by Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) A couple of months ago, beef burgers in the UK were tested and found to contain horsemeat. Uproar ensued and we watched retailer response play out with curiosity and disdain in equal measure.
[pullquote]Of course, this calls to question what exactly makes up the other 53% of a value burger? In South Africa, similar testing found evidence of water buffalo, donkey and goat meat in food products that included beef burgers, sausages and deli meats.[/pullquote]
Tesco used full-page ads in national newspapers to apologise for selling burgers found to contain 29% horsemeat; whilst Waitrose, given a clean bill of health during the scandal, used the opportunity to talk quality over price (you get what you pay for, after all) and enjoyed an 11% uplift in sales as a result. The media backlash was broad and varied. Food critic, Giles Coren slighted the lack of public knowledge: “What on earth did you think they put in them? Prime cuts of delicious free-range, organic, rare breed, heritage beef, grass-fed, Eton-educated, humanely slaughtered, dry-aged and hand-ground by fairies…?”; whilst the Food Standards Authority qualified standard vs. economy beef burgers as needing to contain a minimum of 62% vs. 47% beef, respectively.
Of course, this calls to question what exactly makes up the other 53% of a value burger? In South Africa, similar testing found evidence of water 
buffalo, donkey and goat meat in food products that included beef burgers, sausages and deli meats. The study confirmed that mislabeling in South Africa is commonplace, with undeclared soya, gluten, pork and chicken posing “economic, religious, ethical and health impacts”. Media furor and details aside, there’s a bigger picture here that says we have become increasingly disconnected from the food we eat.
The cause of this disconnect is rooted in rapid urbanization, together with the growth of supermarkets making increasingly processed foods more widely available and at relatively lower prices. Simultaneously, increasing time constraints have resulted in less cooking at home (and from scratch), whilst the consumption of convenience foods, fast foods and takeaways has increased. As a result, we eat a lot of food-like products, but less real food.
In “The Hungry Season” local author, Leonie Joubert talks to this problem within the context of Food Security: “processed foods are filled with fat, sugar and salt, which makes food taste good and makes us feel full, yet lack the nutrients we need to make us healthy…these foods are cheaper and easier to get hold of, give us empty calories that satisfy cravings now, but that leave us undernourished in the long term.”
Over recent years the sustainability movement has served to reconnect people with where their food comes from, what’s in it, how and where it’s grown and its nutritional content. Supermarkets often showcase the provenance of foods, such as Elgin free-range chicken; Pick n Pay’s country-reared lamb or beef, and Woolworths’ rBST hormone free milk and yoghurt. The growing popularity of farmer’s markets, neighbourhood goods markets, the ‘grow your own’ trend and urban farming such as Oranjezicht City Farm, has all contributed to this movement. But the criticism of course, is that generally the people who are interested in where their food originates are those who can afford to be interested. Leonie Jobert agrees that, “in poorer communities it is easier and cheaper to find tasty fast foods than it is to prepare proper healthier options at home”. What’s more, it’s seen to be aspirational.
Abalimi Bezekhaya (‘Farmers of the Home’) is an urban agriculture project, based primarily in the communities of the Cape Flats such as Nyanga and Khayelitsha. The main objective is to give residents access to ‘local fresh food and nutrition security’, through a combination of subsistence plots and community gardens. In other words, residents are encouraged and supported to grow their own organic vegetables and the scheme is sustaining thousands of individuals and families. Some of these micro-farmers are now producing more than enough to feed their families, at which point the Harvest of Hope marketing project steps in, providing an outlet for excess produce by selling weekly organic vegetable boxes to affluent families in Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs. The beauty of this project is that it represents one of those wonderful win-win situations where everyone benefits. The project addresses three of South Africa’s most chronic problems: unemployment, racial disempowerment and nutritional inequality, whilst the customers of Harvest of Hope weekly organic box scheme obtain their healthy vegetables in a socially and environmentally responsible way.
With ever-increasing food prices, supermarkets will continue putting pressure on their suppliers, whilst battling to offer best value and meet consumer demand for cheaper prices. Against this backdrop micro farming like the Abalimi model could go a long way to achieving the goal of food security. At the same time it is creating awareness and reconnecting us with where our food comes from. If you really want to be sure what’s in your beef burger, then best you make it yourself.
Y&R strategy director Colwyn Elder (@colwynelder) has 17 years of experience in strategic planning, together with specific credentials in sustainability communications, social marketing, corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing. She contributes the monthly “Green Sky Thinking” column on sustainability issues to MarkLives.