§ Mr. Peter AinsworthTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the average number of food miles travelled by food consumed in the UK. [29622]
§ Margaret BeckettThe Continuing Survey of Roads Goods Transport recorded that UK registered HGVs transported food, animal feed and drink (totalling 354 million tonnes) a total distance of 4,437 million kilometres within the UK at an average length of haul of 128 kilometres. Such vehicles account for around 95 per cent. of all freight moved by road. This includes the domestic part of any trips that start or end in a foreign country, and excludes food, feed and drink transported by foreign-registered HGVs. In terms of freight movement (ie weight of goods multiplied by distance travelled) this represents 45 billion tonne-kilometres.
There are no official statistics available on the distance travelled by imported food, feed and drink up to the point of entry into the UK. However an academic study1 carried out in 1996 estimated that UK imports of food products and animal feed involved transportation by sea, air and road of around 83 billion tonne-kilometres.
1 Cowell, S. And R. Clift, 1996. Farming for the Future: an environmental perspective. Paper presented at the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth, July 1996.