1 David McGowanSuzanne IngramUWRT 1102-02603/29/2015What Is Driving The Local Food Movement?

Its almost impossible to avoid local food culture, especially in an urban center like Charlotte. Coffee shops market locally-roasted, fair-trade coffee; restaurants list the sources for their meat products, alongside higher prices. Changes in culture and food preferences are driving this local food movement. Although many Americans continue to follow eating habits adopted by a prior generation consuming large quantities of processed food a counter movement is spreading in the United States. Young adults with higher expendable incomes are putting their dollars towards organic, locally-sourced, minimally-processed food. This paper explores the trend and what drives it.For decades America has led the way when it comes to heavily processed foods, for two two primary reasons. First, Americans like things that are fast and easy, requiring minimal personal or economic sacrifice (Ikerd, The American Food Culture). This has been the main selling point for the factory-to-table foods produced in the United States over the past few decades. Corporations have engineered their products to have near-addictive tastes, improved mouth-feels, enhanced appearances, and longer shelf lives. This was achieved by pumping foods full of salt, fat, and corn extracts in a bid to hook the consumer. Corporations had little regard for the nutritional value of their products. The 2013 New York Times article The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food by Michael Moss publicizes engineering foods to appeal to consumers. The article opens with a discussion of James Behnke. Behnke is a scientist and former Pillsbury executive. He describes a meeting of top food industry scientists and executives to discuss the food industrys concern over the American obesity crisis. A Kraft executive who presented at the meeting went so far as to compare marketing junk food to children as equivalent to marketing cigarettes. Another top executive at the meetingthe General Mills executive who invented sugary Yoplait and Gogurt for kidsreminded the group that consumers like what tastes good. Moss then discusses the science companies use to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensivesugary, salty, fatty foods [that] are not good for us in the quantities that we consume them. (Moss,The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food). He met with a food optimizer Howard Moskowitz -- who literally spends time combining taste, packaging, and color and testing the combinations on consumers to find the match that will sell the most product. Moskowitz seeks to find the consumer bliss point the point when theres just enough sugar or salt in a product but not too much. He researches a products sensory satiety and mouth feel to determine how it will be received byand craved byconsumers (Moss,The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food). The traditional American diet has led to rapid increase in heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Obesity is now at epidemic levels in the United States, where children are now three times more likely to be overweight or obese than the American youth a decade ago (Russo and Smith 1). This is a direct result of the consumption of foods that are high-fat and low in nutritional value. Many of these foods are developed and produced using corn and soy extracts. While corn or soy products are not necessarily harmful to our bodies, the sheer volume of these ingredients when considering our entire consumption of food is alarming (. A 2011 leading United States government health campaign advised Americans to cut back on foods high in solid fats, added sugars, and salt. They include cakes, cookies, ice cream, candies, sweetened drinks, pizza, and fatty meats like ribs, sausages, bacon, and hot dogs (choosemyplate.gov). However, at the same time, the United States government has heavily subsidized corn and soy production in the United States since the mid-1990s. The production of corn sweeteners, corn starch, and soy oils have cost American taxpayers as much as $19.2 billion in subsidies since 1995 (Russo and Smith 5). This $19.2 billion figure is even more staggering considering that it does not include the additional amount the U.S. government has paid to keep corn feedfor large meat production facilitiescheap. (Russo and Smith 2). This is a colossal figure when compared to the $689 million spent on the apple production subsidies over the past 18 years (Russo and Smith 5). Such startling figures help to explain why a growing number of Americans are expressing doubts and outright dissatisfaction with the current American food system (Ikerd, The New American Food Culture). At the same time, these subsidies in part explain why processed food remains cheaper in many cases than healthier options. (personal exampleA local food system is defined as a method of food production and distribution that is geographically localized (sustainabletable.org, Local & Regional Food Systems). The term local food is shorthand for a number of things. It can mean sustainably produced food, whole food i.e. less processed food, and, of course, food sourced from local farms (and even within that there is an ongoing debate over the radius of local). (Ibid) The growth of the local food movement can be seen in the Charlotte area. This is evident through the growing number of farmers markets, high quality supermarkets (Whole Foods), community-supported agriculture (CSAs), and organic restaurants throughout the area. With the addition of Johnson & Wales culinary school in 2004, the food scene has been slowly gaining momentum. As Kristie Greco, communications director for the Democratic National Convention Committee, stated in the 2012 New York Times article, Charlotte Wakes Up Bankers Taste Buds, Like mushrooms springing to life after a forest fire, it seems a serious food scene has emerged in Charlotte in the recovery from the economic crisis (Severson, Charlotte Wakes Up Bankers Taste Buds). The new food scene perhaps explains (in part) why the 2012 Democratic National Convention was held in Charlotte.The article goes on to explain some of the rationale behind the movement. Charlotte was best known as a moneymaking mecca, and the food industry played on that for many years, offering high-end chain steakhouses and barbecue for the financial elite. However, in the wake of the financial crisis coupled with the introduction of Johnson & Wales, amongst other factors, [F]armers and cooks found each other, and the whole town just seemed to be interested in expanding how it ate (Severson, Charlotte Wakes Up Bankers Taste Buds). For example, chef Clark Barlowe (a graduate of Johnson & Wales) has opened Heirloom, a restaurant dedicated to only using North Carolina ingredients (Choiniere 22). Heirlooms menu is based on what is available that week, that day, that hour (Choiniere 22). In addition, Barlowe sources his ingredients, his cooking tools, and even the decorations for the restaurant from North Carolina farms and businesses (Choiniere 22).The energy behind Charlottes local food movement is akin to that of the national food movement. The growing exposure of food production practices and the power that big food producers have over the market and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a one of the major driving forces in the changing national food ethic. The work of author and food activist Michael Pollan has made a huge impression on many Americans, both from his books such as The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food but also from his appearance in the documentary Food, Inc. The movie opens by telling the viewer that the food industry has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000 years. In particular, the rise of fast food produced as if on an assembly line has created a market for mass produced food. These fast food companies value consistency in their products the same product for all customers. Because companies want the same product to sell across America, they have extraordinary market power (Food Inc., 2009). Young adults today are using their increased spending power and choosing fast-casual healthy options. Young adults are turning away from typical fast-food choices in recent years. Instead, these individuals many of whom are willing and able to pay a premium for healthier and seemingly more wholesome choices, are choosing such fast-casual options as Chipotle, Panera, and Subway. These chains promising healthy options and more upscale atmosphere have exploded in recent years, while traditional, low-priced fast food chains like McDonalds have remained stagnant (Horovitz, McDonalds Earnings fall; Changes Afoot). The fact that fast food chains attempt to incorporate healthy options (apple slices at McDonalds, for example) shows that they are attempting to capture a segment of the more health-conscious market. Another reason for the local food movement is that the public has more knowledge about mass food production tactics. The publication of documentaries like Food Inc. has heightened the publics knowledge of the production practices used in the production of their food including terrible conditions for animals and near-abuse of employees, many of whom are illegal immigrants. Increasingly, companies are providing what consumers demand a more transparent production process that is kinder to animals and company employees.New trends in the food and drink communities have put an emphasis on local ingredients, as seen by the increase in the number of farmers markets and the rapid increase in coffee shops, restaurants, and breweries that offer locally roasted coffee beans, local meat and produce, and breweries claiming to use local ingredients. The buzzwords attached to the local food movement have become, in some instances, mainstream for example, farm-to-table eating and fair-trade products. Many of these buzzwords have become synonymous with health. For example, the gluten-free movement has been the biggest trendsetter in recent years in the food industry, gaining popularity from celebrities touting the benefits of eating a gluten-free diet. In The Wall Street Journal article The Gluten Free Craze: Is it healthy?, Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, explains how a decade ago a gluten-free diet would have helped an individual to lose weight by cutting out breads, cakes, and muffins. However, her article explains that the gluten-free fad has actually undermined people's health because now there are gluten-free varieties of all that junk food. Whether your doughnut is gluten-free or not, its still a doughnut (Jargon, The Gluten-Free Craze: Is It Healthy?). Under Wootans logic, one might also ask whether the hip local food buzzwords have become code words for health food, when that might not actually be the case (for example, a locally-sourced doughnut is still a doughnut). Likewise, one might ask whether large food production companies are now using the buzzwords to sugarcoat (no pun intended) their not-so-changed products. For example, NPR recently noted that Frito-Lay has reformulated Cheetos to meet school nutrition guidelines. (NPR, Guess What Makes the Cut as a Smart Snack in Schools? Hot Cheetos).There is no single answer to what is driving the local food movement. Indeed the movements momentum is heavily driven by increased publicity of the effects of the typical American diet combined with the exposure of mass food production practices. Another supporting factor is the increased availability of healthier organic foods and a market interested in purchasing those local products. However, the success of the local food movement depends on the publics continued support and food companies responses.