Not On the Label: What Really Goes Into The Food On Your Plate

by Felicity Lawrence

This is a shocking and highly readable expose of the state of the food production industry in Britain today. Felicity Lawrence will take some of the most popular foods we eat at home to show how the food industry in Britain causes ill health, environmental damage, urban blight, starving smallholders in Africa and Asia, and illegal labourers smuggled and exploited in Britain.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Health, Science, Politics, Environment, Journalism

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Literary Ames · Rating 4 out of 5]

If a little out of date (published in 2004) Not on the Label is a solid exposé of the industrialization and globalization of food to the detriment of the environment, health, society, our senses and wallets. Felicity Lawrence has spent 3 years investigating the global food system for The Guardian uncovering the hidden and scandalous practices involved in the journey of food from the dirt to our stomachs, offering up suggestions for improvements to the system for future security as '...our current food system is environmentally, ethically and even biologically unsustainable...' and how the average person can do their part if they wish, though she doesn't judge those that are unable to do so.

Chicken

All chicken is diseased. It's not a stretch to make that statement since mass contamination takes place. It only takes is one sick chicken. Doesn't matter if it's organically reared, they go through the same processing plants. And if that wasn't enough, cheap chicken breasts can contain only 54% chicken - the rest is water and possibly pork and/or beef, which usually appear in ethnic restaurants to be eaten Muslims and Hindus. (In that case, the recent horsemeat scandal should've come as no surprise, though once again it was the Irish who brought it to light.)

Furthermore, genetic selection has seen chickens appear like 'weightlifters on steroids' with their over-large breasts crippling their legs, putting undue pressure on their hearts and causing skin infections from rolling around in their own excrement. Limited living space from intense farming increases disease and treatment with antibiotics resulted in antibiotic resistance which may be being passed on to humans.

Salad

Ready-to-eat salad is less nutritious, can be diseased, and the chlorine it's washed in has been linked to cancer.

'Supermarkets rarely have written contracts with farmers or packhouses promising to buy certain quantities, although farmers are obliged to commit to supplying certain amounts to them. The farmers are both required to take the loss on any surplus and to meet any shortfall at their own expense by importing if their own harvest does not meet demand. [...] The prices paid to farmers are nowhere near the cost of carrying a permanent workforce large enough to cope with fluctuations in demand.'

Half the workforce in food and catering are illegals - more than 2 million in the UK, procured and managed by dangerous and greedy gangmasters making more than £8m per year through intimidation, punishment, murder, expanding into prostitution and drug-smuggling. These illegals also travel to Spain - the salad bowl of the UK, where intense farming practices to satisfy our demand have polluted the environment with pesticides and dried out the land, turning it into desert.

'Ninety-nine pence for a few leaves is a lot of money. But 99p for an unlimited supply of servants to wash and pick over it all, hidden not as in the old days below stairs, but in remote caravans or underneath plastic hothouses - that is cheap.'

Food Miles & Transport

We're dependent on crude oil for agrochemicals, plastics and food miles. Tesco in 2002 covered 224,000km in 1.2m lorry journeys. Thirty years has quadrupled the number of products stocked by supermarkets yet the variety they offer is still limited. However, in an effort to cut costs supermarkets prefer to collect their goods from suppliers using their own lorries meaning small independents will have to do the same, contributing to their disappearance from our high streets.

The 'falldown' begins when a customer buys something in one of the [supermarket] stores. Scanning the barcode at the till creates a new order for the product. The information is transmitted to head office, electronically collated several times a day and instantly converted into a delivery schedule for the farmer or manufacturer for the following day. The supplier will have estimated how much food to produce, but will only get a final order a few hours ahead of the time he or she is expected to deliver to the depot...The orders can vary dramatically. A spell of good weather can, for example, double the demand for lettuce. Failing to meet a retailer's order in full can result in a financial penalty. Suppliers can find themselves losing thousands of pounds. But then unexpected rain might halve your order. If you end up with a surplus there's hardly anywhere for it to go, since the big retailers control much of the country's total market.'

To add to the pressure, suppliers can be delisted for refusing price reductions, trade with other supermarkets are restricted, and they're sometimes forced asked to 'contribute to the costs of store refurbishments or openings,' though absorbing volume and customer discounts such as BOGOF pressed upon them, sometimes retrospectively, have to be the most damaging to the health of their businesses. Demands for compensation for anything and everything or just having it deducted from invoices without discussion also screams unfair practice and treatment of suppliers by supermarkets.

So our salad comes from Spain, our veg is also sourced from Africa, and traditional English apples are overlooked in favour of foreign types. Even 80% of organic produce comes from abroad. These food miles actually have a detrimental effect on nutritional value since frozen veg contains more nutrients than fresh imported stuff that's sat countless hours in refrigerated containers.

Bread

Less than 2% of bread is made by independent bakers yet a few bake from scratch. The rest rely on the Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP) which involves fats, E numbers, salt and 3% more water taking considerably less time to make than the traditional flour, water, yeast recipe. However, skipping the proving time aggravates gluten allergies - that's how these allergies came about.

Fruit & Veg

'The beauty parade' that disqualifies mildly discoloured or misshapen fruit and veg has led to 40% waste and harvesting earlier and earlier to prevent bruising giving you hard, odourless and tasteless results.

'Each cow may produce twice as many litres of milk a year, each chicken may grow twice as fast, and each hectare of wheat may yield nearly three times as many tonnes as fifty years ago, but in that time, 60 per cent of ancient woodlands, 97 per cent of meadows with their rich flora and fauna, and fifty per cent of birds that depend on agricultural fields have gone, as have nearly 200,000 hedges. Not only has intensive farming polluted water courses, it has also created problems of soil erosion and flood. Industrialization of livestock has left animals prone to devastating epidemics of disease.'

The evils of ready meals and junk food containing corn, sugar, soya, palm and rapeseed oil which are heavily subsidized, are also extolled, though I've all ready been educated on this via Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.

Lawrence, in the Afterword, details ways to improve our food system and future security with policy suggestions and by providing resources for the individual to make an impact, enhancing their health in the process. She also confesses where and what she buys including the occasional ready meal. I find I'm jealous of all the independents like butchers, greengrocers, baker, etc. and farmers' markets located near her. I'd have to travel many miles to find these.

Although I was aware of the enormous pressure on UK farmers and suppliers I didn't fully appreciate the abuse they've suffered at the hands of supermarkets and the need to cut corners in order to survive, yielding a host of further problems including hiring illegal migrant workers who are in turn abused by their gangmasters, and having to import food when they can't meet demand. Fast, cheap food has never been so expensive, not more so when the system inevitably collapses.

[Kat A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though set in Britain, where some food production differ from ours, this is a good but scary read. It will make you never want to set foot in a grocery store again. They are painted as the evil corporations that are the root cause of migrant labour, price gouging, unfair trade and the collapse of the UK farming industry. It was written in 2003 so some things have changed, but really, not enough to make a visible difference. Even though we don't make our bread through the Chorleywood bread process in Canada, we still have a highly industrialized baking industry with limited access (especially if you don't live near a big city or have a quaint town bakery) to quality bread. It inspired me to buy and use a breadmaker and to be very mindful of where I shop, eschewing trucked in fruit and veg and buying local whenever possible. Obviously it's not always easy and I anticipate falling off the wagon due to stress, time limitations and sheer convenience, but being more mindful is definitely a great way to start.

[Rachel Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be compulsory reading for everyone. And if you're not moved to tears by it… well I don't know what to say. This book made me cry, rage, shake with anger. A lot of it I already knew, a lot of it I've been trying to do something about but to see it all written down in black and white in one space filled me with absolute horror. A few titbits for your delight:-

• Most of you probably already know that most of the chicken in supermarkets and restaurants is broiler; overfeed, filled with hormones and antibiotics, spends its pathetic life living in its own shit with no natural light and killed in a grossly inhumane manner (and sadly the organic chooks are often killed in exactly the same place and way unless you buy them from specialist farms), and that the packaged chickens are filled with water to plump them up, but did you also know that an awful lot of supermarket and catering chicken is also bound with pig and cow DNA to make it firmer. Which is just great if you are Hindu or Muslim.

• That off-season mid-winter salad from Spain? Picked and packaged by north-African migrant workers on a pittance living in shanty towns with no running water or sanitation and all this just a mile down the road from the Costa Del Sol. And even if you couldn't care less about human rights, do you really want someone who hasn't washed for days packing your salad?

• The average trolley full of food has travelled about 100,000 miles to get to you. Marvellous. And even better some of it's flown from the UK (packaging especially) is packed up in foreign parts and flown back. Double marvellous.

• Bread - now bread is a great one. Bought bread isn't made like it should be. Oh no. It is no longer allowed to rise properly anymore. We just don't have the time for that, we need that bread on the shelves. Of course if it's not risen it will sink when it's baked. So we fill it full of hydrogenated fat to keep it solid. You know how white sliced fills your mouth like putty? Well that'll be why. I started baking my own bread when I realised the shop bought gave me belly ache. I'm not fucking surprised. Plus how can anyone possibly deal with their own weight issues when they have no idea what's in their food.

• Fruit and veg has to conform to certain sizes and shapes to be sold in the supermarket you know. The consumer, that's you and me, don't want to buy food that doesn't look like it's made of plastic. Where the hell am I when they do these surveys? About 40% of fruit and veg are wasted in this country each year because they don't conform. Even the Prince of Wales gets his Highgrove Organic stuff rejected. Best apples I've ever eaten were from my mum's tree. Looked like old ladies' faces but tasted divine. All this waste has made half the farmers give up. Can't afford it. And this puts rural landscapes, biodiversity and ecosystems under threat. 60% of ancient woodlands, 97% of meadows and 50% of birds that depend on agriculture are gone.

• Coffee (and we're talking you're jars of instant here rather than Starbucks and its ilk who at least buy fair-trade) - A Ugandan coffee farmer will sell a kilo of his coffee for 14 US cents. By the time it's on the supermarket shelf its market value is $26.40 per kilo. And that's after they've put all the crap in it that makes instant coffee. Now hippy I might be, but I'm also the daughter of an economist and do in fact believe to an extent in globalization, capitalism and free market. But this isn't a free market. This is bullying. This is like medieval feudalism. Any wonder the South American and African coffee farmers are pulling up their coffee crops to grow coca beans for cocaine and marijuana plants?

And why? Money of course. The major supermarket undercut and undercut and undercut. At one point they were selling baked beans so cheaply that even Nestle said they couldn't afford to bottle air at that price, thus closing down the Crosse and Blackwell bottling plant.

And there's absolutely nothing we can do unless every suddenly stops shopping at supermarkets, and sadly an awful lot of people either don't have a choice, or don't have the information to make a choice. For my part I'm getting pretty much everything from Abel and Cole now. Food shouldn't be cheap you know. Where we got this idea that we had a right to cheap food I don't know? Less plasma tvs and more simple living IMHO.

And if none of that has touched you, I leave you with this:-

"Some 1.2 billion people in the world still have too little to eat; the same number today suffer from being overweight…..For the first time in 100 years medical experts are predicting that life expectancy in developed countries will fall. Thanks to obesity our children face the prospect of dying younger than us."

[sheribubble · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. A handy resource for anyone looking to learn more about the food industry, the harsh reality of the supply chain, the impact of ingredients on health and the negative impact of animal agriculture on the planet.

I'd say it's closer to a 3.5 for me, it was very educational but definitely a heavy read that I did find myself skimming at times.

[Magdalena Moszynska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a spiritual awakening is often thought of as filled with music and rainbows, but it isn't. It's a very lonely place where you'll likely feel extremely frustrated, confused and helpless. An alienated struggle is your only friend. It might also feel like an emotional limbo, rightly so as it's a waiting room, not your final destination. The inherent challenge is also conducive to your personal growth, whatever you understand by it. 

The only way is through, though. This transition, as tough as it is, necessitates for you to take off your rose-tinted glasses and see the world for what it is, just like Neo did. There's no going back from the awareness that has dawned on you. Unlike Neo, quite often, there's no choice in the matter. Instead, the universe throws you into this rabbit hole and lo and behold, like Alice in Wonderland, you're on the other side of the mirror. In this context, you realise how bleak the food industry is. Individuals (and corporations, let's be frank here) in power honour dated agreements and treaties, which only sustain the ever-deepening inequalities. 

You might develop existential anguish when reading this book but realising that the food industry is nothing but a facade and confirms that everything revolves around making money. The author offers some direction on becoming the change you want to see in the world. This is supported by the list of resources, which many people can find useful.

I want to point out that Felicity Lawrence is a master of her craft and this discourse represents her journalistic voice at its best. I sometimes found the headings a bit off and expected a different narrative, but overall the author won me over with her expertise and research skills. 

Personally, I recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in what I've got to say and strongly believe that everyone should read it to become more aware of what's going on behind the scenes of the food we consume.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

picked this up from a charity shop on a whim, thinking it might be something else
still an interesting read, probably revolutionary back in its day but lots of hackneyed arguments from it these days
the author explicitly spells out that this is not an attack on capitalism, then spends the rest of the book detailing how capitalism is destroying the food industry, and then makes recommendations on the end which allude to communised and socialised communities

either way , does make me think i shouldnt be drinking delicious fruit drinks at all, let alone in one go

[Robert Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always tried to dissuade my wife from buying reduced price fruit and veg in the supermarket. This is because I want my body to continue to be strong and healthy and I think that one way to do this is to feed it the right kind of food and I don't think that eating old food is the right way to get enough nutrients etc. We are what we eat - right?

I'm not sure why I bought this book. I mean, on the face of it, we should take an interest in what we eat, and make sure it's nutritious and all that; but on the other hand - if we have to eat it anyway, and then we find out that it's irredeemably full of so much crap (chemicals) that it’s making us ill in ways that we can’t avoid – then why do we want to know?

So, on starting this book, I envisioned that I would be put off my food forever and I would still have to eat it. It was great then that it started with chicken (or, as I call them – chickens – it’s a bit like the difference between pork and pigs) because as a vegetarian I don’t eat them. I thought, on this basis that I wouldn’t be bothered about what they do to chicken, and on one level, I was right. But what they do to chickens in order to arrive at chicken is another matter. Don’t worry – no gory details here – but suffice to say, they ain’t happy bunnies by any stretch of the chalk.

So then we comes to lettuce, and before I started reading, I’m thinking I’ll be ok if I just wash it – and I was mostly right. But then we gets onto the problem of supermarkets. It seems that without me being aware of it – supermarkets have come to embody everything that is evil about the world. Again, if you wants to know the details – read the book yourself, but suffice to say, lettuce farmers ain’t happy bunnies by any stretch of the chalk.

Next up is bread. This is the part that changed my life, so listen up. The bread we buy in the (evil) supermarkets is (mostly) factory bread that is full of air and water and so isn’t as good for us as we’d like to think – even the brown ones with seeds on the top. What we need is proper, thick, heavy bread made by real bakers with their real hands. So I started eating that. And it’s good. I can’t say I really feel any healthier – yet – but when I get to one hundred and I’m still doing cartwheels, I be sure to edit this review and let you know.

Oh, and the last chapter is the best, so if you’re short of time and patience just read that one.

‘Nuff said.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essentially a window into the demise of our society, morality and health. The message is simple: supermarkets are black holes into which all other entities are pulled and consumed remorselessly, be they animals, immigrant workers, producers, suppliers or consumers. We are slaves of our creations - never mind worries about artificial intelligence rising up to supersede humanity - supermarkets are already doing it! Taking our money whilst configuring our biochemistry in order that we become obese, malnourished, gluttonous, depressives, our sense of quality kicked to the curb in favour of an addictive desire for cheap, unethically produced, bastardised, genetically modified, odourless, nutrionless slop (in various gastronomical forms).

A great piece of journalism, one that would serve the general public well if we are indeed able to enforce change with our buying power. I need to make a change and I hope the advice in the afterward is some I heed.

Incidentally, 'What a Carve Up' by Jonathan Coe is a good fictional tale of similar issues this book raises.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the genre of "the modern food industry is really, realy evil - and we should be very afraid", this book is fairly well researched and balanced. Chicken, beef and corn have been done to death before (please excuse the pun), but the bread industry sheenanigans that Felicity discusses is new to me. It's also nice for a change to read a British take on these issues.

The facts are clearly presented, and the thread of each chapter is easily followed for a new reader of this genre. I recommend this as a starting point if one is interested in learning more about our modern commercial food chains.

And I'm going out to buy myself a breadmaker this morning.

[Deirdre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a question I've often had. Why is it that there's so much of a choice in the supermarkets yet it's largely unappealing? I find myself buying some foods because of need rather than want and I could see how it would be so easy to fall into the trap of buying food that's bad for me rather than "good" food because the good food is so bland sometimes.



This is a book looking at ways we've destroyed the food market and ways in which we can change this. It's an interesting book full of advice on how to change your life and find better ways of finding your food.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book ten years ago but it's incredible how its findings still horrify the second time around. Lawrence looks to have updated most chapters with developments that have happened since the first edition, and the horse meat scandal is an indictment on how deceptive our food production systems have become.

In the past, I'd naively hoped that surely Australia isn't as bad as what goes on in the UK but there's no doubt our farmers are entrapped with similar contractual farces with Goliath supermarkets. A sobering read that should be read by everyone who eats.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Motivated me to support my local food suppliers and avoid the big supermarkets. I cringe when i see adverts for really cheap prices for food items on TV now... take a thought for the growers and suppliers getting a really raw deal. Certainly an eye-opening book that was easily digestible and fairly well researched.

[Alice Chau-Ginguene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting insight on food production. I already know some of the stuff she talks about but there are still a few shockers. Enjoyable read and a nice confirmation on what we have been doing to watch our diet is a good decision.

[S.P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting, scary though. makes you want to exclusively eat food you have grown yourself or can get direct from the farmer.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is journalistic and provides a good range of case studies. It does not set out to explain the 'why' to these different case studies in a particularly systematic way. She points to oligopolies and supermarkets, not trying to get to the root of what has caused these factors to speed up in the 20 years preceding the book.

The book seems to have aged well in many respects. It continues to have value, if mainly in the illustrative way it demonstrates what we see is likely to not what we are actually getting. That big corporations actively work against the best interest of everyone else in a system with the objective of taking market share, as much as generating short term profit for their shareholders.

I feel Lawrence doesn't quite get past pointing to problems and at times she seems afraid of anything that could be deemed as 'radical'. Early in the book she makes out that the only substantial alternative to globalisation is Soviet collectivised farming. This is clearly a straw man or a lack of knowledge of the complex history of political economies of production.

[Aaron Eames · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a little out-of-date, like the best case studies, in the tradition of Mayhew and Orwell, Lawrence’s work will be important as a sociohistorical document, especially regarding the 2013 Horsemeat Scandal; one expects that it will regain some of its relevance in the wake(-ing nightmare) of Brexit. The journalistic prose is punchy, if occasionally too dense to digest an entire chapter in one sitting, and elucidates such hard-to-swallow concepts as ‘hydrogenation’, the Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP), penetrometer, ‘natural [insert fruit here] flavouring’, and (*vomit*) ‘transnational corporation’. I doubt there are many books about food so calculated to quell one’s appetite.

[Roberto Bovina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A centralized system that continuously supplies the supermarkets, which buy imported products instead of the local ones. The issue of climate change. The crisis of the local retail stores and little farmers against the dominance of global brands. Today agriculture strongly subsidized produces soy, corn, sugar, palm oil in excess, while the poorest countries are struggling, due to the dependence on coffee plantations. The author then reveals the meaning of some common and cheap ingredients inside the food we eat, such as corn's starches modified, corn syrup, hydrogenated fats, used more and more for the adulteration.

[Redderationem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inquietante fotografia dello stato dell'industria alimentare risalente a venti anni fa e focalizzata sul mondo anglosassone.
Non so esattamente come le cose nel frattempo siano cambiate, in meglio o in peggio, ma le righe conclusive che guardano positivamente all'esempio italiano, il nostro atteggiamento verso il cibo e il movimento Slow Food che si stava affermando allora, tutto sommato un po' mi rassicurano. Dal lato opposto mi ritrovo con una quantità di indizi allarmanti su come considerare il cibo "finto" offerto dai supermercati anche quando non finisce con l'avere un prezzo decisamente inferiore rispetto a quello "vero", ancora tutto da cucinare.

[Rajiv Chopra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, by Felicity Lawrence, is excellent. In India, we believe that how we implement laws is horrible. We castigate ourselves for this. However, in the book, she exposes the food-processing industry in the West. After reading the book, I find it hard to look at processed foods with anything but a jaundiced eye.
As an Asian, I don't know the details of the companies and the cases she quotes. However, the lessons should be clear to anyone who reads the book.
This book is well written, and is worth reading.

[Theo Kokonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is now going on 20 years old but still very relevant. Definitely worth a read if you reside in the UK as it delves into the extraordinary buying power and influence supermarkets impose on growers and suppliers. You'd think there would be regulation in place to deter bad actors but so, as this book very clearly makes out. This book will also make you a more conscious consumer when making your next food shop; case in point, I'm now less intolerant of higher prices when I come across legitimate, good quality sourdough bread!

[Sasha Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag; I was disinclined to trust anything Lawrence said about health after it became clear that she'd fallen hook, line and sinker for the idea that fish oil is the answer to all cognitive problems. What she has to say about working practices in the food supply chain seems more reliable, however, as a lot of it is based on eyewitness evidence (her own and that of the workers, employers and food safety experts she spoke to for the book.) It reinforced my understanding of why it's a bad thing that supermarkets currently have such a stranglehold on our food production and distribution.

[Elena Sanchez Heras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wake-up call!

Excellent investigation of the food we eat daily. Clearly explained complex production chains that feed into the junk food we eat. Definitely has put me off several foods I used to consume. In the end, we the consumers, have the key to the change needed in our society. To let the big corporations to steal our food from under our nose was our fall. Let's recover our grip in our food supply!

[Mick Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should be made compulsory reading at school,the insight to processed food and fast food business.the use of cheap labour,cheap ingredients and the fact supermarket s and advertising are complicit in this.the way big business railroad farmers all over the world is a scandal.the pallets of many people young and old have wrecked by what passes as food but in actual fact is made up of manmade chemicals.its has made me think twice before buying anything again.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book and one that I would be keen to read a follow up on in the hope that things have massively changed.

Books like this are so important, I had to go back and check that it was based in the UK when talking about some of the situations it was so horrific what was taking place.

Felicity writes with such passion and knowledge of her industry and I will definitely be looking for more of her work.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Infuriating exposé of the large-scale food industry and the devastating effects it has wrought on the lives of small-scale farmers and the health of people all around the world. Reading this repeatedly brought to mind the truth of Schumacher's 1973 book "Small Is Beautiful." We all need to go back to that.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een keer niet zozeer over de ingrediënten en of ze wel of niet goed voor je kunnen zijn, maar meer een beschouwing van het verhaal achter het product.
En nog wat handige tips om gezond en duurzaam eten te kopen ook.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think we live in strange times when something as necessary as food becomes so fragmented and out of reach. This book is definitely food for thought (no pun intended) for those who want to know what happens to their food before it gets to them.

[Kemi looves 2 read · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was mind blowing. A must read for anyone interested in their source of food. It makes one want to either exclusively eat food grown by oneself or can get directly from a trusted farmer.

As the saying goes "food for thought".

[Roger Morgan-Grenville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life changing read, if you want to know what the supermarkets get up to in the name of 'customer choice'.

[Lisa L Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book, so insightful and eye opening. It’s definitely changed my food choices.