Interesting article!

[Snadger]

Well...........it was for me anyway!

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The hi-tech truths behind everyday food

[Two_Sheds]

"More than half the sugar we consume in the UK comes from the home-grown sugar beet"

Lots of folk didn't know that

[ginger ninger]

Thanks Snadger, That's what I call a fascinating read, looks like our instant coffee isn't so instant after all!

[stupot]

Bagged lettuce is so pointless! I've given single leaf lettuce seed to my workmates who claimed that they can't grow anything because a) they haven't got green fingers or b) they live in a flat. They're happy now because they're not spending £4/week on manky bleached salad.

On a less ranty note I'm very impressed with my first efforts in growing winter lettuce. Tried some recommended in the GYO mag and they look and taste great. And for some reason our local deer isn't munching them?!

[bubblewrap]

"More than half the sugar we consume in the UK comes from the home-grown sugar beet"

Lots of folk didn't know that

I used to work near a beet processing factory in the late 60s.....................the smell ...................sickly sweet.......................awful.

[smallblueplanet]

Bagged lettuce is so pointless! I've given single leaf lettuce seed to my workmates who claimed that they can't grow anything because a) they haven't got green fingers or b) they live in a flat. They're happy now because they're not spending £4/week on manky bleached salad...

Except for the 'bagged salad' being featured on the show wasn't 'bleached' but washed in spring water...it sounded like the sort of grower one should support and the kind of bagged lettuce you would buy if you had to.

How do salad producers make sure there are no bugs or caterpillars in bagged salad? Jimmy Doherty visited a salad producer in Wiltshire which tries to minimise the use of chemicals or pesticides. Providing a million and a half bags of salad a week to supermarkets, it uses sticky flags and bat boxes, and sows wild flower seeds to encourage aphid predators like ladybirds.

When the salad crop is ready for bagging, clanking chains on the harvester machine are designed to shake off insects as it moves down the row of plants. A bouncing belt transports the leaves up into the machine, and has holes small enough for insects to fall through.

To keep the leaves from wilting they are stored at 1C as soon as they reach the packing plant, within an hour of being harvested. As they are unloaded they are put through an optical sorter machine which uses state of the art cameras and software equipment to photograph the leaves 4,000 times a second. The images are fed into a computer system, which identifies any insects or defects on the leaves. If it spots a problem it sends a blast of air to the right spot on the conveying belt, and ejects the defective leaf.

Bagged salad got a bad reputation when it was revealed that some producers wash it in mild bleach. But at the Wiltshire plant the leaves are washed in a bath of spring water. A mesh wheel pushes the leaf underwater and any buoyant insects are separated. Finally the leaves are spun to get rid of surplus water, weighed and bagged - ready for the supermarket

Does anyone know the producer/produce being featured?

[OllieMartin]

Just downloaded the prog' off iPlayer. Will be indulging on Friday night no-doubt.

[Two_Sheds]

I used to work near a beet processing factory in the late 60s.....................the smell ...................sickly sweet.......................awful.

I'd describe it as more of a farty smell: there's a factory on our trainline, you have to take a deep breath between stations

[HeyWayne]

I'm sure I saw something not so long ago about a company who produced "organic" wash, or insecticide type thing for salad and it turned out it wasn't so organic after all, had some nasty chemicals in it. I remember the Soil Association were involved somehow.

Damn my rubbish memory.

I only recently found that sugar beet was grown here. The dude that bought my car works for British Sugar (Peterborogh way I think) and we got chatting. Some clever stuff goes on there.

[organic]

There was a bit about producing sugar from beet on Jimmy's Food Factory (or whatever it's called) last night. I didn't know the show even existed until I saw it while channel hopping.

Very complicated process. I do wonder if there's a smaller scale way of doing it that isn't quite so mechanised - but it was interesting to see just how much it goes through.

Ditto with cornflakes.

[Nick Blair]

I was reading that farmers only get 9p in every £1 spent on food in a supermarket. That does not seem fair.

[Andy D]

Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart is a really interesting read on this subject

It's on Amazon here -> Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal: Amazon.co.uk: Tristram Stuart: Books

The chapter about carrots where something like 1/3 end up in the shops, another 1/3 in animal food and remaining get ploughed back into the field.

[Nick Blair]

Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart is a really interesting read on this subject

It's on Amazon here -> Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal: Amazon.co.uk: Tristram Stuart: Books

The chapter about carrots where something like 1/3 end up in the shops, another 1/3 in animal food and remaining get ploughed back into the field.

Why are they putting them back into the land?

[Andy D]

Why are they putting them back into the land?

(Someone else has got my copy at the moment but so this is from memory)

To ensure they meet the contracts they sign with the supermarkets, farmers grow too many.

The one's that aren't straight enough etc. for the supermarkets end up and animal food, but there's only so many that can end up in animal food so the excess gets ploughed back in as it's not cost effective to harvest.

The farmer quoted in the book has a couple of machines that cost £100,000+ each to check whether the carrots are up to super market standards!

Andy

[susieq100]

Did you guys watch Jimmy's programme about New potatoes grown in Egypt? All the seed potatoes are imported from Scotland; the potatoes are grown in sand and all the nutrients are provided with the irrigation water - huge, hi tech rigs, the spuds are then picked and sorted and in order for them to reach us in 'peak condition' they are packed in peat - the peat is imported from Ireland, the spuds are put in the peat and then all sent back to UK. This is CRAZY! the food miles involved are ridiculous.