Re: Avg. Miles Food Travels

Sarah Milstein (milstein@pipeline.com)
Sat, 17 Feb 1996 01:27:27 -0500

Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about the average distance
food travels from farm to table. For those who are interested, the answer
is below, courtesy of Dave French. (Actually, several of you cited this
source). Does anyone have a copy of the article that we can circulate? If
not, I'll try to track one down.

- Sarah

I asked:

>>I've often heard it said that food travels 1,300 (or 1,100 or 1,200)
miles,
>>on average, from farm to table. Does anyone know a source for this
>>statistic?
>

Dave responded:

>The reference that I have for this is: The Packer (1992) "From Grower to
>Consumer: An Elaborate Odyssey," 13 June 1992. Unfortunately, this
>information is second hand. I don't have a copy of the original article.
>There are several publications named The Packer. I believe that the one
>we're looking for is this one:
>
>TITLE The packer. Kansas City, Mo.: Packer Pub. Co., 1968-
>Vol. 75, no. 6 (Mar. 2, 1968) -
>FORMAT v. : ill. ; 57 cm.

>NOTES KEY TITLE: Packer (1968)

>Weekly
>The national weekly business newspaper of growers, shippers,
>receivers, distributors and retailers of fruits and vegetables;
>subtitle varies.
>Published: Kansas City, Kan., <1977->; Shawnee, Mission, Kan.:
>Vance Publishing Corp., <1980->
>
>and the volume we're looking for is v. 99. If you actually find a copy of
>the article, I'd love to get one also.
>
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>Dave French dfrench@doit.wisc.edu
>Food Science Department University of Wisconsin-Madison
>1605 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706-1565 608-262-4613
>813 Maple Terrace, Madison, WI 53705-2112 608-233-5238
>
>