Barcodes could reveal your food's credentials

WHERE does your food come from? A few years ago, most consumers were satisfied with a sticker showing the country of origin. But concerns about fair trade and the environment, as well as food safety, are now driving a wave of projects aimed at tracking food from farm to shopping basket.

Though price is still the main factor determining the food that people buy, many are demanding to know more about its source. This is partly due to a series of recent food safety scandals, from major outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli to melamine showing up in baby formula and pet food. "The public want to know where their food and other products come from, how they are made, and whether they contain any 'unhealthful' contaminants," says Dara O'Rourke, an environmental policy expert at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ethical and environmental concerns figure prominently, too. In the US, for example, "a small but rapidly growing percentage of the population - perhaps 8 to 10 per cent - are deeply interested in these issues," says food policy expert Marion Nestle of New York University. "Interest in where food comes from is part of a growing social movement."

Most manufacturers already use barcodes or RFID chips to track their products. But with the help of cheap cellphone and internet access it is becoming possible to collate data from remote locations around the world and make it available to the people who are actually going to eat the food.

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