The Straits of Hormuz?
Honestly never thought I’d be writing about ‘em. We do food, not geopolitics.
And yet, towards the end of last week the news was all about the impact of the closure of the Straits on food.
‘Britain preparing for food shortages’ screamed the papers. ‘The closure….will lead to shortages of carbon dioxide, which is critical to the food industry’.
But here’s the thing – that statement is only if true of those businesses cynically using CO2 to extend shelf life.
And yet the sad reality is that many do.
Take, for example, your average packet of supermarket mince. That bright red colour? The pillowy puff of the plastic?
That's not how meat behaves when it's left to itself. That's 'modified atmosphere packaging' – known in the trade as gas flushing.
The air is sucked out of the tray and replaced with a bespoke cocktail: typically around 70–80% oxygen and 20–30% carbon dioxide for red meat. The oxygen bullies the myoglobin into staying cherry-red. And the CO2 quietly strangles the bacteria that would otherwise give the game away.
The result is mince that looks fresh for days after it would, in any sane world, be past its best.
And whether they like it or not (most don’t, obvs) researcher after researcher - at Campden BRI, Danish Meat, Iowa State and others - keeps landing on the same finding: meat sat in 80% oxygen for a week comes out tougher, drier, and less flavoursome than meat kept away from the stuff.
The oxygen oxidises the fats – which is a fancy way of saying it goes rancid – and cross-links the proteins, which is a fancy way of saying it goes chewy. Consumers in blind tastings don't like it. They don't know why. They just know the meat isn't especially good.
It's meat from who-knows-where, slaughtered who-knows-when, trucked who-knows-how-far, dressed up in industrial gases to look like something it isn't, sitting on a shelf for days longer than nature ever intended, quietly getting worse the whole time.
Because this is what the supermarket supply chain requires.
There is, of course, another way. It's not complicated, and it's not new. It’s a model where the folk who produce the food are the folk who sell it.
You know their names. You know where they live, and how they farm. And you know, when their produce lands on your doorstep, exactly how short the journey was between the animal and you.
No gas. No mystery. No pantomime.
Just produce that’s fresh. Actually, genuinely fresh.
Anyway, the market's open. Head on in and go Wylde.
Nick
PS – if you're curious, the study on how 80% oxygen makes your meat tougher was published in Foods in 2019.