Food and drink

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Food and drink contribute to a considerable part of a household’s energy consumption.

The average Swede eats around 70 tons of food and drink under his/her lifetime. The energy required to make food for one day is the equivalent of 3 litres of oil per person.

Today food is often produced on large cultivations and is managed by both machinery and people. After that, it is often transported by truck and is loaded and reloaded several times. It may also have been transported by air or across the seas in a boat. Many foodstuffs are stored in large warehouses and are packed and repacked by store personnel. Finally the food is purchased by consumers and is transported by car perhaps from a shop, where the food is then prepared and eaten.

Long food chain

The long food chain may mean that the salmon is caught in one country, is flown to another to be prepared and packed, and is then flown to a third country in which it is sold. Because more and more of the goods we eat come from foreign countries, foodstuffs are demanding increasing amounts of energy for their transportation.