Some
thirty years ago, our farm wanted to pursue the value addition of local
resources and we started making jam out of local berries. First we picked
lingonberries - a North European berry similar to cranberries - ourselves in
the forest. But quite soon we reverted to buy up from pickers. But the buckets
were full of bad berries, leaves, twigs and droppings from roe deer so we had
to spend a lot of time cleaning them. We converted an old grain cleaning
machine, but when the berries were really ripe and soft, they were mashed
inside the machine, and it was impossible to clean it. In addition, one of us
got an involuntary exotic haircut, when leaning too close to the fan of the
cleaner. Next solution was to buy from a local berry trader who had a purposely
built lingonberry cleaner. But also with this one we had quality problems and
ended up having to pick many leaves by ourselves. In addition, as most berry
pickers know, the berries don’t grow equally well every year, there is frost in
the florescence, it is too dry, too rainy or there is a pest, so we could not
rely on the local berries alone. And neither could the local berry cleaning
operation, so it closed down.
Then we
were left buying from one of the two big companies controlling the market. They
have wonderful machines where each berry is individually quick frozen. Each
berry rolls in dedicated tubes where size, color etc. is detected and anything
that is not according to specs is blown away. The end product is amazingly
clean and comes in 25 kg bags with free flowing berries. Of course, this means that the berries now
are transported all across the country, as such machines existed only in two
places in the country. The local business is now part of a global production
system whether it likes it or not. And the same companies also trade in berries
from China, Chile, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. We could still get berries from
specified areas – for a premium prices. The organic sugar in the jam was
imported from Paraguay and the people picking the berries in the Swedish forest
were flying in from Thailand. While we made no “local” claim on the label, many
of our customers seemed to expect that the berries were local; some even
thought we picked them ourselves.
The
story does give a rather good insight is why “local” disappeared. In this
particular case, when it comes to physical product quality, the “globalized”
standard IQF frozen berry is superior anything we could get locally, unless you
think some moss and rotten berries should be part of the recipe. At the same
time this kind of development has disconnected us, most of us, from the
landscape and natural process that is the basis for human existence. In the end
it has also changed what we eat, how we eat, where we eat, with whom we eat –
even why we eat.
(The text above is a "killed darling" from my - very soon forthcoming - book Global Eating Disorder. )
