Influential Foundation Announces 10 Percent “Good Food” Target
APRIL 25, 2007
If local foods are going to surge into the popular consciousness, let alone the popular cupboards, then it's got to be through the big supermarkets, the influential Kellogg Foundation announced yesterday at its Food and Society conference in Traverse City, Michigan. Their goal of 10 percent of the entire American food system to be "healthy, green, afforable and fair" by 2016 is "audacious but attainable," said Ricardo Salvador, a memberof Kellogg's planning team.
That strategy is adeparture from their past focus on farmers markets, community gardens, and Community Supported Agriculture. While they will continue to support these valuable grassrootsmovements, thechange comes down to simple math, Salvador said.
That's because this "alternative" food system would have to grow by 30 percent each year to meet what the Kellogg Foundation calls their Good Food goal, which incorporates local eating. "That's IPod territory, not broccoli," Salvador said. Presently, while annual US sales through alternative outlets are $3.1 billion, this is less than one percent of total food sales. However, grocery stores, which count for the lion's share of all food purchased in America, would only have to shift half a percent each year into the Good Food category to stay on target.
The Kellogg Foundation is pledging to put its philanthropic muscle into Good Food. Big business, take note: 600 of the who's who of American agriculture non-profits, academics and activists have been enlisted at the conference, to which the 100-Mile Diet Society was invited. Who thought something so, well, small scale as local eating might become so big? -ADS
