Overview

Food is integral to more than hospitality. The planet has revolved around food for billions of years. The history of food aligns with the history of humankind’s societies and cultures.

Many of us think of our food as originating from beautiful farmland in rural areas where dedicated farmers live noble lives ensuring national and global food security. Food at the farm level is often referred to as food stuff. Food stuff is a term that denotes ingredients that are used to make the more complex foods that we most often eat. Some basic examples include grains (e.g., wheat, rice, barley), fruits (e.g., melons, berries), fats and oils (e.g., olive oil, butter, margarine), and sweeteners (e.g., sugar, honey, maple syrup). Humans often mix these ingredients to make more complex dishes. In today’s more global times, we can use food stuff from around the world to make culinary treats.

Farming is only one step in what is known as the supply chain though. Our food needs to be sorted and graded. Products such as corn are mostly milled into products such as flour. Fruits and vegetables should be washed, chopped, and packaged. Furthermore, much of the farmed products need to be processed. All this may take place before transportation logistics become involved.

Trucks, ships, planes, and rail move containers globally from farms to the next step in what is known as the supply chain of food. Moving items that are as perishable as food, which often need to be kept at certain temperatures or are time sensitive, can be a logistical nightmare. There are millions of professionals who oversee the movement of food through this step in the supply chain on a global scale.

Food stuff, including many items that have at this point been combined to move beyond food stuff, then makes their way to intermediaries. This includes conglomerates to the restaurant industry such as Gordon Food Services or Sysco as well as grocery stores. And of course, the restaurants and grocery stores are where people mostly get their food from in the U.S.

The supply chain is elementary to humankind’s existence. This supply chain brings food from the producer to you and more than 8 billion others globally. The effectiveness of the supply chain, in alignment with food processing and farming techniques, has allowed the U.S. to move from 950 million of farmland acres to less than 900 million acres of farmland since 2000 (Economic Research Service, 2024). This took place even with large increases in population.

Attributions

1. Chapter opening image: HDV Breakfast Menu by Hotel du Vin and Bistro is released under CC BY-ND 2.0