Food, Inc.

As part of the Slow Food Nation’s weekend, Participant Productions (producer of such films as Fast Food Nation and An Inconvenient Truth) premiered several clips from their upcoming film Food, Inc., a documentary about our food system. Each clip was followed by a brief discussion from Michael Pollan (An Omnivore’s Dilemna), Eric Schlosser (co-producer), Robert Kenner (producer and director) and moderated by Harold Goldstein. (You can read a synopsis of the film from Participant Media, our hosts for the day, below.)

Briefly, the film clips included the control the corporation Monsanto has over our seed supply (they have a team of lawyers who sue farmers), sustainable farmer Joel Salatin and how he processes chickens, and the company BPI and how they create something called hamburger filler from leftover fat from animals. The clips also included Gary Hirshberg, president of Stonyfield Farms who sold to Dannon, and how he supports Walmart. (It’s rather controversial for sustainable advocates and should raise a lot of discussion and debate around the issue of selling to super-large conglomerates like Walmart that are not sustainable (e.g., they don’t provide healthcare to most of their employees). (There was one other clip, but, unfortunately, I can’t remember it….)

From what was shown, this film will portray the problems with our industrial food system. Food Inc will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in a week or two, with general release in early-ish 2009. (It will depend on getting a distributor and when they want to release the film.)

My thoughts on the clips – they were a little intense and a little depressing/overwhelming, but they got the message across, which, if you don’t know by now, is that our food system is falling apart. Agribusiness tries to fix it by applying bandages, but it’s simply starting to fall apart – and instead of putting a quick fix on the problems, we need to look at how to redefine the whole structure.

General consensus from the panel was that our industrial food system will probably remain but will become less important as people find alternative ways to obtain food, like through CSA’s, farmers markets and independent retailers. Consumers will have the choice of where and what kind of food to purchase, lessening the stronghold of the few major corporations that are running things today.

What makes Participant stand out from other Hollywood movie studios and production companies is that they always launch a social action campaign around their movies. Sustainable Table worked with them on the Fast Food Nation movie (The Meatrix films can be found on the DVD of Fast Food Nation!), and we’re working with them now on how we might be able to spread the message of both the film and sustainability.

So, look out for Food Inc in your local theater sometime in winter/spring 2009 – we’ll keep you posted on the release date!

(Information on the film from Participant Media….)

Food, Inc.

OVERVIEW

Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Country of Origin: USA
Production Status: Post-production

CAST & CREW

Producer & Director: Robert Kenner (TV’s The American Experience)
Co-producers: Elise Pearlstein, Eric Schlosser, Richard Pearce, Melissa Robledo
Executive Producers: William Pohlad, Robin Schorr, Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann
Cast: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Gary Hirschberg, Joel Salatin

SYNOPSIS

How much do we really know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families?

In FOOD, INC., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.

Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli–the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults

Featuring Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”), Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms’ Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms’ Joe Salatin, FOOD, INC. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

You can read more about Slow Food Nation on the ST Chronicles, Sustainable Table’s tour journal.

(Note Sept 11: Just to clarify, Stonyfield sold to Group Danone, not Dannon. Dannon is a brand of yogurt owned by Group Danone.)