This discussion paper from the UK-based Food Research Collaboration presents an alternative interpretation of supermarkets’ business models. Instead of offering low prices purely through economies of scale, the report suggests, supermarkets are running a finely balanced model with very low profit margins and large sale volumes. To keep prices low, supermarkets both persuade customers to buy additional items (which may ultimately go to waste) and charge fees to suppliers in return for marketing and selling their products. Without these supplier fees, supermarkets in the UK would be running at or near a loss.

This synthesis report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization looks at the land, soil and water resources used by the world’s food systems. It uses the “driver–pressure–state–impact–response” framework to analyse the links between agricultural production, society and the environment.

The fourth edition of the Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index assesses 60 of the world’s largest protein producers, covering beef, pork, poultry and eggs, dairy and aquaculture, against several environmental, social and governance factors, including climate, biodiversity, water use, antibiotics, working conditions and alternatives to animal protein.

This report from the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy looks at the emissions of the 20 largest meat and dairy companies based in Europe. These 20 companies combined are responsible for emissions equivalent to 131% of total emissions produced by the Netherlands, according to the report’s estimates. Only four of the companies report their total supply chain emissions, and only three plan to reduce their total supply chain emissions, although 10 have announced climate targets. 

This report from the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics argues that while UK supermarkets are making progress in their responsible antibiotic use policies, they should expand them to cover all animal products that they sell. While all the leading supermarkets have antibiotic policies in place already, they usually only cover own-brand animal products.

This special issue of the journal Animal addresses scientific and technical approaches for reducing the environmental impacts of intensive and semi-extensive livestock production systems, plus challenges and trends over the next few decades.

This paper identifies three ways in which digital technologies can support the participation of smallholders in food sustainability: “the tutorial”, “the dashboard” and “the platform”. It is based on 10 case studies of digital sustainability initiatives that use remote sensing technologies (e.g. drones, satellites and sensors), collection of social and economic data, and technologies that allow the creation of a digital identity (e.g. blockchain contracts and digital marketplaces).

This paper estimates the climate implications of replacing 90% of conventional agricultural production with electrically-powered microbial biomass cultivation. If such a replacement took place before a widespread transition to renewable energy, economy-wide emissions could in fact increase as energy would have been directed away from replacing fossil fuels. If conducted after the transition to renewable energy, the replacement could help to mitigate climate change, producing cooling of between 0.22°C and 0.85°C depending on assumptions about socioeconomic pathways.

This paper discusses the state of the art in indoor vertical farming systems (VFS) as well as future challenges in areas such as product quality, automation, sustainability and socio-economic context.