In 1992, as part of the “Safe” campaign for more sustainable food, Tim Lang, currently a professor of food policy at London's City University, coined the phrase "food miles". Now more than fifteen years later, food miles, which is defined as the total distance in miles a food item is transported from field to plate, has become accepted as an indicator of sustainability.
In recent years, the transport of food from farm to fork has risen dramatically, leading to significant increases in CO2 emissions. The irony is that even during the growing season when farm markets are crammed with local products, supermarkets are stocked with food from far away.
Obviously, the heavy goods vehicle is necessary for the transportation of food. Inevitably, the trading of certain staples such as sugar, coffee or tropical fruit cannot be avoided. However, eating as much local produce as possible reduces imports and has a beneficial effect on the environment, as well as on personal health. Studies have shown that fresh food, which hasn’t spent days crossing the country, or in some cases, the world, is more nutritious. In the current system of industrialized agriculture, the taste, texture and variety of fruits and vegetables have been sacrificed to the apparent need for permanent global summertime. As a result, the notion of seasonal produce has been replaced by a cheap, plentiful and steady supply of colourless bland commodities.
Inspired by the photographers who celebrate the spectacle of the everyday and in particular by the humorous yet damning explorations of global culture by Martin Parr, I began to document the ever-growing realm of vehicle wrapping. By focusing on these ubiquitous moving billboards I hope to bring attention to the paradoxical reality that the twenty fresh foods that typically fill your shopping basket have traveled over 100,000 miles despite that many of these items could be sourced nearby. Instead of the pleasures of eating, the sometimes amusing and often disgusting images of food become sad reminders of a highly commercialized world that has run amok, symbols of a world where even our sustenance is not spared from a culture of insatiable conspicuous consumption.