Food excellence? A luxurious lie we tell ourselves.
Food excellence? A luxurious lie we tell ourselves.
The term excellence, in a common dictionary, means: quality of supreme value or appreciation, uniqueness, perfection.
Generally speaking, therefore, the term excellence or the verb to excel is associated with the meaning of being superior, distinguishing oneself, achieving high, unique levels of quality…
In short, excellence is something that stands out, that is above, that stands apart, that emerges.
Now, for some time now, the term excellence has been used to promote agricultural products or their processed products in various parts of the world, including Italy.
This concept embodies one of the most subtle distortions of the liberal model. A distortion that positions food (because that’s what we’re talking about) as a competitive factor within real or hypothetical markets, rather than as the availability of goods from the earth to populations, whether local or global.
In itself, the idea of excellence can have a positive connotation: it means care, quality, attention to production, respect for the land, tradition, and craftsmanship.
However, this word is not neutral: it is often used as a marketing label, designed to create added value and market differentiation. It is therefore not only a cultural category, but also an economic one.
However, in a neoliberal/globalized system, excellence is often associated with goods intended for an elite who can afford them, while the majority of the population consumes standardized, industrial, and less expensive products.
This creates a food hierarchy: no longer just nourishment and a universal right, but a status symbol and a sign of social distinction.
Furthermore, producing some excellent foods wastes resources that could be used to feed more people.
In many cases, producing excellent foods (such as certain aged cheeses, fine wines, high-quality meats, or traditional artisanal products) requires far more natural, energetic, and economic resources than those needed to produce more nutritious and accessible staples.
Some examples:
– Producing high-quality meat: requires large quantities of water, feed, and land. The same grains used to feed animals could theoretically feed more people directly.
– Cheeses and fine dairy products: Processing milk into aged cheeses results in losses of raw materials (much of the milk is discarded as whey), while the same fresh milk could feed a greater number of people.
– Wines and alcoholic beverages: The grapes and other fruits used could be consumed directly as food, but they are destined for a luxury product.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that producing high-quality foods is always a “waste”: they have cultural, economic, and identity-building value, employ entire supply chains, and often contribute to local development. However, from a pure food efficiency perspective, allocating resources to luxury products reduces the availability of simple, nutritious foods for a greater number of people. In a world where food sovereignty is increasingly discussed but still far away, and where entire populations lack even the basics to feed themselves, it’s time to ask ourselves some questions. Furthermore, in the vast majority of cases, with the exacerbation of free-market policies, farmers’ agricultural incomes worldwide have suffered a decline since the 1980s that shows no sign of abating.
In this sense, the use of the term “excellence” should be interpreted as an economic-cultural distortion (one of many of this era), transforming a primary good into a positional good.
For this reason, from an ethical, even more than an economic, perspective, speaking of “excellence” only makes sense if it does not imply exclusion from access to decent and healthy food for all.
Today, however, the paradox is evident: while in some parts of the world food and wine excellence is celebrated (and enormous quantities of food are discarded), other populations do not even have access to basic commodities.
Hence the risk that the discussion of excellence obscures the fundamental problem: food as a universal right.
Furthermore, if the term excellence is not associated with other qualities such as respect for workers’ rights, sustainable production methods, distributive democracy, etc., the term itself becomes a shell devoid of content and values.
If an oil or wine (for example) is produced without respecting workers’ rights, emissions (CO2 and climate-altering gases) to distribute it even over long distances, or the environment where it is produced, and so on, we are essentially upending the entire planetary ethic, including humanity.
It’s of little use to say that excellence helps improve a region’s economy, because while this is true for some areas, in the long run the negative effects, both local and global, are always negative (the laws of economics combined with those of ecology and physics are universal and cannot be circumvented). A system is economically and energetically viable if it respects all the principles and factors at play (energy, information, the environment, organisms, and humans included).
Only in this way is a system also ethical, and a food can be considered excellent.
In short, ethical value is such if it respects scientific, economic, and social issues.
From a scientific perspective, saying that a process “respects the laws of thermodynamics” essentially means that:
– it does not violate the conservation of energy (1st law),
– it always produces entropy (2nd law),
– and therefore inevitably has losses/irreversibility.
In practice, any real process respects these laws: there are no exceptions, otherwise it would not be physically possible.
From an economic perspective, a process can be more efficient (i.e., use less energy and resources to achieve the same result) if it is designed with thermodynamics in mind.
A system that reduces energy waste has lower operating costs and, therefore, greater economic competitiveness.
However, simply respecting the laws (which everyone respects anyway) is not enough: what matters is how close we get to the thermodynamic limit.
In short, a process that wastes 70% of its energy as heat and one that wastes only 40% both respect the laws, but only the latter is more economically “correct” and, in general, more ethically sound.
From a social perspective, the discussion expands. A process that minimizes waste and reduces resource consumption/environmental impacts can be considered more ethical because it has fewer negative effects on collective well-being and future generations.
As is evident, ethics, with all its implications and facets, does not stop at thermodynamics alone: social aspects come into play (working conditions, equitable access to resources, impact on communities, etc.), which, if you like, are nothing more than more complex aspects of the thermodynamics of the Vita system.
Returning now to the examination of the concept of excellence in relation to food, it is clear that exclusive or elitist value are an oxymoron.
In this sense, if we must use the term excellence, we could think of an ethical and inclusive concept of excellence: excellence not as a luxury for the few, but as the ability to produce healthy, sustainable food that respects the environment and people.
From this perspective, excellence is not measured solely in terms of organoleptic properties or price, but in its contribution to food justice and global sustainability.
In short, the term “excellence” has become, in most cases, a distortion of the liberal economic model, especially when it becomes a tool of exclusion. From an ethical perspective, it would be desirable to reclaim it in a different light, linked not only to commercial prestige but to the idea of food that is simultaneously good, fair, and accessible.
In this direction, much of global agri-food policies need to be completely rewritten.
Guido Bissanti