Attention fine food lovers, stereotypes of single womanhood, staying-in aficionados and anyone anywhere who eats: Eat all the wine, chocolate, olives, prawns and cheese you can. Build a massive food ark if you must. And do it RIGHT NOW because the world as we know it that supplies all these things is GOING TO END. And it's all China's fault. [Allegedly.]
Yup. We have a bit of a #firstworldproblems food crisis and apparently Asia is screwing it up for the rest of us because they refuse to damn well stick to their own diet of rice and fish. It's done them proud for millenia, it's given them lovely skin and hair and all the things we're told we could have too if we ate foreign and the ability to live to 214 but no, that's not good enough for them. They want what we have: chocolate, cheese, wine and THERE'S SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH TO GO ROUND.
But is there any truth in the rumours of shortages or are we simply going to have to grown another planet simply to feed us? Well, it's true the Asian population is very much liking the Westernised kill-you-in-15-years diet; beef is famously in demand over there but they have also woken up to a taste for cheese and dairy, chocolate and China's demand for wine shows no sign of slowing. Quantz estimates that last year wine was undersupplied across the globe by 300 million cases. AA ought to be setting up franchises, like, right now.
However global bad weather and consequent poor harvests across the food supply industry have done their stuff too: shrinking land, rising consumption and bad weather have sent prices for cocoa butter spiralling. They are predicting the biggest wine shortfall in 40 years due to last year's atrocious weather. Having said that, critics have poo-pooed this, saying the 2013 harvest will be a global high and that the assumption is based on only Europe's output, rather than a global one. But still. . .Spain and Greece have again found the bad weather not at all conducive to a productive olive harvest, so expect prices to rise by a third and even the Asian prawn industry (perhaps not exactly the most sustainable anyway) has been decimated by Early Mortality Syndrome, meaning exports are down by 50%. So watch out when you're buying your frozen prawn ring, 'cos quite frankly it could be made from tiny naked baby bunnies at this rate...
What this does mean is that once again we have to be grown up and learn to share, or at least be prepared to pay for the good stuff and not expect to eat luxuriously all the time. As prices rise, more apparently 'everyday' food will no doubt become more of a 'weekend treat' and we'll have to learn to adapt our palates and our plates accordingly. It's no different really to the message that the cognoscenti have been banging on about for some years now: Spend a little more, use a little better and waste a little less. Except wine, obviously. Just tip as much down your neck as you can. That'll see you through.
