Urban Food Chains

the links between diet and power

customs clearance haulage lorry ship UK
Food pricing 100 years ago
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The 1925 Royal Commission on Food Prices was tasked with investigating food industry prices. Urban Food Chains is running a series of analytical case studies for subscribing members, drawing on the detailed statistical evidence that was heard by the commission during its deliberations.

Board of Trade statistician Mr A W Flux* told the hearing that the UK food economy grew by about two billion pounds (thousand million) in 1907. This comprised goods consumed in the UK , which were valued at between 1,248 and 1,408 million pounds; services between 350 and 400 million pounds and additions to capital of between 320 and 350 million pounds.

2. Of the goods consumed, some passed directly from producer to consumer (e.g. bread), and in some cases the produce was consumed by the producer (e.g. farm and garden produce consumed by the families of the cultivators). A second class of goods, while passing through merchants’ hands, was not the subject of retail trade, while, of the goods that passed though merchants’ and retailers’ hands, it was estimated that the charges of distribution, including cost of transport, amounted to something between one half and two thirds of the value of the goods at the place of production or importation.

The First Report of the Royal Commission on Food Prices, Volume 3, Appendix 1, paragraph 2

*Mr Flux is not a made up name, it is for real.

Follow the links for subscription-only content about the core commodities of the day:

bacon
bread
butter
cheese
eggs
fish
flour
fruit
ham
milk
sugar
tea
vegetables
wheat
animal products Benelux Denmark eggs Europe France
Eggs by rail
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pic Bo Jess om, Wikimedia Commons

The common sense, sturdy construction of this wooden egg crate and thousands like it ensured that once the eggs had been wrapped with a layer of crepe paper, they were good for journeys across Europe. France, Holland and Denmark all exported eggs to England in the latter half of the 19th century and on into the 20th.

UK
Fighting over food
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The truth is unlikely ever to emerge from the rubble of world war two, but the British ruling class was convinced that there was a significant black market trading in the wartime British Isles. The obsession with even the possibility that spivs might be getting away with crimes against upstanding citizens is captured by William Sitwell in his book Eggs Or Anarchy.

At this time, the House of Lords could be relied upon to make the most fuss over the least incident supported by little or no evidence. The sensitivity of the establishment to the idea that people might be getting away with crime, be it real or imagined, beggars belief. One particularly paranoid peer accused Lord Woolton, then minister of food, of failing to act in a timely manner to pre-empt the spread of profiteering, which he now believed to be out of control.

Woolton was, of course, held responsible for this state of affairs, be it real or imaginary. A man of humble origins, his arrival in the upper house was a reflection on his achievements in business rather than his birthright. To be sure, he was as irked by tales of black marketeering as his fellow peers, yet he was to be judged on getting results that were far from being attainable.

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.

This piece of extended writing is an example of what would be available to logged-in subscribers in the post-beta phase. See the main menu for links to subscriber packages and logins.

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/

cookery UK
The National Mark
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In 1934, the Ministry of Agriculture published a recipe collection based on ingredients produced to National Mark standards, a fundamentally flawed quality assurance scheme overseen by the ministry. In 1936, the ministry went on to publish a second National Mark booklet with a year’s worth of recipes and product information, couched in the most toe-curling and sexist language imaginable.

The National Mark Calendar of Cooking is a 128-page stapled booklet, published in 1936. It contained recipes compiled by cookery correspondent of the News Chronicle, Ambrose Heath and Good Housekeeping Institute director Mrs D D Cottington Taylor.

It addressed an affluent upper class readership, heaping unstinting praise on British-grown food and overlooking the fact that the UK depended — and still does in large measure — on imported food. As the rest of Europe prepared for war, the National Mark Calendar warbled and wittered on endlessly about products that were only available to a rich elite.

Recipes for June include such gems as semolina souflee and poached eggs in aspic.The souflee recipe gives instructions for cooking the dish in a hot oven or a steamer, should a suitable oven be unavailable.

food manufacture UK
Piece of cake?
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The food industry celebrates “meal occasions”, which are excuses to buy and eat food without necessarily qualifying as a meal in its own right. Irish food manufacturer Glanbia suffered a setback for the VAT status of its flapjacks in April when a tribunal decided that the range did not qualify as a cake and was henceforth to be taxed at 20%.

The case hinged upon the suitability of the chewy confectionery bars for serving at afternoon tea. Cakes qualify for zero-percent VAT and a substantial fruit cake would still be classified as cake even if its mouth feel is distinctly heavier than a Victoria sponge.

Many years ago, the makers of Jaffa Cakes mounted a successful case to argue that as the name implied, their product was eligible for a zero-rated VAT status. A patisserie chef was hired to make an oversize Jaffa Cake and field questions from the tribunal, which accepted the basis for the distinction.

Glanbia, it would appear, was not so fortunate. Members of the panel declared that the flapjacks did not earn a place on the table at teatime because they are too robust. English tea is where you have your cake and eat it.

Here is how The Guardian covered the story: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/apr/17/flapjacks-too-chewy-taxed-cakes-judges-rule-glanbia-milk

animal products livestock pigs UK
Pig sector still struggling
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Despite some welcome signs of change in the fortunes of the pig industry, there are some ominous long term indicators. slaughter weights are starting to ease off from January’s high point. But at about 94kg deadweight, this year’s slaughter pigs are still five kg a head more that this time last year.

Welcome news from Morison’s when the retailer raised its contribution to production costs (SPP) by 30p to GBP 1.80. Pig producers need more retailers to do likewise. More to the point, producers need a more reliable system for recovering their cost of production, just to stay in business.

January pigmeat imports totalling 83,000 tonnes were up over 20% in December, not to mention double the volumes imported a year ago. Bacon imports in January were 27,000 tonnes, compared to 9,500 tonnes a year ago and 17,500 tonnes in December.

Market trends like these spell trouble for UK pig producers.

Since writing this piece in the spring, the AHDB has reported a recovery in market figures to nearer normal levels. However, this does not mean that pig farmers are any better off than they were earlier in the year.

livestock pigs UK
40k and counting
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Delegates at the National Farmers’ Union conference at the end of February learn that at least 40,000 healthy pigs have been culled and taken out of the food chain because of a continuing failure by abattoirs to collect and slaughter all the pigs they contracted to take last year.
Pig farmers up and down the UK are struggling in an ongoing crisis that is leaving hundreds o pigs a week on farms, eating food that is hitting record highs. The BBC cites a Norfolk farmer (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-60516864) who is sending 200 a week out of his 300 contracted animals, leaving him with 100 more pigs every week to feed. They eat 10.5 kg of feed a day ad by the time they are finally killed, they will have eaten an extra quarter of a tonne of feed. This is unplanned buying for the animals concerned, at a time when feed is at an all-time high and wheat prices are well over GBP300 a tonne.