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Broccoli (grown in Guatemala, eaten in the USA). Academic book (2006): American consumers’ desire for cheap produce meets Maya farmers’ desire for a decent livelihood in this book by Edward Fischer and Peter Benson. Moving between Guatemala and Nashville, TN, the authors seek to illustrate the connections between these seemingly disparate places and people. Click for more...broccolianddesire.html
Chewing gum (manufactured & eaten in the UK) Undergraduate coursework (2004): student Lucy Mayblin is walking to class. She steps in chewing gum recently spat from someone else’s mouth. It’s stuck to her shoe. But what exactly is stuck to her shoe, and why? She searches the internet to find out more about gum. What she finds out is shocking. But is it true? Click for more...chewinggum.html
Nut selection (product of more than one country for more than one market). Animated film (2002): who could better explain the rules of international trade than a peanut? Filmmaker Emily James uses animation to bring him alive, to create a character who sings songs, and introduces guests to explain why some nuts are ‘luckier’ than others in the world. Click for more...luckiestnut.html
Coffee (grown in Ethiopia, drunk in the USA and UK). Documentary film (2007): filmmakers Marc and Nick Francis follow Tadesse Maskela, a representative of an Ethiopian coffee co-operative, as he travels the world trying to get a better price for his farmers’ coffee. He is irritated that importers such as Starbucks are making massive profits with their coffee while the people who grow it in ‘the home of coffee’ don’t even have schools, clean water or healthcare. Click for more...blackgold.html
Tea (grown in Sri Lanka, drunk in the UK). Newspaper article (2002): journalist Fran Abrams chooses the quintessentially ‘English’ cup of tea, and goes on a 5,500 mile journey to a tea estate in the hills of Sri Lanka. Along the way, she meets people whose lives are devoted to getting that tea made and sold, from executives working for Twinings tea company to estate workers and their families. Click for more...howtomaketea.html
Tea (grown in Sri Lanka, drunk in the UK). Undergraduate dissertation (2003): student Sarah Wrathmell follows a box of ‘Tillings’ tea from a plantation in Kandy, Sri Lanka to a pot of tea shared by a group of friends in home counties England. She talks to pickers, packers and drivers; visits tea factories and talks to people tasting, processing and packaging it to exacting standards; and finally drinks that tea with those drinkers. What, she asks, was ‘in’ that box of tea? Click for more...connectivitea.html
Papaya (paw paw) (grown in Jamaica, eaten in the UK). Academic journal paper (2004): geographer Ian Cook finds out where the fresh papaya sold in UK supermarkets are grown. He talks to a farm worker, foreman and manager in Jamaica, and an importer, supermarket buyer and consumer in the UK about their lives and how they are related through the trade and travels of this fruit. Click for more...followthethingpapaya.html


Mange Tout (snow peas) (grown in Zimbabwe, eaten in the UK). TV documentary (1997): filmmaker Mark Phillips finds out what goes into the production of Mange Tout peas in Zimbabwe for the UK’s Tesco supermarkets. The film shows what growers, supermarket buyers and consumers know & imagine about each others’ lives, and how worlds collide when buyers make inspection visits. Click for more...mangetout.html

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Tiger prawns+ (farmed in Bangladesh, eaten in the UK). Non-fiction book (2008): journalist Fred Pearce travels 180,000 miles, to 20+ countries, to meet the people who produce (and sometimes recycle) the prawns in his curry, the cotton in his socks, the computer on his desk, the gold in his wedding ring, and many others. He wants to explore his own personal footprint, and to work out whether he should be ashamed and/or proud of the impact his shopping has on the world. Click for more...ecosinner.html
Tomato (grown in Mexico, eaten in North America). Academic book (2002): environmental studies professor Deborah Barndt spends five years studying the travels of fresh tomatoes between Mexico and the US and Canada. This book is part of a larger project in which tomato growers, truckers, checkout workers and others in the chain are active participants in the research process. Click for more...tangledroutes.html
Milk (produced in Latvia, sold in Holland). Locative art-mapping project (2004-5): artists Esther Polak and Ieva Auzina use GPS to track the travels of milk from Latvian cows to Dutch cheese sellers. They photograph and interview farmers, truckers and others involved, and show them the lines that their travels trace on a map. The installation and website they create are, for many, surprisingly intimate. Click for more...milk.html
Chicken (reared & eaten in the UK) TV documentary series (2008): celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall wants more free range chickens made available in British supermarkets and to put an end to the cruelty of cheap chicken farming. The series follows his campaign against the supermarkets, and the local people he enrolls in it, some of whom don’t think they can afford this luxury. Click for more...chickenrun.html
Cockles (picked & eaten in the UK) Film (2006): in February 2004, at least 21 illegal Chinese migrant workers drowned at night while picking cockles in Morecambe Bay. Filmmaker Nick Broomfield reconstructs the causes, vividly conveying - in the UK - the kinds of exploitative working conditions stereotypically associated with the ‘Third world’ production of supermarket foods. Click for more...ghosts.html
Ploughman sandwich (ingredients from the UK, made in the UK, eaten in the UK). Facebook page (2010): a group of Exeter undergraduates want to follow a local sandwich whose producers and consumers know each other. They visit people who make and sell it. They study ‘his’ social network, and make ‘him’ a facebook page. He’s ‘in a relationship with cheese.’ Friend him! Click for more...ploughman.html
Avocado (grown in Israel, eaten in the UK).
Undergraduate dissertation (2007): student Freddie Abrahams is shocked to discover that the Israeli avocados he eats may be grown on illegally seized Palestinian land. There’s a campaign going on in the UK to boycott these fruits. So he contacts the company that imports them into the UK and travels to Israel to find out more. Click for more...avocadostory.html
Beef (reared, slaughtered and sold in Russia). Documentary film (1924): when the genre of documentary film was in its infancy, Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov used it to show how food shopping involves relations with hidden places, processes and people. He follows a cut of meat from a market, via the slaughterhouse where it’s put back into the cow, and via the train that returns the cow to the fields where it grazed. Click for more...kinoeye.html
Bananas (grown in Nicaragua, eaten worldwide). Documentary film (2009): filmmaker Fredrik Gertten tracks a legal case in which Nicaraguan banana workers sue Dole in the American courts for exposing them to a banned pesticide which has (allegedly) made them impotent. A Dole executive admits this in court, but Dole try to discredit their lawyers and prevent the film from being shown. Click for more...bananas.html