lumpy chocolate toothpick. Despite all the supermarket cost saving methods we suffer, our food prices are constantly rising.

3 – Look after the planet – we use bags for life, turn off the tap when brushing our teeth, we all got a bit upset watching Attenborough. We live in a world where the majority have realised something has to change to save it.

So imagine we could “etcha sketch” this planet and design a food system that would work for the future, based on the what we know now. What has human behaviour taught us? What is essential in our diet? What should the relationship between growers and buyers look like?

We shouldn’t shy away from thinking boldly. Our current solutions are based around increased manufacturing, genetic modification and bigger global solutions. Some carry merit, many carry requirement for extra resource, additional cost and an unhealthy profit.

What has human behaviour taught us?

We are creatures of habit. Nature published a scientific report (Ahn, Ahnart, Bagrow, Barabasi) titled “Flavour networks and the principles of food pairing”. They took a data-driven approach to determine quantifiable and reproducible principles behind the combination of certain ingredients, and avoidance of others, in our favourite recipes.

Analysing the recipes on epicurious and allrecipes, they looked at how frequently individual ingredients were both used and paired together. As you can see by the diagram below, we don’t eat a varied diet. If you were to look across your meals and extract the ingredients by volume, you would see the picture - the main culprits being dairy, wheat and sugar. Coincidentally, industries that have benefited from scale and increased margins from mass production.

In the last 20 years, dairy farms with over 1,000 cattle have gone from zero to over 55% of the market share in the US. Sugar had a helping hand from ‘cheap’ labour, securing itself in the global diet, with its powerful influence still felt throughout society. Wheat has benefited from intensive breeding to have yields 60% greater than their ancestors, but a decline in nutritional value.

All three scaled to make billions, scaled to drive the cost down, scaled to make eye watering profits. These three are the cornerstone of empty carbs and cheap bulk processed food.

There are two ways to alter human behaviour - to inspire it or manipulate it. Manipulation involves dropping prices, running promotions and playing on our fears. These global commodity businesses have mastered pricing and benefit hugely from scale, but sadly the cost in these cases is to the environment that we all share.

Low cost wins in the food industry. It isn’t a global conspiracy, it’s human behaviour and habit. Kitchens driven solely for customer satisfaction and joy of eating are few and far between, and only for those who can afford it. We are more likely to encounter the more affordable end with the focus on low cost. During this economic downturn, profits are protected by removing costly ingredients, downgrading quality and reducing staff. The result, that £4.80 cookie you bought last week has half the nuts, cheaper chocolate and the chef rushed it because they now also do the washing up.

We are all feeling the pinch and now think twice about spending money if we don’t feel we are getting value. We wont rush to part with our money in those establishments again.

One issue is choice. When faced with 15 brands of pasta, how do we make a choice? I don’t know how to separate good dried pasta and bad dried pasta, I am not hugely engaged with dried pasta packaging. Will I taste the difference? Will anyone around the table at dinner taste the difference? Would it taste better if the pasta was cooked by the person who made it?

So, what is essential for our diet?

Another area we have over-thought. People who watch what they eat don’t diet. Take out the processed food and it’s pretty hard to get fat or sick. Processed food is lazy and convenient, and it comes at a cost.

We are blessed with a whole host of inbuilt alarm systems that let us know when we are off track, but they need listening to, which could just be a gut feeling. We are not entirely at fault for our eating habits, the attitude is society wide, we still rely on a health system that cures problems, rather than a care system that prevents problems by nourishing mind and body.

What should the relationship between supplier/grower and buyers look like? As it stands in the UK 76% of 25 million households get access to 7,000 suppliers through 4 supermarket chains, 4 supermarket chains stand in the way of those consumers, imagine the power they can exert, being that size. Think of the marketing power, the technical edge, business intelligence and crucially the buying power gives them perceived value.

Buyer power exerts an ability for the supermarket to obtain more favourable terms, in what is now an uncompetitive marketplace. Who wouldn’t want to sell to Tescos? With the seller more reliant on the large contract, it falls for the habit of dropping prices. Once reliant they face listing fees, de-listing threats, demands for discounts and after sales rebates, the return of unsold goods, late payment, and supermarkets promoting their own brands in place of yours, once the demand is built up.

Suppliers have to find ways to make it work, this drives low wages, waste, in some cases cutting quality, and a huge focus on cost over quality, which trickles down the line. But when you think about it, supermarkets don’t add value, they just make it convenient, we are in a time when the biggest taxi firm doesn’t own a car, largest ‘hotel’ company doesn’t own a brick and the not long ago, the biggest food delivery company didn’t cook. Supermarkets have the data and financial clout to put a shop near your door step.

I have had a few stints in supermarkets, my proudest moment was being bottom of the Morrisons till scanner sheet, my scans per minute weren’t up to speed, I spent too long talking to the old ladies about their shopping, finding out what it was they were planning to bake, I was happy so where they, Morrisons didn’t have any means to monitor that, key driver is cost..

The relationship between the grower and buyer should be short, I want to see the dirt under his nails or the flour on her apron, I want to give them that knowing look that says ‘I know you grew this, you got nowhere to hide, if its shit, I’ll be back’ it’s a complicated look. And them to give me that look that says ‘I have invested a lot of thought into this, I know if I fuck it up, you wont come back, but I am up 5am knee deep in shit because I care, I have taken the time to share the process with you so you understand where you food comes from’ this is even more challenging look to pull off, eyebrows going off always and lips twisting out a kind of pained smile, a lazy eye help

Of course this is utopia, it happens in pockets, I have found it in places like Bath, Bristol, Faro, Sette and even in London, where the only growers making money grow weed, but that’s not their fault, it’s urban land prices being a premium. Still if you ever wanted a model to demonstrate how regional small to medium businesses maintain a fair price to the grower.. that is one.

There is a middle ground to be had, and we can utilise technology to make it happen, but it needs a drive to educate and share openly; inspire, not manipulate…

Building strong food networks ensures resilience in the future, instead of fighting for market share, we should support each other, share knowledge and resources and grow together.