page_title: Food industry
hierarchical_section_title: Food industry
caption_attribution_description: English: "The New Fred Meyer on Interstate on Lombard" (7404 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97217). This version has additional correction to correct for poor white balance and slight counterclockwise rotation.
context_page_description: The food industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The term food industries covers a series of industrial activities directed at the processing, conversion, preparation, preservation and packaging of foodstuffs. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, family-run activities that are highly labor intensive, to large, capital-intensive and highly mechanized industrial processes. Many food industries depend almost entirely on local agriculture or fishing.
  It is challenging to find an inclusive way to cover all aspects of food production and sale. The UK Food Standards Agency describes it thus:
  "...the whole food industry – from farming and food production, packaging and distribution, to retail and catering."
  The Economic Research Service of the USDA uses the term food system to describe the same thing:
  "The U.S. food system is a complex network of farmers and the industries that link to them.
context_section_description: The food industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The term food industries covers a series of industrial activities directed at the processing, conversion, preparation, preservation and packaging of foodstuffs. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, family-run activities that are highly labor intensive, to large, capital-intensive and highly mechanized industrial processes. Many food industries depend almost entirely on local agriculture or fishing.
  It is challenging to find an inclusive way to cover all aspects of food production and sale. The UK Food Standards Agency describes it thus:
  "...the whole food industry – from farming and food production, packaging and distribution, to retail and catering."
  The Economic Research Service of the USDA uses the term food system to describe the same thing:
  "The U.S. food system is a complex network of farmers and the industries that link to them. Those links include makers of farm equipment and chemicals as well as firms that provide services to agribusinesses, such as providers of transportation and financial services. The system also includes the food marketing industries that link farms to consumers, and which include food and fiber processors, wholesalers, retailers, and foodservice establishments."
  The food industry includes:
  Agriculture: raising crops, livestock, and seafood
  Manufacturing: agrichemicals, agricultural construction, farm machinery and supplies, seed, etc.
  Food processing: preparation of fresh products for market, and manufacture of prepared food products
  Marketing: promotion of generic products (e.g., milk board), new products, advertising, marketing campaigns, packaging, public relations, etc.
  Wholesale and food distribution: logistics, transportation, warehousing
  Foodservice (which includes catering)
  Grocery, farmers' markets, public markets and other retailing
  Regulation: local, regional, national, and international rules and regulations for food production and sale, including food quality, food security, food safety, marketing/advertising, and industry lobbying activities
  Education: academic, consultancy, vocational
  Research and development: food technology
  Financial services: credit, insurance
  Only subsistence farmers, those who survive on what they grow, and hunter-gatherers can be considered outside the scope of the modern food industry.
caption: Packaged food aisles at an American grocery store.
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