World’s Largest Fresh Tuna Market In Japan Takes A Nosedive
As restaurants remain fully or partially closed, demand for sushi has plummeted, and the world’s largest tuna market in Tokyo is feeling the pinch. Fresh fish prices decreased 1.5% in the past year, according to government data, but fresh tuna prices dropped even further by 8.4%. “Our sales are down by 60% compared to last August,” said Yasuyuki Shimahara, owner of a Tokyo izakaya bar that specializes in tuna dishes. Tuna imports also fell 18% in the first six months of 2020 compared to the year before, according to finance ministry data.
Food Supply Chains Tighten And World Hunger Worsens
Food banks are trying to keep up with increasing numbers of hungry families around the world, but food distribution during lockdown has created additional challenges. Since the pandemic began, the European Food Banks Federation (FEBA) saw an average 50% jump in food demand from charities. While a large fast-food chain offered the group leftover ingredients, FEBA had difficulty visiting the chain’s thousands of locations to gather the food. FEBA has also had a shortage of volunteers during lockdown.
In the U.S., food banks have struggled to keep up with demand from lines of cars hoping to feed their families. A food bank in Memphis served more than 18,000 people between March and August, 10 times more than it served at the same time last year. According to a government survey, during one week in late July, close to 30 million Americans reported they did not have enough to eat. Lauren Bauer, a food insecurity researcher at the Brookings Institution, says that one in three households with children reported insufficient food supplies for daily needs. Feeding America, which oversees the country’s largest supply chain of food banks and pantries, projects that as many as 54 million Americans could become food insecure before the year’s end, marking a 46% increase since the start of the pandemic. Feeding America has reported a 60% increase in people they serve, and says that four in 10 people are new recipients of food aid.
Food Prices Continue To Rise Worldwide
Global food prices increased for the third consecutive month in August, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In July, the food price index averaged 94.3 points, while in August the average climbed to 96.1 points. FAO’s cereal price index grew 1.9% in August from the month before and 7% above its value a year earlier, with sorghum, barley and rice prices increasing the most. The vegetable oil price index rose 5.9%, while sugar prices increased 6.7% from July. The FAO cited China’s powerful import demand as a contributing factor in rising prices. Sugar production is also predicted to slow down due to poor weather conditions in the European Union and Thailand.
Starbucks Institutes Supply Chain Transparency For Coffee Farmers And Consumers
Bags of Starbucks coffee at its US stores now include a code allowing consumers to determine where the beans came from, where they were roasted, and advice on brewing, according to Michelle Burns, Starbucks senior vice president of global coffee, tea and cocoa. Coffee farmers also have access to a reverse code allowing them to track what happens to the coffee they grew. The code is part of tool by Microsoft Corp. that uses blockchain technology and allows Starbucks to share traceability data with its customers concerned about fair trade and sustainability issues in the coffee market. Starbucks isn’t the only company offering transparency in its supply chain. Coffee roasters such as J.M. Smucker Co. and Jacobs Douwe Egberts joined a blockchain initiative last year in a partnership with IBM and the startup Farmer Connect, which helps the firms track the origin and pricing of their beans along the supply chain. For Starbucks, bags with blended coffees will be traced to the country of origin, while single origin beans will be traced to the region where the beans were grown or to the farm itself. Farmers will have access to the same tool so they can trace what happens to their beans when they leave the farm.
New York Sues One Of The Nation’s Largest Egg Producers For Pandemic Price Gouging
Last week, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Hillandale Farms, accusing the egg producer of charging consumers excessive prices for eggs during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to James’s investigation, the company increased egg prices by nearly five times in March. In mid-January, Hillandale charged New York City supermarket chain Western Beef $0.59 for a dozen large white eggs. By the end of March, when New York City was scrambling to contain the virus, Hillandale charged $2.93 a dozen. At Stop & Shop, Hillandale’s price for jumbo white eggs doubled from January’s $0.85 to $1.70 a dozen by mid-March, then it nearly quadrupled by early May to $3.16 a dozen. James argues that the prices violate New York State law forbidding price gouging, which the state defines as “charging grossly excessive prices for essential goods and services” during “extraordinary adverse circumstances.”
Beef And Pork Prices Rose More Than 20% Since February
With restaurants and event venues closed, demand for meat has skyrocketed in grocery stores. Prices have shot up as well. Overall, Americans spent 4.5% more on groceries in June than they did in February. The price of doughnuts, coffee cakes, and other sweet baked goods increased 4.2%, while shelf stable seafood prices rose 4.6%. The cost of peanut butter went up 7.9%, and ham prices increased 8.7%. As for meat, fresh pork prices rose 19.9% and beef and veal prices increased by 22.2% and counting, according to market analysts 24/7 Wall St. and data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics. Rising food prices have largely been pinned on supply chain issues as demand for retail products grew dramatically when nationwide lockdowns began. Economic troubles among farmers and closures at meatpacking facilities have also hampered supply of some products.
U.S. Beef Industry Begins Adapting To Become More Sustainable
Between high prices, more vocal vegans, virus outbreaks at slaughterhouses, and the impact of conventional beef production on climate change, American beef has come under fire lately. Leaders in the U.S. beef industry are adapting to meet shifting consumer demands. Here’s how the U.S. beef industry is changing from the ranch to the butcher case to become more sustainable over the long haul.
Not all American beef comes from feedlots. Small ranches such as White Oak Pastures and Roam Ranch are using regenerative agriculture techniques to produce grass-fed beef and bison with a lower carbon footprint than conventional feedlot beef. Even on the huge feedlots, efficiencies and economies of scale are conserving resources more than ever before. About 50% of the corn fed to feedlot cattle comes from waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Yes, the animals are given hormones and steroids, but because that causes them to grow faster, the cattle consume 15 to 20% less feed, reducing the total acreage of corn that needs to be grown for feed. Corn-fed cattle reach slaughter weight about 13 months sooner than grass-finished cattle, which also means that a corn-fed steer produces less methane over the course of its life than a grass-finished steer. And every pound of American feedlot beef results in three times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a pound of beef produced in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa due to inefficiencies in the beef production systems of those countries. The Big Four meatpackers (Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef) produce about 80% of American beef, but smaller regional slaughterhouses are now beginning to chip away at that percentage. As a result of the pandemic, supply chain challenges and shifting consumer buying habits have caused a boom in small, regional slaughterhouses, which may ultimately help to decentralize the meatpacking industry and shield it against future supply chain bottlenecks. Finally, grass-finished beef is improving in quality and the number of producers is increasing, creating better and more widespread alternatives to traditional corn-fed beef. .
Food Shortages? Soaring Prices? Economist Stats Say Otherwise
Catherine Kling, an economics professor at Cornell University, said “I’ll bet I’ve been to 50 talks in the last five, 10 years where the beginning is, ‘We have to feed 9 billion people by 2050. This is a crisis situation.’ The word ‘crisis’ gets used regularly.” But the numbers tell a different story. Tom Hertel, an economist at Purdue University, says it’s true that from 1900 to 2000, the number of people on earth grew four times in size; however, by the end of the century, food prices has dropped by one-third. On the whole, food has been getting cheaper and cheaper around the world. Hertel and Kling claim that poverty, war and political oppression are what make people go hungry, not food shortages. So why do forecasters and lawmakers keep harping about potential food shortages? “Part of the reason may be it’s an effective communication device,” says Kling. She says that farmers and lobbyists may claim the world needs more food so that governments don’t enforce environmental regulations that may reduce overall farm output. Hertel asserts that scientists too have a reason to exaggerate or overstate food shortage risks: it helps raise money for agricultural research. “The issue is not, can we produce enough food,” says Hertel, “It is, can we produce enough food in a way that doesn’t destroy the environment.”
Global Meat Consumption To Increase Post-Pandemic, Says United Nations
Global meat consumption will grow by 12% in the coming decade with lower-cost poultry accounting for half the increase, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In “Agricultural Outlook,” a joint report with Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), the FAO predicts that poultry consumption worldwide will rise by 145 tons by 2029 and that aquaculture will surpass capture fisheries by 2024 as the top source of fish. Low feed costs for poultry and livestock will make these ventures more attractive to farmers, according to the report, and consumers in middle-income countries will continue to supplement traditional diets with more meat as it becomes affordable.
In developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, meat consumption will rise five times faster than in developed nations, according to the joint report, as consumers in developed nations seek meat alternatives. “Environmental and health concerns in high-income countries are expected to support a transition away from animal-based protein toward alternative sources, as well as more immediate substitution away from red meat, notably beef, toward poultry and fish,” said the report. Although meat consumption is predicted to eventually rise, The OECD-FAO estimates that global meat consumption fell by 2% in 2019 with China experiencing at least a 21% drop in pork consumption due to the outbreak of African swine flu epidemic.
Food Banks Pushed To The Brink As Food Insecurity Rises
The Brooklyn social services provider Camba Inc. served more than 18,000 people last month, almost five times as many as in February. It’s a small example of how the pandemic has caused demand at food banks to skyrocket due to millions of Americans being out of work. According to hunger-relief organization Feeding America, which operates 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs across the country, an additional 17 million people will become unable to meet their family’s food needs this year. To meet rising demand, relief organizations across the country are testing new distribution strategies, employing temporary labor, and scrambling to find larger storage facilities.
According to a June survey by Feeding America, over 82% of U.S. food banks are helping more people now than last year, at an average increase of 50%. Food banks rely on surplus food from grocery stores, manufacturers, farmers, and government agencies. However, due to consumer stockpiling, shelf-stable products have been in low supply since March, straining food-relief efforts that rely on these products. Food banks have been forced to compete with each other for canned goods, in many cases purchasing the items themselves.
