This Act would monetarily empower food manufacturing locally by companies so less preservatives and chemicals can be used in recipes.
Built in to expiration dates are farm to factory, transport, packaging, distributor shelving times, and store shelving time.
This creates a need for food companies to find more and more forever plastics, chemicals, and preservatives to keep food “fresh”.
Transport and distributor shelving times are the largest part of that.
An example would be the FoodWidget made in a factory in Chicago, and being shipped to Portland.
The people of Chicago have a longer expiration date, or “freshness” time, than Portland.
This means that the company could make the decision to use less or even zero chemicals and preservatives in the city of their factory, but would have to use them for Portland.
So why don’t we incentivize food companies to have micro factories in more cities instead of just one mega factory in one city, supplying the entire country (or world for that matter)?
This cuts way back on transport and shelving time, and only makes a little more than what a smaller region needs.
In turn, this makes healthier food for the public, instead of continuing down a road of “what can we add to make it last longer?”.
Sometimes we need to stop doing things just because they’ve always been done that way.
Did you know a farm fresh egg on your counter has a 6 month expiration date? In the fridge it can be up to 18 months?
But after we are done cleaning them, bleaching them for color, shipping them 4 States over, and letting them sit on a distributor’s shelf before they hit the store, how long do you have? A week?
MicroFactories. MicroFarms. MicroShipping.
Less preservatives. Less chemicals. More time.