The Food Processing Industry

A central characteristic of the modern food system in much of the world is an increasing distance between producer and consumer. With the rise of the food industry, especially over the last two hundred years, most agricultural products undergo varying degrees of processing between the farm and the table. This article explores many different aspects of the industry that has arisen around those food processing steps, which turn raw materials from nature into processed food products that are then marketed to consumers. The “food processing industry” as used here refers to the commercial activities that accompany the transformation of raw plants and living animals into mass-produced food products, which can include a wide variety of physical, chemical, and biological processing steps. The food products that result range from minimally processed to ultra-processed (to use terms common under the widely-used NOVA classification scheme developed by researchers in Brazil), but all have some degree of transformation from their original state as plants and animals. Many of the works cited here focus on the United States, given its outsized influence in the agrifood industry, but attention is also paid to aspects of the food processing industry in other parts of the world, as a global food system has grown, often shaped by the market forces and corporate decisions of companies in the United States. The US-focused scholarship offers central insights to understanding the past, present, and future of the food processing industry around the world. Outside of industry professionals themselves, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have studied the food processing industry—including from history, geography, sociology, public health, political science, economics, cultural studies, journalism, and many others—with all the methods and approaches these fields offer. These studies have variously examined the technologies used in food processing and preservation; the nutrition science that has informed food fortification; specific sectors of the food processing industry (with the meat industry highlighted in this article); specific demographics for which specialty processed foods are prepared (with an example of infant feeding here); and the labor issues and organization efforts that the food processing industry has experienced. Beyond the food processing factories themselves, studies of the regulatory, financial, economic, transportation, and marketing structures that inform the food processing industry and its impacts have also been central. The food industry in the twenty-first century has become the subject of many debates that are key to determining the direction of our modern world. Activists push back against the food processing industry for the ways in which it can endanger human and environmental health, along with the safety, autonomy, and security of the communities it affects. Commentators and stakeholders debate whether and how processed food can contribute to a sustainable future.