All You Need to Know About the Economy of Food | ENDEVR Documentary

there are many questions we should ask ourselves when we go to the grocery store does it matter if it's organic what about how far did the food travel to get to your table what kind of milk should you buy in this video we will answer all these questions and more here is everything you should know before you go to the grocery store first let's look into why you should avoid cheap meat 1.92 cents that was the average price of one pound of chicken in 2019 that's almost half of what it was in 1960 at the same time the beef price fell by roughly 20 percent the world now produces more than three times the amount of meat is in nineteen all this while more and more evidence reveals that meat production has a huge negative impact on the environment climate and human health and here we are more people are eating meat because it's cheap and delicious but production on an industrial level is coming at an exorbitant price how did we end up here how did meat prices get so cheap let's take a look on average americans consumed 180 pounds of beef pork and poultry in 2018 10 percent more than in 1970 americans pay a lower per capita rate for most foods than anywhere else in the world less than 10 percent of american household budget goes toward food meanwhile meat production results in carbon dioxide emission methane and other global warming gases and also plays a role in deforestation and the overuse of fertilizers to understand how we got here we need to look into the history of meat production and how it has changed over the years in the early decades of the 20th century in the midwest of the united states farmers raised animals they would then ship the live animals to stockyards in major metropolitan areas around the country those animals would be processed there and later sold to local butchers who would cut them into stakes and sell to consumers fast forward to post world war ii the local butcher expanded into grocery stores and the technology to ship refrigerated foods became available grocery stores started to look for suppliers that could ship the meat already processed not the big animal pieces like before the packing houses then moved out of the metropolitan areas and built facilities close to where animals were being raised this was the beginning of the infrastructure we have today at this time the industry started to adapt to consumers taste instead of sending all cuts of meat they started shipping specific cuts and the whole operation of raising slaughtering and processing into something easy to buy and cook moved very far from consumers all the streamlining that these changes demanded contributed to making meat production more efficient and therefore cheaper but one other development would become the most consequential change in the industry we are talking about consolidation today the american market is dominated by three big companies tyson jbs and cargill together these three mega conglomerates control two-thirds of the beef and about half of the chicken market in the united states the pork market also has one other bigger player smithfield owned by chinese conglomerate wh group together they determine prices production conditions and even push for regulations the number of slaughterhouses has decreased by about 70 percent since 1976 from 2001 to 2019 not one year went by without tyson announcing another acquisition as companies got larger in production scaled up the costs per unit decreased and created a cycle of cheaper prices more sales more powerful companies and consequences with a direct impact on consumers consolidation led to big changes in the way need is processed it is important to understand that the larger the plant the lower the prices per pounding process but a cheaper price also means significant changes in the production chain in this reality everyone takes a hit animals workers and suppliers everybody has to sacrifice and suffer so the final product is cheap enough to sell millions of pounds every day while still generating big profits for the conglomerates in the chicken industry for example the big companies control the entire process from chicken genetics to packaging from 1925 to 2015 the average days to market for a u.s chicken has been reduced from 112 to 48 days at the same time the average chicken's weight has ballooned from a market weight of 2.5 pounds to 6.24 pounds with only one animal the industry can have almost three times more meat in less than half the time as the industries consolidated productivity growth and optimization became the norm with a profound impact on the workers conditions this became very obvious during 2020 when the world tried to adapt to the covet 19 pandemic according to the food and environment reporting network from april until the end of november 2020 at least 555 meat plants have had confirmed cases of covet 19 at least 49 454 workers on these plants have been infected and 254 have died a huge pork facility belonging to smithfield in sioux falls south dakota for example became one of the biggest covet hot spots of the sector out of the 3700 workers 1294 tested positive jobs like the so-called gut snatchers people who slice open pigs and pull out the intros require people to work in close quarters if they follow social distancing rules productivity would be reduced and therefore scale effects of production and prices would be affected in the pork industry nine out of 10 hogs are slaughtered in plants that could process more than 1 million animals a year in the cattle industry a little more than 50 plants are responsible for as much as 98 percent of slaughtering and processing in the united states shutting down one of these plants is like shutting down an airport hub and has a knock-on effect impacting the entire chain and therefore on the meat price and supplies throughout the country no matter what happens a government always avoids endangering the country's food supply closing one of the giant factories never seem to be an option and this gives the neat lobby immense power so it is no surprise that there are few regulations for this industry in september 2019 the us department of agriculture simplified the oversight of slaughterhouses where pigs are killed and processed the new regulations changed two things first it gave local plant employees more responsibility for inspections second it removed limits on line speed that means they can kill as many pigs as they want per minute prior to the new guidelines factories were allowed to slaughter a maximum of one thousand and one hundred and six hogs per hour this limit does not exist anymore similar changes happened in the poultry industry and are likely to happen in the beef sector in the near future critics have also blamed the meat industry's mega infrastructure for spreading diseases in 2018 for example jbs ordered the largest recall of ground beef in u.s history about 12 million pounds of contaminated beef infected with a virile and strain of salmonella in 30 states made 403 people sick and 117 were hospitalized after the recall less than two percent of the meat was recovered abuse of power is another problem that arises from the development of the meat industry the u.s department of agriculture said that jbs underpaid family farmers and ranchers in 2019 at three slaughterhouses in colorado nebraska and texas by claiming the cattle weighed less than they did delivering a huge loss to the families they were fined seventy nine thousand dollars for this illegal practice this amount is almost nothing for a company with net revenue of roughly 40 billion dollars in 2019 it's almost impossible to hold these giants accountable the lobbying abilities of these meat producers are seemingly limitless according to the washington post jbs alone has spent 7.7 million dollars on lobbying meanwhile the company has won more than 900 million dollars in government need contracts and jbs is not the only one wielding its power over government the leverage that these giant meat producers exercise over both republicans and democrats is huge basically no government official wants to collide with such important food suppliers they have the market in a stranglehold and are able to sometimes get away with serious problems like the environmental consequences of the production the british newspaper the guardian published an article in july 2020 saying that there are signs that need giant jbs used cattle supply from a farm in the brazilian amazon which is under sanction for illegal deforestation it was the fifth time that the company was linked to such accusations jbs according to the article denied the story in 2017 a report by mighty an environmental group linked tyson foods to the widespread manure and fertilizer pollution contaminating water in the gulf of mexico the report said that tyson slaughters 35 million chickens 125 000 heads of cattle every week and that 5 million acres of corn are needed to feed all the animals annually it also stated that this consumption resulted in tyson generating 55 million tons of manure in one year with 104 million tons of pollutants dumped into waterways in one decade mighty earth also accused cargill of operating a soy plantation on indigenous land in brazil and being one of the u.s top 10 polluters tyson and cargill also denied any wrongdoing the impact of meat on the environment is so big that the intergovernmental panel on climate change has already stated that human diets have a fundamental influence on tackling climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions without any changes in our diet the ipcc predicts that co2 emissions due to food production and consumption are expected to double by twenty fifty if animal sourced food could be completely avoided a global decrease of up to eight billion tons of co2 by 2050 is possible zero animal meat consumption might not be realistic but there are alternatives plant-based meat for example could be part of the solution but due to the low price of animal meat these products are still not nearly as competitive price wise the average price for plant-based meat sold in grocery stores in the u.s in 2019 was 9.87 cents per pound 70 percent more than beef and even five times the price of chicken while the plant-based meat industry is still at the very beginning making up about 0.5 percent of meat sales in the us the secret to success might be to copy the animal meat industry process hope lies in more efficiency from the companies along with government subsidies this might lead to lower prices but who knows until then it's everyone's responsibility to understand how the system works and what is behind that very cheap pack of meat on the counter now we will look into what is behind milk production and how you can choose the right substitute we put milk in our coffee pour it over our cereal use it for baking cooking and we all love cheese but what most people don't know is that behind all of these delicious things is an industry going through some seismic changes there have never been so few dairy farms in the united states as today look what happened to the number of farms in the state of wisconsin which for a long time was an industry leader at the same time milk production has consistently been growing for decades with supply levels high in minimum price fluctuations margins sank in small and medium dairy farms suffered the result was a drastic process of consolidation in the sector that led to the concentration of production and bigger farms one of the characteristics of these producers is the way animals are treated most have exclusively confined animals with cows being milked several times per day for activists and ngos this is the equivalent of animal cruelty some even question if drinking cow milk is ethical meanwhile milk substitutes have been gaining market shares all over the world let's see what is behind this phenomenon to better understand the transformation that the dairy sector has gone through in the united states over the past decades we need to look at numbers dairy farms peaked in the 1930s when there were 3.6 million of them today the country has only 37 000 left the sector has changed a lot but remains economically important with an estimated impact of 620 billion dollars annually in the united states production has been growing and has surpassed 212 billion pounds in 2020 that is thanks to dairy derived products like yogurt and cheese while the average american is drinking less milk than ever milk consumption per person has dropped 40 since 1975 a trend that is accelerating every year on average an american drank 109 liters of milk in 1975 and only 66.2 liters in 2018 it is not only consumer behavior that changed dairy farms have changed dramatically as well they are more concentrated and bigger as corporations and big players have absorbed most of the small and medium-sized producers the dairy industry consolidated faster than any other agricultural sector in the us for example consolidation in crop production doubled within the 30 years between 1986 and 2016 at the same time consolidation among dairy producers increased by 16-fold for example in 1992 there were 16 315 farms with a herd size between 10 and 49 cows in 2017 there were only 11 479 farms the same size meanwhile the farms with more than a thousand cows passed from 564 in 1992 to 1009 in 2017 over the past decade twenty thousand dairy farms have gone out of business while average milk production per farm rose more than five-fold between 1987 and 2017. this reflects an industry with bigger and more efficient farms one able to deliver a lot more milk per cow this happened due to practices some activists consider cruel and unacceptable and a lot of it has to do with the size of the farm and the way it is managed there are big differences between larger and smaller dairy farms and their production practices the small ones usually are family-owned businesses with family labor and homegrown feed where cows have more time out of barns and are milked daily the bigger ones however usually rely on hired labor purchase feed and confine their animals within barns or lots for the majority of their existence among the farms with more than 2 000 cows in the united states 96.1 percent of them never graze their animals and 61.5 percent milk their cows three times per day among farms with 10 to 49 cows only 22.6 percent of them never graze their animals and none milk their cows three times a day but some facts do not change according to the size of the farms it's important to know that dairy cows are repeatedly impregnated by artificial insemination and have their newborns removed at birth usually the female calves have their horn buds destroyed when they are about eight weeks old for what producers argue is a matter of security for the employees they are then kept in individual pens until they are ready to be impregnated the male calves have an even sadder destiny they are usually sent to veal farms or cattle ranches a normal dairy cow can live up to 20 years but its milk production lasts an average of five so five years is the average lifespan of such cows in the united states after that yes they will probably also be sent to a slaughterhouse most of them will spend their life inside a concrete floored enclosure if they are lucky to be born among a producer that allows grazing possibilities they might see the world but most do not producers try to reject the notion that dairy farming is inhumane and cruel according to the new york times the national milk producers federation which represents most of the country's dairy farms is encouraging veterinarians visits and workers trained in humane cow handling and phasing out tail docking the practice of cutting a cow's tail off all of this could lead to improvements in the treatment of dairy cows but might not be enough to change public opinions in october 2020 the ngo animal outlook published an investigation at a dairy factory farm in southern california the images show sick cows unable to walk subjected to extremely painful treatment that shocked the world besides that the environmental impact of milk production is also under the spotlight a 2018 study by the university of oxford showed that producing one glass of dairy milk results in almost three times more greenhouse gas emissions than any plant-based milk and uses up to nine times more land images like the ones published by animal outlook and studies like the oxford one are widely promoted online and are leading a cultural change that will impact the industry forever milk one day seen as a healthy source of protein and calcium no longer has a good image and very often is seen as a result of cruel practices and environmental damage in the end there are big challenges ahead for an industry trying to survive such a massive cultural shift but if cow milk can be problematic what is the best substitute there are many options let's take a look at some of them almond milk is by far one of the most popular but it is also problematic as its production requires more water than any other dairy alternative to produce one glass of almond milk one needs 61.5 liters of water according to a study from oxford university the california central valley is home to 70 percent of the world's almond production and this has had an impact on the bee population yep nowadays 70 percent of the commercial bees in the u.s are drafted every spring to pollinate the almonds in california and they are dying in record numbers due to pesticide exposure and diseases from parasites also commercial bees are in most cases european honeybees and the proliferation of this species especially because of almond farms is affecting and undermining the ecosystem for all bees retail sales of oat milk in the u.s passed from 4.4 million dollars in 2017 to 29 million dollars in 2019 the good thing is oats are grown in cooler climates and are not associated with the deforestation of rain forests in southern countries another advantage is the fact that oats are also used as animal feed that means that much before people started drinking milk there was already a lot of oat production in the world using a part of this production for milk is pretty reasonable and won't affect the environment in a damaging way but it's not all perfect of course most of the oats in the world come from mass-produced monoculture operations that very often use pesticides and this might end up in your milk [Music] well just take a look where a lot of the soybeans are being produced big chunks of rain forest in the amazon in brazil have been burned to make way for soy farms but not all soy production is a result of deforestation if the soy on your milk does not come from areas like the brazilian amazon soy milk can be a very good milk substitute the oxford study showed that soy is the only plant milk that comes close to offering a protein content comparable to dairy from a nutritional point of view rice milk doesn't offer much there are not enough nutrients to be considered a real dairy substitute from an environmental point of view it can also be problematic rice plantations use a lot of water and produce more greenhouse gas emissions than any other plant milk in summary it's better to stick to other options in a nutshell not a great option coconut trees are concentrated in poorer tropical countries the recent global surge for the product has caused the exploitation of workers who are paid very little as well as the destruction of the environment where they are found farmers in countries like the philippines indonesia and india used to feed their families and produce for local communities this is disappearing in a culture of exploitation and destruction is taking over in summary the most important thing is to know the origin of your milk there are ways to consume responsibly regardless of your favorite drink in the end the best way to make an informative decision is to make sure you know where it comes from and how it's produced now we will explain why it's important to know where your food comes from you probably already noticed that every time you go to the supermarket and check your foods labels they don't usually come from somewhere nearby in fact sometimes they come from very far away bananas from central america berries from south america fish from china even meet from very distant new zealand but how bad is it for the environment should we just eat local hold on things are not that simple let's look into it the united states has never imported so much food the numbers are staggering from 1999 to 2017 the total passed from 43 billion dollars to 137 billion the amount of imported fruits in the markets has increased more than three times in the same period and the number of vegetables also saw growth of more than threefold the us imported most of the food from mexico followed by canada france italy and china all of this food traveling around the world poses some questions does it make sense to buy food that came from so far away in an era of global warming and climate change why do we need to eat a piece of meat from an animal raised on the other side of the world these concerns became a theory in the term food miles was coined in the 1990s by tim lane a city university of london professor the term is used to present the distance that the food is transported from the place it's produced until it reaches the consumer and can also be used to measure the carbon footprint of a product basically speaking the longer the product travels more energy is needed and therefore the worse it is for the environment a big movement of buy local eat local was created in response to this environment activists started to believe that food from distant countries was probably worth avoiding and the locally produced fruits meat and vegetables from the nearby farmers market was probably a better choice but things are not as simple as they seem food miles alone does not show exactly how bad a carbon footprint of a product is it is certainly one of the indicators but taking it alone can lead to a false sense of green responsibility a better way of calculating the environmental impact of a product is called life cycle assessment and takes into consideration more than just how far away it was transported it considers the production process the way it is stored the international distribution the way it is processed packaged how it is locally distributed how it's kept in the supermarket and how it is dealt with by the consumer as we can see here in this graph food miles are just a fraction of the actual impact of the product on the environment the life cycle assessment method takes into account details like the kind of fertilizers it is used for production what kind of packaging and the way the product is disposed of and recycling possibilities but although more complex than just looking into food miles the method is also not perfect and might still leave out some important aspects of food production of the calculation like the social impact in summary it's very complicated to precisely say what the carbon footprint of our food is so much so that even companies that tried to calculate and label all products have had a hard time doing so a famous case is from british supermarket chain tesco one of the biggest in the world in 2007 they announced the plan of labeling the carbon footprint of all the seventy thousand products they had in stores five years later they called off the plan blaming the amount of work in the process the difficulties involved and other supermarket chains that were not doing the same figuring out carbon footprint is hard because we must look into the details if we look at food miles for example there are many nuances the way the food is transported is very important cargo ships are the most efficient followed by trains then trucks and lastly planes a container transported on a ship emits 0.14 kilograms of co2 per ton kilometer while this number is by plane but if we look at how food is transported around the world nowadays only 0.16 are transported by planes and 58.97 are transported by ships scientists of lincoln university discovered that a piece of lamb meat produced and sold in the uk can have a higher carbon footprint than if produced in new zealand and transported to the uk by ship they analyzed in both countries the water use harvesting techniques fertilizer outlays renewable energy applications means of transportation and the kind of fuel used the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis disposal of packaging storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs through their calculations a land raised on new zealand clover choked pasture and shipped eleven thousand miles by ship to britain produced one thousand five hundred and twenty pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton at the same time if this same lamb was produced in britain using the feed it would produce six thousand two hundred and eighty pounds of carbon dioxide per ton in summary buying british lamb from the local market would be more damaging to the environment than buying from new zealand however there are also examples of studies that point in the other direction that's the case with german apples in general countries that produce apples can sell fresh ones year-round without importing this is thanks to a technology called controlled atmosphere the apples are usually harvested in the autumn with the second semester in the northern hemisphere and are stored in rooms with controlled temperature oxygen carbon dioxide and humidity levels this way the stored apples do not fully develop but let's say they go to sleep this allows apples to stay fresh for longer after harvest than if they were simply refrigerated that's how you can buy local apples the whole year but does this increase the apple's carbon footprint is it still better to buy local two german scientists tried to answer this question they compared german stored apple's energy use to fresh apples imported from new zealand different from the lamb meat from the uk the german apples had a better result taking into consideration all the emissions from cultivation to consumer shopping the local apple stored in a controlled atmosphere required 5.893 megajoules per kilo while the imported apples from new zealand required 7 499 megajoules per kilo but again it's not that simple the two scientists calculated the impact of keeping the apples for five months in the apple industry it's not rare for the fruit to stay in these stored rooms for more than that if it stays nine months for example importing from new zealand might be a better solution and it also depends on what kind of energy is used in the process in summary food miles can be indicators of an environmental impact but alone are not usually enough to point out the actual damage the best way is to look at the whole food supply chain but there are ways of making informed decisions when it comes to what food and from where you should buy let's look into some important actions you can start taking to minimize the carbon footprint of your food if you are going to worry about food miles make sure that you avoid what is transported by air this includes perishable products such as asparagus green beans strawberries and other berries just as an example let's take a look at the difference in co2 emissions between green beans that are found in dutch supermarkets the ones coming from kenya by plane emit much more co2 than the ones grown locally or from morocco which arrived in the country by sea so regardless of what you buy just make sure it arrived at your city by land or sea never by air the best way to avoid berries traveling around the world by plane is not eating them all year round purchasing in season produce can help you reduce the carbon footprint of your food this way it's very much likely that you are not only going to avoid the products coming from far away but you will also avoid the local ones that are cultivated in heated greenhouses or stored in cold storage the amount of energy used in in-season products is usually lower and can result in products with a lower carbon footprint don't forget the way you consume also impacts the carbon footprint of your food if you are buying a couple of oranges and placing them in a plastic bag the carbon footprint is already much higher than if you took them home in your tote bag make sure you avoid packaging when not necessary and remember any petrochemical derived packaging along the way just increases the carbon footprint of your food [Music] it is always important to check where your food comes from as we saw in this video distance alone is not the only information that matters when it comes to carbon footprint but it can be very important and if the package does not have the information about how the product got to you knowing where it comes from can help you understand the journey that the food took to get to your table there is plenty of information available online and it is usually possible to find out how the journey might have impacted the environment do your research you don't need to be a radical vegan to make a difference but reducing the consumption of foods with a high carbon footprint can already be helpful the total emissions from global livestock are 7.1 gigatons of co2 per year this is 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions by human activities cattle are the animal species responsible for about 65 percent of the livestock sector's emissions reducing the amount of beef consumption would already be a step in the right direction if your idea is to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet in the end knowing what you eat and where it comes from can make a huge difference be aware pay attention research and make sure that what you eat is in line with the world you want to live in and next we will explain why some people believe that less consumption is the only alternative for a sustainable future you probably remember when greta thundberg accused world leaders of believing in fairy tales of eternal economic growth how dare you she said the climate activist was livid she believes that leaders should focus on discussing how constant growth is destroying the planet instead and she is not alone a lot of people believe that the only way to avoid climate catastrophe and provide a better life to the population is to shrink production and consumption causing an economy to degrow forget gdp growth the d growth movement wants to redefine the system with different targets and reshape the world as we know it but does it make sense let's look into it to understand what the d growth movement wants we need to understand our situation at the moment if we look at what scientists are warning about climate change it's hard to disagree that our societies need to go in a new direction according to goals decided by the paris climate accord the world needs to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees preferably to 1.5 degrees celsius compared to pre-industrial levels scientists believe that we would be heading to catastrophic effects of climate change if we cross this threshold right now there is a 40 percent chance that global temperatures reach 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels in the next five years the latest prediction indicates that every year until 2025 will be at least one degree celsius warmer this does not mean that the world will be 1.5 degrees warmer in the long term there is still time to change but it does show that we are on the wrong track to avoid this scenario we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere those are gases like carbon dioxide methane and nitrous oxides they are largely considered the drivers of global warming and we are producing a lot of these gases in 25 years the emissions grew around 15 billion tons but reducing the emissions of these gases is not something easy that's because our lifestyle is just possible as a result of those ignitions the biggest source of these gases is the energy used in the industries it accounts for around 24 percent of all emissions electricity use transport and also agriculture and land use have a big impact as well in summary producing more means more emissions heating our houses eating meat driving cars flying all of these activities emit gases that are warming the planet and therefore threatening our existence and although there is a lot of talk right now most of the countries are not reducing their emissions a study shows that only 64 countries managed to reduce their emissions since the paris agreement was signed in 150 countries the emissions grew since then globally emissions grew by 240 million tons of co2 per year during 2016 to 2019 compared to the previous four years the situation is getting so dramatic that scientists believe that just small things like a personal dietary change or starting to drive an electric car while everything continues business as usual won't make any significant difference we need to think of solutions to decarbonize the economy as a whole to do that the leaders around the world essentially rely on two solutions traditional green technologies like wind and solar energy sources and what is known as negative emissions technologies which is basically a way of compensating your emissions with something else like reforestation for example if we look at the world energy consumption just a small fraction of the energy used today is renewable it's unrealistic to expect the transition from fossil fuel to green sources will be fast enough to save us from the impacts of global warming and while world leaders discuss strategies the de-growthers are demanding more radical changes [Music] the d growth movement believes that the climate targets set by countries are not ambitious enough and that there is no way we can avoid climate catastrophe if we don't change how our economy works the de-growthers want countries to reconsider the value of the growth of the gross domestic product as a metric for progress and find ways to live within the limits of nature the gdp is the total value of goods produced in services provided in a country during one year they see no other strategy to avoid climate catastrophe than forcing countries to reduce their output in consumption causing the economy to degrow they believe this is the change we need for them if growth is going to continue the consequences ecologically and socially will be very bad and although it might seem radical for some a study by york university has shown that it might be our only solution to fight climate change and its consequences the scientists compared the greenhouse gas emissions within three scenarios normal growth slow growth and d growth using the canadian economy as a simulation model the results show the d growth is the only way to drastically reduce emissions in a timeline from 2005 to 2035 the study shows that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in the business as usual scenario growing 77 during the period in a no growth scenario the greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 22 percent and degrowth would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78 percent canada's long-term goal is to reduce emissions by 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. according to the study d growth is the only way the country could achieve this goal [Music] for de-growthers downscaling production and consumption would not necessarily result in a recession as we know it but looking at how the economy works it is hard to believe that this would not be the case to understand that we need to understand how gdp is calculated the number can be quantified in different ways but the most common method adds up consumption investment government spending and net exports less production and consumption would mean fewer exports and fewer revenues for companies and taxes for the government it's hard to see how we would downsize our production and consumption as de-growthers want and at the same time avoid a recession and well-known consequences like rising poverty and unemployment rates but the de-growthers don't see it this way in contrast to a recession for them the process of degrowing an economy should be planned and accompanied with measures that would reduce risks of negative impact in the society among others they want to shorten the working week introduce measures providing job guarantee with a living wage review the tax system with the super rich paying a lot more taxes and create policies to expand universal access to health care education and housing following this chain of thought those planned actions would mean better living standards to the population while reducing production and consumption and its impact on the environment in summary what d growthers want is not just about producing and consuming less but also reforming the pillars of the capitalist society we live in [Music] it has happened before if we go way back income per capita at the end of the first millennium was lower than at the beginning of the christian era in egypt and byzantium for example we could say that in those two places somehow there was d growth for almost a thousand years in europe we don't need to go back too much in time in the 500 years that preceded the industrial revolution there was no growth at all in the continent in india income per person shrank consistently between the 17th to late 19th centuries so as we can see it's possible and it has happened consistent economic growth around the world is a quite new phenomenon and began around 200 years ago with the industrial revolution so in a way humans have lived long eras with no growth there is no reason to think it's not possible to do it again it's also important to mention that those were not always peaceful times back then when a country didn't have enough resources to keep its population safe and fed conquest and plunder of other nations became a mechanism of growth how can we expect that countries will not behave in such a manner again it's hard to predict what a world of no growth would bring upon us [Music] among d growthers there is a debate about how to implement it and which country should do it some believe that the theory should be put in practice exclusively in rich countries some not after the industrial revolution rich countries were able to develop mainly because they burned lots of fossil fuels like coal and petroleum but how about the countries that have not yet developed in a world where every economy needs to de-grow poor countries would suffer the most with the consequences forcing poor and middle-income countries to de-grow or not grow at all would have a devastating impact on the lives of the citizens of these countries although gdp growth is not a perfect measure to calculate living standards and poverty reduction it's known that every one percent increase in gdp per head reduces poverty by around 1.7 percent removing the possibility of growth would mean stripping countries of a way of taking people out of poverty that's why some believe that rich countries should de-grow and reduce emissions while poorer countries grow and occupy the carbon space the problem is complex and fewer emissions in rich countries cannot mean that poor countries can burn their ways to development but a degrowth strategy could see the less privileged slip into a cycle of poverty unemployment and no money to invest for now degrowth is still a theory that delivers more noise than practical solutions in a world recovering from a recession caused by covet 19 it's hard to believe that not growing is on top of the agenda of any government at the moment but thinking about solutions that can avoid climate catastrophe is urgent and if shrinking economies might not be the priority putting the well-being of people as the main goal should not be seen as radical or revolutionary but necessary and now let's look into how the chewing gum market which has previously enjoyed big success is now struggling chewing gum was a sign of coolness and rebellion for a long time hollywood stars chewed on it with confidence in the 1940s and pop culture references were abundant throughout the 70s 80s and 90s every cool character in a movie or tv series was chewing gum everyone chewed with pride at the same time the industry thrived new flavors products without sugar and the classic spearmint kept the market growing for years until it didn't from 2009 on sale started to decline the decade that followed was lost year after year sales dropped and just like that chewing gum was not cool anymore but what is behind this phenomenon let's take a look at what is making this industry struggle after a decade of falling sales the chewing gum industry continued to register disappointing results in the united states in the year up to july 2020 the whole gum market continued shrinking a producer has blamed the sharp decrease during corona lockdown on people being less concerned about bad breath but the pandemic on its own does not explain the long-term decrease analysts believe that there are many reasons behind these numbers and it's not very obvious some even referred to the phenomenon as somehow mysterious it is a combination of facts and it has to do with different aspects of our society that are changing our behaviors let's dive into what can explain the fall of chewing [Music] gum it's no coincidence that the slow sales of gum happened pretty much at the same time that healthy eating and organic food became the trend millennials the generation born after 1980 that started to enter the labor market more or less at the same time the chewing gum started to decline is famous for worrying about the source of what they eat a morgan stanley study showed that they especially care about food being fresh less processed and with fewer artificial ingredients and they want products that are natural organic and sustainable among this generation chewing a piece of chemical product added with artificial sweeteners and flavors just for the sake of chewing is not a trending behavior alternative breath fresheners such as mints with less artificial ingredients are preferred in most cases chewing gum is made with many unpronounceable substances and sometimes even sugar it's no coincidence that the sugary chewing gum category was especially hit by this crisis the sales of gum with sugar decreased more than the entire category the industry aware of these trends is trying to adapt big players are launching new versions of the product without sugar without artificial flavors or with special natural components they are all trying to find niches and trying to give gum a makeover all of this in the hope that maybe if it looks environmentally friendly naturally produced and tastes good the industry can still convince consumers to chew again [Music] one other popular theory trying to justify the decline of the market claims that self-checkout lanes have eroded the last minute impulse purchases which are especially important for chewing gum it was during this time waiting to pay for your groceries in front of the cashier that people would reach for the product according to estimates purchases that are made right before customers checkout are responsible for between 85 percent to 90 percent of overall chewing gum sales but fewer and fewer people are finding themselves in line to pay for their groceries around 48 percent of consumers in the united states said they used self-service checkouts almost all the time and 60 percent of them said they prefer to self-checkout over store associates if they could choose a study has found that impulse purchases made by women and men fall significantly on self-checkouts when compared to those made in a staffed environment this has hurt the sector so much because checkout zones are one of the highest areas for sales and stores and confectionary items represent 22.5 of those sales with gum accounting for almost half of this total this means that long lines in the supermarket cashier were an ally of the chewing gum market impulse buy was an important pillar of sales and this is slowly disappearing when they are paying for their products on self-checkout stations consumers are focused on checking out and leaving the store they go from the shopping mode to the transaction mode and don't look around much it seems like in these situations somehow all the chewing gum resting in front of them has no appeal [Music] [Applause] another reason that could be behind the decrease in sales is the increase in online shopping the amount of americans buying groceries online is growing and chewing gum is not the ideal product for e-commerce most of the time it's a small product low priced and usually not the reason why people go shopping gum ends on carts while people are passing by buying groceries that are higher on priority it's very hard to convince customers to buy chewing gum in an online environment and e-commerce retail sales are growing consistently in the last years and represent already 13.6 percent of total sales in the united states the coveted pandemic was also responsible for a spike in this number with more people doing their groceries online the chances that a pack of gum will end up as part of the online shopping list are much smaller another problem is the amazon effect according to estimates around 50 percent of all chewing gum online sales are done on amazon but the volume is still much smaller brands selling on amazon are not big players like mars wrigley's and cadbury which usually represent most of the in-store sales the brands that are being successful in this online environment usually look different they are startups usually betting on a niche trying to redefine the chewing gum experience and they might be a way out of the crisis for the sector but it won't be simple let's take a look at what the years ahead look like [Music] with sales and decline and a bad image is there hope for the chewing gum industry yes there are some positive facts as well after the sales in february this year fell 30 percent in comparison with 2020 early april saw the growth recover and in may sales jumped more than 23 percent unfortunately the rhythm of growth has already decelerated after may and after a decade of decline this is not near the recovery that the sector needs but it could be the first sign that chewing gum might have a place in a post-pandemic world what seems to be clear is that maybe the growth of traditional chewing gum will never be the same again it's important to mention that worldwide and in some countries especially in asia sales of traditional chewing gum are still thriving but more and more the sector will have to innovate and right now it seems like the alternatives are not on the big producers but on startups trying to redefine the product in a way they are focusing on the benefits of chewing an oral health company released a gum that helps prevent cavities for example it's sold together with toothbrushes dental floss and toothpastes another is betting on exotic flavor a favorite of millennials there are also brands claiming their chewing gums can help boost the immune system and there is also a caffeinated version that could replace your cup of coffee every morning they are all online most of the time on amazon and claiming to have growing sales this could be an alternative for the market but it's still too early to tell the companies are still very niche with no big volumes it seems that people are not very keen on chewing just for the sake of chewing or to look like a rebel or cool person anymore in 2021 maybe chewing needs to come with extra benefits [Music] chewing on something for no reason is an old human habit ancient greeks chewed on bark but the classic chicken a white resin from a mexican tree that would be the origin of the modern chewing gum made its way to people's mouths during the mayans and aztec civilizations natural from a sappadilla tree the product arrived in the united states from mexico in the mid 19th century first without any additives it was sold as small gray rolled balls with no flavor later on producers started adding sugar and creating versions with peppermint william wrigley the founder of wrigley's one of the biggest us producers that now is part of mars conglomerate was the first one to add spearmint flavor he was also the one that pushed the marketing to a different level and popularized the product in the early stages of the business his company sent a package of four spearmint chewing gum to all of the 1.5 million people listed in the u.s phone book at the same time it created a chain of 117 billboards in the shape of a gum wrapper along a railway in new jersey the sails exploded and wrigley created a lucrative empire that still survives since the first world war american soldiers have chewing gum in their rations this has helped spread the habit around the world according to some specialists by the 40s the demand for chickel was so big that trees were dying off after so much extraction and producers were not keeping it up with so many orders this fact combined with a hike in taxes on imported material which ended with higher prices made u.s producers start looking for synthetic alternatives this is how modern chewing gum was created today chickel is a very niche product it's rare to find most of the companies use a mix of synthetic material with naturals or just synthetics that can include all kinds of artificial rubbers and oil-derived products as the industry struggles to appeal to new generations one thing seems to be obvious chewing gum just isn't cool anymore and whatever the reason is the fact is that americans aren't buying as much gum as they used to if the industry is going to be able to reinvent itself remains an open question but maybe going back to the roots and producing a more natural product catering to a more health obsessed generation could be the answer to the crisis so that's it for this video since you made it to the end click around and keep watching and don't forget to like our video and subscribe to our channel

Channel: ENDEVR

Views: 121,898

Keywords: Free documentary, documentaries, full documentary, hd documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Business Documentary, supermarket, food, what to know about food, food miles, meat, milk, what to know before supermarket, groceries, Everything You Need to Know Before Your Next Trip to The Supermarket, meat lobby, documentary about food, food economy

Id: gMpTW1MOAWc

Length: 50min 45sec (3045 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021