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Props:

  • one ham and pineapple pizza from supermarket
  • hold-up A4 cards with food and miles written

Sermon

Has anyone here ever sent out for a pizza? I’ve got one here.
How long do you think this pizza has travelled to get to me?

This one was not delivered.  I bought it at Tesco’s.
So how many miles do you think it has travelled?
Whoever guesses correctly will win the pizza!

About 1 mile? from Tesco to my house?
But the ingredients of this pizza have travelled much further.

How far do you think the flour to make the base travelled?
Flour to make the base, from North America – 5,400 miles

(get a child to come and hold up A4 card with ‘Flour from North America – 5,400 miles’)

How far did the tomatoes travel?
Tomatoes from Italy (the home of pizzas) – 1,000 miles

(another child, another card – you get the message…)

How far did the pineapples travel?
Pineapples grown and harvested in Kenya – 4,500 miles

Black pepper from India – 5,000 miles

Mozzarella cheese, also from Italy – 1,000 miles

(Smoked ham from Holland = 400 miles

Cheddar Cheese from England = 200 miles)

So the pizza that is delivered or picked up from the supermarket from ‘just around the corner’ has in fact flown an incredible distance of ? 
(See who can add up fastest and they win the pizza.)

17,500 miles around the world.

Much of the food we take for granted has been produced in other parts of the world, travelling great distances to our plates.
The next time you are shopping you should have a look to see where it came from.
Your fruit and veg, your tinned foods, tea and coffee all might have come a long distance.

On average vegetables travel 600 miles to your supermarket, some by plane, and all by lorry.
Modern transport enables us to enjoy a world of food on our doorstep.
The down side of this, however, is that a lot of fuel is burned by the food industry, at a cost both to consumers and to the environment.

So what can we do to stop wasting all the energy it takes to get food from all over the world?
Talk about growing our own, farmers’ markets, reading labels for local produce etc.

Also, those who are food producers do not always receive fair prices from customers on the other side of the world.
Talk about Fair Trade.
It is about poor farmers getting a fair price for what they produce.
And we in wealthy countries should look for the Fair Trade sign and buy those products whenever we can.

What Fair Trade foods can you buy?

Bananas
Coffee and tea
Sugar
Cookies
Chocolate

At Harvest we think about all the places our food comes from and the benefits and disadvantages of food that ‘travels miles’.