Grown in Transit Supermarkets and modern food transportation systems have sacrificed freshness and seasonality in favour of warehousing depots, bulk transportation and blemish-free produce. But a new attitude is emerging, with the creation of innovative ways of growing food in transit rather than refrigerating products into suspended animation. Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Agata Jaworska’s project ‘Made in Transit’ aims to eliminate the wasted time and trapped inventory in many supply chains by actually growing produce en route to the store. Jaworska’s concept aims to move from ‘best before’ preservative packaging to ‘ready by’ cultivational packaging which consumers would open when the product was ready for consumption. Jaworska’s first example would grow mushrooms on the way to the supermarket. ‘The instant a crop is removed from the ground or separated from its parent plant, a steady process of deterioration begins,’ says Jaworska. ‘Methods to compensate for the loss of quality, taste and nutrients can only slow the process of deterioration down, but the result will never match what we have at the source of life.’ The grown-in-transit concept enables growth along the way, to deliver absolute freshness and allow the consumer to ‘harvest’ their own food. The idea would also minimise excess packaging, such as the plastic film and crates that protect delicate food items in transit. These are rarely re-used.
Award-winning chef Arthur Potts Dawson hopes to bring a community aspect to the trend with his ‘veg barge’ concept. He plans to create an aquatic allotment on one of the barges on Regent’s Canal, adjacent to his Water House restaurant in Shoreditch, London. The barge is an extension of the city-grown produce cultivated on the roof and in the front and back yards of Potts Dawson’s Acorn House in the busy King’s Cross area. It would service the restaurant by travelling up and down the canal as the herbs, fruits and vegetables grow. Potts Dawson is also keen to use the barge to serve the community, travelling into the borough of Hackney to promote and sell locally-grown foods. w w w. agata jaworsk a .com w w w. acornhouserestaurant.com w w w.waterhouserestaurant.co.uk
above : made in transit by agata jaworsk a, a ne w system of mushroom cultivation shifting the role of distribution from slowing down the process of post-harvest deterioration to enabling grow th and involving the consumer at the point of harvest
THE : FUTURE : L ABOR ATORY
24 : 25