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How far away is locally produced?

7 comments

potatoes
Photo: Dr Hemmert/Flickr

“Being green” is a good sales argument. In Sweden organic food is getting more and more popular and during the first quarter of 2009 organic food sales went up by 35 percent compared to the same period last year.
But when everyone wants to get on the environmental friendly train, there is a risk of all the nice words about different products in the end being just – words.
Now an angry consumer has reported a TV commercial for potato chips to the Swedish Consumer Ombudsman. The commercial is saying that the chips are made from locally grown potatoes, meaning that they have all being pulled out of Swedish earth. But when the company takes all its potatoes from the county of Skåne, in the south, can the chips still be called locally produced if the buyer lives in Pajala, in the very north? With the total length of Sweden being over 1 500 kilometers, vegetables grown in our neighbouring countries Norway or Finland can actually often be more local.

Today there are no rules saying how close a product has to be made to be called locally produced, so it’s a good thing that the Consumer Ombudsman will look into this, although I think it might be a pretty tricky question.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 22, 2009

  • Pol

    It is interesting, in fact, that with globalisation, the terms local and regional are shifting more and more away from the individual person. For example, a mean croatian region has some 2500 km2, but from global point of view a region can be considerd an area of 100 or even 1000 times biger proportions. The similar is with local areas. Moreover, the individual companies have also their own specific teritorial organisation. However, it should be also considered the origins of seeds. …

  • Sara

    Maybe the easiest way would be to put a distance limit for what has the right to be called locally produced. But when big chains of supermarkets have central distribution systems of course it gets more complicated. Another issue is the difference between harvesting and processing, as in the example with fish being caught in European waters and then being shipped to China where the fish is cleaned and then transported back to the EU to be sold.

  • Pol (1)

    I`ve noticed last year also some food products packaged in croatian national brand names, but when i carefully read the declaration i find out they are in fact produced in neighbouring countries or some even in Netherlands. Transporting fish to China and back seems to me as a great contamination hazard by itself. The number of chinese products on the shelfs is simply astonishing, almost as everything is produced there. It seems, very soon we want`t even have other choice. …

  • Cecilia J

    Yes, yesterday I wanted some fresh ,green peas. The supermarket had them, but they came from Kenya!!!!! In a little eco-shop nearby I found locally grown, delicious fresh peas and bought them of course.

  • Sara

    Yes, isn’t it ironic that even when it’s the right season for locally grown vegetables it’s difficult to find them in the supermarket? I suppose it has to do with centralization once again, and the huge amounts that are traded with. Then it is more complicated for a shop to buy a few kilos of peas or tomatoes from a local grower than buying it through a central distributor.

  • Pol

    It seems to me, not only that the supermarkets are not buying localy, but many individual small sellers from green markets have started to resell products from the supermarkets. In addition, the sellers of traditional and localy produced food are hardly the experts of “marketing”, so sometimes it is hard to distinguish the products from each other. I`ve heard also about certain “green mafia”, which manipulates the market, producers and consumers in order to get most profit. …

  • Oliver Grassman

    Have a feeling you’ll be back here on Sweden.se at some stage Chris!