Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-186) and index

Introduction -- Our food supply chain at a glance -- Food roots -- Everything in the middle -- Food routes -- Food tracks -- The future : new roots and routes ahead

"Media attention to food features inventive and charismatic chefs, the rise of farmer's markets and of food deserts, GMO controversies, the power of culture in cuisine, diet fads, and so on. But how does food, be it industrial or small scale, local or international, nutritious or unhealthy get to our plate? This book shows us how. Stories that inform us about how food moves from the producer to the consumer are only just appearing and are timely relative to the developments in food distribution. Without understanding the complex and adaptive global food supply chain, consumers, policy makers, and the food industry fail to appreciate the full range of opportunities for innovation. Farmers are increasingly engineers, farms are becoming enclosed vertical structures or laboratories with no plant or animal in sight. Food may arrive on our plates from food printers, lab dishes, or from our very own farms that produce personalized food in our homes. The possibilities and consequences are only now becoming visible. No more an invisible supply chain, the future food system will operate transparently and faster. This is a global story, one that centers on urban centers, connected by a network and infrastructure that includes roads, storage facilities, waterways, ports, highways, and airfreight hubs. These stories also reveal a shift in the way we can think about supplying the global population with food in the future. Could it be that the world already produces enough food for the world now and will continue to do so in the future ... and that the critical problem to solve is one of distribution? Could it be that our food will become information, data that will uproot our food system and transplant it into a faster, fresher supply chain that feeds our growing urban populations?"--