Track and Trace



A streetname which dates back to its former function; a market square were calfs where sold.

 Jeans brand Kuyichi used to have a track and trace opportunity which enabled costumers to track back the route of their jeans.* Many parcels can be tracked in the same manner; as soon as you have delivered you package at the post office, the receiver will be able to see where his package is and when he can expect it. What do you know about the route your food has followed?

Many cities have been built around the way food used to enter the city. The harbors around which fish would be sold, the streets going from the countryside to the cities’ market squares. You can still recognize this in plans of old cities and in the names of streets and squares.

Nowadays most people have literally no idea how the food entered the supermarket. Although more and more supermarkets give information on the country of origin of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, it doesn’t tell you how it travelled. ‘Parma ham’ could be made from Dutch pigs, transported all the way to Parma in Italy (which is around 1200 km one way!), to be slaughtered, packed and sold as ‘Parma ham’. You as a costumer think you have a traditional meat while it is probably not very different than the ham you would buy from your local butcher.

Even for biological food you should stay alert on the route it has traveled before it enters your kitchen. Food grown in the centre of your country can be transported to an auction in the North and then bought by a supermarket which is located in the South of that same country. Even though you try to buy as much food as possible from your own country you are not always correct since a farmer in a neighboring country can be closer to your home than one living in your own.

Only when you sell your produce directly from a farmer, a local market stall or a supermarket selling local produce you can be sure that you can trace the track your food has followed. So stay alert when shopping. Ask the seller where the produce comes from and consider buying twice when he doesn’t know.

*Kuyichi decided to stop this service. The brand thought it did not ‘provide sufficient transparency or added value’ to their end costumer when only tracing their products back to their stitching facility.