Off The Shelf #16: Medjool data
All about data this week: some real data science, by actual scientists, and an exciting new price of milk index - made up by me and of very little practical use.
Image courtesy of Markus Spiske
FEEDING THE MACHINE
An algorithm has been trained to estimate the environmental impact of the stuff we buy from supermarkets. You can read about it here. If you can’t be bothered to click, this is what happened:
Michael Clark at the University of Oxford and his colleagues analysed more than 57,000 food and drink products sold in the UK and Ireland. The team took the ingredients data from eight retailers, including major supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
However, precise figures on how much of each ingredient is in each product were only available for around a tenth of them. To estimate the rest, Clark and his colleagues trained an algorithm on the known products and used it to predict the composition of the unknown ones, helped by the fact that UK regulations mean ingredients must be listed in descending order of quantity. Finally, the team linked all the ingredients to an existing database of environmental impacts, including emissions, land use and water stress.
Surprise, surprise: meat ranks up there as having the highest impact. But I was surprised to see nuts and dried fruits so far up the list. And I’m puzzled as to how ‘world foods’ seems to be a (low impact) category in itself. Surely it’s a pretty broad category?
In any case, though there are probably some challenges with data like this, and no study is perfect, it does seem to have been well-received, with some suggesting that this could pave the way for eco-labels on food products. The idea of such labels - think of nutrition labels, but for environmental impacts - seems to be gathering traction. And it might not just be supermarkets where we end up seeing them: a Bristol restaurant has started adding this information to its menu.
What do you reckon? Is more information like this what consumers need, or is the guilt trip when ordering a cheeseburger from McDonalds going to be too intense if you’ve got both the calorie and carbon count staring you in the face? Let me know in the comments or cast your vote below.
BECOMING THE MILK MONITOR
Talking of cheeseburgers, some might remember the shocking news a few weeks back that the beloved McDonald’s cheeseburger has gone up in price - by a whopping (wrong restaurant, I know) 20%. This is outrageous! It now means a sandwich under the golden arches will break the bank, at the exorbitant price of £1.19.
To be honest, I don’t know what’s more remarkable - a price jump of 20%, or the fact that a burger costs less than an hour of hospital parking. It would be interesting to break down the economics of selling fast food - one to add to the list for a future week.
In any case, the cost of living crisis continues, with inflation figures this week breaking double digits in a new 40-year high. And again, food is one of the main drivers. I wrote about this a few weeks ago. You can read about why food is getting more expensive here.
Bread, cereals, milk, cheese and eggs saw the biggest jump in price. Which has given me an idea. You know the old ‘are you in touch with reality’ test for politicians, where they’re asked if they know the price of milk? Well, I’m going to help Rishi and Liz out as they enter the final furlongs of the race to be PM, and create a 'price of milk’ index for them. From now on, all they’ll have to do to prepare for a bruising round on the airwaves with Nick Robinson is read my newsletter.
Now I just need someone here to get them - or anyone else for that matter, to subscribe. Button below - you know what to do.
Data as of 21 August 2022. Price of milk represented by the average price of comparable 2-pint bottles at 5 major retailers in the United Kingdom (Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury’s Waitrose and Marks & Spencer). Index is equally weighted and based on online prices. Methodology is purely proprietary and utterly unscientific. For actual price data that might be remotely useful for economic analysis, try the Office for National Statistics.
FULL TIME ON FOOD POVERTY
And speaking of food prices, I thought this was an interesting interview in The Times this week. It’s a fair question to pose to one of Britain’s top chefs: why is he happy to charge such high prices for his food when he spends so much time talking out about food poverty?
Ultimately, I think it’s a free market and people can spend money on whatever they want to. And if a high-profile chef and all-round good egg wants to raise awareness about an important issue, then good for him and we should get behind him. Details of the Full Time campaign, launched with Marcus Rashford, here.
Just don’t ask me to pay £87 for a steak.
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GROWING OUR COMMUNITY
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