The impact of measuring the environmental cost of food by the distance it travels could have serious cost & supply chain implications for manufacturers. With 95% of fruit & half of all vegetables consumed in the UK sourced from abroad, the debate on "food miles" is forcing processors to add the distance ingredients travel to the growing list of environmental concerns they must taken into consideration. Just how the true environmental cost of food is evaluated is still in its infancy. The term "food miles" is generally considered to be the measure of distance that food has travelled along the supply chain from farm to fork. On the manufacturing side it is an attempt to attribute the CO2 emissions along the supply chain from ingredient to product to retailer. Proponents say it is a measure that compares environmental impact among product. The longer a product is required to travel, the more energy will be required, and therefore the higher volume of emissions released into the atmosphere. Shipping fuel and the energy required for suitable storage, such as refrigeration, are part of the formula when environmental impact is calculated for imports travelling long distances.
