Distribution

In the modern food system, a chain of refrigerated vehicles and storage facilities make it possible to transport perishable foods across the globe. While long-distance transportation does cause negative environmental impact, the way food is produced and the reasons for transporting it long distances in the first place may be more significant factors.

Reasons for transporting food long distances include the following:

• Feed densely populated areas

• Provide year-round nutritional variety to consumers in latitudes that experience short growing seasons

• Allow regions to focus on producing what they are best suited for

Questions to consider: What are the environmental impacts of long-distance transportation? Which workers make this transportation possible? How and why is power concentrated in this step?

Text adapted from Johns Hopkins Food System Primer

Recent News

• Food Distribution 101: What Happens When the Food Supply is Disrupted by a Pandemic (Civil Eats, 2020)

Books

• Trucking Country: The Road to America’s Wal-Mart Economy (Hamilton, 2014)

• Fresh: A Perishable History (Friedberg, 2009)