Categories: Food and Drink

The average full English has travelled almost 20,000 miles to reach our plates

Britain’s reliance on imported food was laid bare today after a new study revealed our nation’s breakfast travels almost 20,000 miles to reach our plates.

Using a popular supermarket as a barometer Gousto researchers were able to track how far a full English breakfast travels before it reaches the dining table, with the majority of ingredients covering several hundred miles.

Only the bread, sausages, eggs and beans are produced locally and require just road haulage to get to the shops.

Other produce such as coffee, orange juice, tea, potatoes and bacon require air and sea travel over long distances.

Based on a typical supermarket shop, coffee generally travels some 6,000 miles from Colombia before it lands in our mugs.

Tea travels a similar distance based on a rounded average from multiple countries, and even potatoes amass over 2,000 miles on their journey from Tel Aviv.

Bacon, produced in Denmark, which is the biggest importer to the UK, travels 594 miles before reaching the UK, making the total mileage of a full English breakfast some 19,485 miles – without including the distance we travel to get to the shop.

RELATED 

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/food-drink/in-search-of-the-ultimate-full-english-breakfast/27/05/

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/food-drink/how-to-make-the-perfect-full-english-breakfast/18/11/

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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