Urban Food Chains

the links between diet and power

beta fish France oysters
Shelling out
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Members of the public eating oysters and other shellfish generate large volumes of shells, most of which will end up in landfill and incinerators. Local authorities on west coast of France are taking the opportunity to encourage householders to recycle empty shells at local recycling centres. Their work is simplified because the local economy already includes a significant proportion of the nation’s oyster producers.

The adjacent estuaries of the Charente and Bordeaux’s Gironde are the beating heart of France’s ostreiculture sector and generates huge quantities of waste oyster shells. Local processor Ovive converts oyster shells, grinding them down into a poultry industry supplement for laying birds. Operations director Coline Saunier told the local France Bleu news team that the company processes about 3,000 tonnes of oyster shells a year, of which 95% comes from industry professionals.

Oyster ponds at Marennes, on the estuary of the Charente.

Further south, alongside the Gironde estuary, local authorities are using oyster shells to make a special mortar for use on the roads, filling in damaged roadsides. There are no tonnage figures for this use of oyster shells.

The cost of collecting shells from householders in the Charente departement all the year round then, is incremental rather than requiring capital expenditure. Waste contractor Cyclad gathered 71 tonnes in 2021. But as the consumer waste stream grows, so will the time spent sorting and cleaning the shells.

The professional waste stream needs to be sorted to make sure that stray lengths of polypropylene rope, metal fragments or glass are removed before processing the shells. Compared to these fairly basic requirements, the consumer waste stream brings with it an unknowable quantity of ring pulls, party napkins (the stronger felt-like matted ones) lemon slice debris, not to mention plastic cutlery.

A major risk for shell processors is picking up the stainless steel wires used to turn ordinary oysters into easy-open gourmet mouthfuls. The wire is thin and the easy-open components are easily missed on a busy sorting line. While the consumer waste stream is counted in tens of tonnes, the additional sorting requirement can be carried by the revenue earned on the industrial waste stream.

The feasibility of setting up a consumer-specific sorting line in parts of France without an existing industrial user base is a very different proposition. It will be more onerous than adding a modest increment to existing capacity and will be a challenge to future planners.

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food manufacture France
Piece of cake
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The opening of the Paris – Cherbourg railway in 1846 gave a decisive boost to the development of a group of cake and biscuit factories in Caen. With easy access to Paris Saint Lazare, the rest of the French network was available for the onward shipping of perishable goods  in a timely manner. From Cherbourg, orders could be forwarded to the Channel Islands and ports such as Weymouth on the south coast of England.

By the end of the 19th century, the scene had been set for biscuit maker Lucien Jeannette to buy out his two partners and develop the multi-site business.  The company did not adopt the  Jeannette name until 1927.

Its branding was  founded on the quality  of its regional ingredients, namely Isigny butter and Normandy eggs. Many years later, in the 1960s, the use of cheaper ingredients wreaked havoc with the brand’s standing at the time and was remedied by restoring the original premium line-up.

Operating today with two dozen staff, the firm now sells online from https://www.jeannette1850.com/

animal products eggs
Eggsistential threat
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When the second world war broke out in 1939, nobody would have imagined that the ministry of food would disappear off the map. Stranger still was the process by which the ministry morphed and started to manage the nation’s food procurement arrangements from a top secret seaside town in Wales. A narrow strip of sea separates Colwyn Bay from the country’s pivotal international port of Liverpool, routinely a target for German air raids.

Had this been known to the Luftwaffe, the British food procurement system would have been destroyed in a matter of days and European history would have taken a very different course. At the time it was a well-kept secret, today the story is told by William Sitwell, in his book Eggs Or Anarchy. http:williamsitwell.com/books

The book traces the challenges that faced food minister Lord Woolton, who applied the lessons he learnt in the world of business to a series of desperate logistical impasses. These were complicated by the antipathy of a less than enthusiastic civil service with its procedural agenda.

Conventional economics makes no allowance for the inherent costs that are part and parcel of animal products. Every egg producer faces regular bills as part of raising chickens, regardless of whether or not they are in lay. If the birds are to live, let alone lay eggs, feed bills are non-negotiable.

For most of the egg-buying public, this upstream reality is literally history. Without an idea of the real world implications, an egg is no more than a disembodied food ingredient. Its price is more complex than than any monetary value that might be assigned to it. In one context it can be priceless, when it is part of a cohort destined for breeding the next generation. This is also the start and the end of humanity’s grasp of the forces of nature.