There are currently around 500 000 vegans in the US - a 25% increase from 2021. These stats highlight the immense growth that this lifestyle is experiencing. Veganism as a movement has clearly established goals, and a method through which its participants can move towards achieving those goals. Among these goals lie environmental improvement, the decrease of mass farming and harmful farming methods, as well as improvement in transparency, sustainability, and overall health consciousness. As more and more people find themselves aligned with these goals, there’s an ever-increasing pressure on food supply chains to change the ways that they operate.

Why Food Supply Chains Have Been Operating Dangerously

The global food supply chain has been operating in ways that are extremely harmful to the environment. These operational practices require urgent addressing before these problems start to really affect people on the ground in the United States. The food supply chain in the United States is responsible for choosing producers, packaging food, and transporting the food from producer to consumer. In other words, the supply chain acts as the middleman between farmer and citizen. The problem with food supply chains in the United States is that many people don’t know the practices and operations of these companies, and this has led to massive amounts of food wastage in the country.

A Storage And Waste Issue

In 2021 it was estimated that around 40% of food produced in the United States was wasted, amounting to around $218 billion in total. Food supply chains play perhaps the largest role in the problem, and veganism is looking to address this through conscious eating, by lessening the reliance on meat, and by demanding transparent practices from supply chains around the country.

One practice that the vegan movement has been pining for, for the last few years, is increased cold storage warehousing by food supply chains to increase the shelf-life of food, and in turn, decrease overall wastage. There are two elements to cold storage warehousing. There’s the warehouse itself and the equipment inside that helps preserve the products being stored. Cold storage on an industrial scale has improved massively with high-tech equipment and technology making it more sustainable than other forms of storage. The global frozen foods market is expected to grow to around $340 billion by 2026, and vegans are in full support of increased sustainability by food supply chains.

Increased Appetite for Veganism is a Good Thing

There has been a stigma around veganism and its participants since its inception. However, that’s to be expected from people who have become so aligned with eating meat that anything out of the norm presents itself as a challenge. But what many people don’t realize is that vegans are actually spurring good change in the world.

Veganism has been described as the single biggest way to improve our environment, and this starts with ‘on the ground’ food supply chains.