Lesson video

My name's Miss Gilyeat, and I'm your geography teacher for today.

In today's lesson, we are going to be learning about food production and supply chains, which is the third lesson of the Globalisation: Is the world shrinking topic.

Okay, we've got loads of interesting things to learn about, so let's get going.

So our lesson outcome for today is that you can explain what a supply chain is and how this impacts the food that we eat.

We have got five keywords for today's lesson.

So first of all, supply chains are all of the stages involved in producing goods, transporting them, and selling them to customers.

And import is goods and services brought in from another country.

And export goods and services sold to another country.

Processing, making changes to a food's natural state.

So for example, cooking beans into a tomato sauce and preserving them in tins.

And raw materials are things that can be grown or dug out of the ground, and processed or used in the manufacture of goods.

All of the key words are highlighted in bold.

So if you need to refer back to them at any point, you can do.

We've got two learning cycles, so first of all, we're gonna learn about what a supermarket is as a global company, and then we are going to learn about the supply chains of supermarkets.

So let's get going with the first learning cycle supermarkets as global companies.

Now, 60 years ago, people used to go to lots of different local shops to get their food.

So for example, they might go to the butchers to get meat, the green grocer for fruit and vegetables, the grocer for tins, milk, and cheese, the bakery for bread, a hardware shop for things for the house.

Okay, however, this has now changed.

Okay, so the first supermarket in the UK opened in 1948.

People's shopping habits have changed over time.

Now, there's lots of different reasons why now people more go and do their food shopper a supermarket, but these are some of them.

So for example, car ownership, refrigeration, and more processed foods, which has a longer shelf life, has meant that people can go to the shop less often, and they can buy more food.

Okay, so a lot of supermarkets aren't located in the middle of town centres because they need more space.

So often, they're located further out.

Now, that might mean it is going to be quite tricky to get to on foot or via public transport, therefore, if more people can own a car, that means that more people can go to the larger supermarkets to do their shop.

Having items refrigerated means that you don't have to go to the shop as often.

So when people didn't have fridges, it meant that they had to go much more often, because food such as milk and meat would go off, so you wouldn't be able to buy as much of it.

Whereas now, you can do a weekly shop, put it in the fridge, and know that it won't spoil after a week.

Also, more processed food has got a longer shelf life, as well, okay? And that means that people don't have to go to the shop as often, so we're able to do one big shop during the week.

So now, that's what most people do, okay? They go to supermarkets once a week, and get everything that they need.

Well, and one of the big reasons for it, it's more time efficient.

You're not having to visit the shops as often.

Okay, let's check our understanding.

So why have people's shopping habits changed? There's two that you can tick here.

So is it A, car ownership? B, refrigeration at home? Or C, that there's less food available? Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, so the answer is there's an increase in car ownership and people can refrigerate at home.

There is not less food available.

If anything, there's a lot more food available.

So in the UK, there are lots of supermarkets.

I want you to have a think which different ones can you think of? It might be worth pausing the video and see how many you can get with the person that you sat next to, or if you're working on your own, jot a little list.

Okay, so here are some of the main ones that we have in the UK.

So we've got Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Co-op, Morrisons, Waitrose, Lidl, ALDI, M&S Food, and Booths.

Now, there's actually a couple more that I could have added to the list, but those are the main ones.

Now, in the UK, most of our supermarkets are British.

However, some of the supermarkets in the UK are owned by companies from other countries in the world.

Now, for example, Asda is owned by Walmart, which is an American company.

Now, here's a little bit of research for you to do.

Why don't you see when you get home if you can find out where ALDI and Lidl come from.

Now, Tesco is the largest supermarket in the UK.

So here are some interesting facts about it.

It employs 330,000 people globally.

So not just in the UK but all around the world, okay? So that gives you a little bit of a hint that it's also a company that doesn't just work in the UK, it also operates in different countries.

There are 4,942 stores around the world.

The company is worth over 20 billion pounds.

That's quite a shocking statistics really about Tesco, isn't it? It's a massive company.

So let's have a look at some of the countries that Tesco operates in.

Okay, so the Republic of Ireland.

It operates in Turkey.

India, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan.

Okay, so lots of different countries that it's operates in.

And if you think about it, all of those countries will have people from that country that work for the company.

Oh, there's another one, Poland and Slovakia, as well.

Now, last lesson we learned about what globalisation is.

Okay, so we're going to think today about what global companies are.

So looking at that map and from what I've just told you, how is Tesco an example of a global company? Let's see what Andeep says here.

So Tesco is an example of a global company, because it operates in multiple countries of the world.

This is an example of globalisation as it shows that countries can be connected through companies.

Andeep is absolutely spot on there.

Tesco is a fantastic example of a large global company.

Let's check our understanding, true or false.

Tesco is a global company and can you tell me why or why not? Pause the video and have a go.

So that is, of course, true.

And can you tell me why? Tesco is an example of a global company, because it operates in more than one country in the world.

Well done if you got that right.

Okay, we're on to our first task for today's lesson.

Now, the first one is you are going to define what a global company is, and then using the map, I want you to describe the location of international Tescos.

Pause the video, and have a go at task A.

Okay, let's have a look at the answers.

So a global company is a company that operates in different countries in the world.

Tesco is an example of a global company.

Tesco is found in the continent of Europe and Asia.

Most of its stores are located in the UK with 1,898 supermarkets.

Well done if you got that right.

Okay, we are now moving on to our second learning cycle of the lesson, which is looking at the supply chains of supermarkets.

Now, all of the food and goods that we find in the supermarket have had their own special journey from where they were grown or made to ending up in the supermarket.

This is called or this journey is called the supply chain.

So where it's come from, where it started to its journey to the supermarket.

A global supply chain is where this journey includes several different countries, and it may be thousands of miles long.

Supermarkets have complex global supply chains.

Many of the food and goods in supermarkets have come from all around the world to meet the demand for different produce that we cannot grow in the UK.

Okay, so when we go to the shop, okay, and we go round buying food items, some of that stuff will have been grown and made in the UK, but a good chunk of it, roughly about 50%, has actually come from different countries.

Now, that might be because we cannot grow or make that good ourselves, because we don't have the correct climate, but also in some ways, it's actually cheaper to import items from different countries than it is to make it in our own country.

Let's check our understanding.

So what is a supply chain? Is it A, a shelf in the supermarket with lots of different goods? B, the journey that food and goods takes from the raw materials to the shop? Or C, a place where raw materials are processed into a good? Pause the video and let's have a go.

The answer is B, the journey that food and goods take from the raw materials to the shop.

Now, different food, goods and food items, will have different journeys.

Most items will have similar stages to the journey though.

So this is what most items that you find in the supermarket, this is the journey that they will have taken.

So sourcing the raw material.

So that's taking the raw material from the ground, processing the raw materials, that's turning it into something.

Packaging the food item.

Transporting them to the supermarkets or shops, okay? And then eventually, of course, us as consumers then go and buy the item.

So we can see on the left we've got some strawberries being grown.

These strawberries aren't processed into anything, they are just going to be sold in the shopper's strawberries.

However, sometimes, these strawberries might be turned into something like strawberry jam, so that would be the processing part of the journey.

Now, either jam or fresh strawberries are packaged, okay, eventually, they are transported, and finally, they end up in the supermarket.

Now, let's have a look at a global supply chain of a loaf of bread.

So a farm grows and harvests wheat.

The processing plant turns the wheat into flour.

A factory bakes the flour into bread.

The bread is then packaged and transported to the supermarket, and the loaf of bread is sold in the supermarket, okay? So that is a supply chain of a loaf of bread.

Now, as I just said earlier, some things that we buy in the supermarket do not get processed, okay? So for example, fresh fruit and vegetables, they don't get processed.

They are sold as they are grown.

However, they still will require packaging, well, most of them, but we are trying to move to using less packaging, because it's bad for the environment, but a lot of them still are.

Now, many food items found in the supermarkets have lots of different raw materials.

And these different raw materials can come from many different countries around the world, okay? These will then be processed in a factory before being transported to a supermarket.

Now, a chocolate bar, for example, contains ingredients from all around the world.

So you might have cocoa from Brazil, sugar from India, and milk from the UK.

Now, all of these items, all of these raw materials eventually will come together and be processed into a chocolate bar.

When the materials are exported and transported across the world, it is important that the food items do not spoil, okay? So a lot of transportation devices that move food now have improved the technology, so they can actually keep the items cool, or they need to make that the transport journey isn't too long so that the food items don't go off before they reach the supermarket.

Yes, but as I just said, this may mean refrigerating the items as they are transported.

Food miles measure the distance between where a food is grown or made to where it is eaten.

So where that raw material has come from, the distance, to where it actually lands on your plate, where you are eating it.

This includes all of the ingredients within a product, okay? Now, to move different food items around the world, different modes of transport will be used.

So most items will eventually have some part of their journey within a lorry, because this is what brings the food to the actual supermarkets.

Some will be transported on a cargo ship if they are going across country borders, especially if they are travelling a long distance, and fewer but some still would may be travelled by aeroplane.

Now, the ones that travel in the air are items which are either very quite fragile, or they will go off if they are not transported quite quickly.

Food with more food miles has a greater impact on the environment.

For example, an avocado transported from Mexico to the UK has to travel approximately 5,500 miles.

Now approximately, every avocado emits 0.

19 kilogrammes of CO2 through transport emissions.

And this all contributes to global warming.

So next time you go to the supermarket, have a look at the what you are buying, especially if you are buying fruit, because often, a lot of the fruit that we eat in the UK, we can't grow here, because we don't have the right climate.

So it might just be worth looking, most items say where they have been grown from.

So it'd be interesting to find out how far that food item has travelled to get into the supermarket.

Let's check our understanding.

So food with more food miles has a greater impact on the environment.

Is that true or false? And can you tell me why? That is true.

And the reason for that is food with more food miles is worse for the environment, because transporting the food releases greenhouse gases, which adds to global warming.

Well done if you got that right.

Now, many food items can only be grown in certain climates, okay? So if we have a look at the figure that I have got on the slide here, it shows where most bananas are grown, okay? And where they are exported to.

So we can see that the majority of bananas are grown within the tropics, okay? So close-ish to the equator.

And that is because of the climate of the area.

So bananas need a warm, sunny climate to be able to grow.

They also need a decent amount of rainfall.

Now, if we look at the arrows on the map, we can see that most of those bananas are travelling north.

So a good chunk, 27% ends up in the USA, 28% in the EU, 8% in Central Asia and Russia, and 7, sorry, 12% up to Asia, and 2% in the Arabic peninsula.

So most bananas are grown within the tropics and are exported, or sorry, yeah, they go to countries further north, such as the USA, Europe, and Northern Asia.

Now, supermarkets import goods from all across the world.

The supermarket depends on other countries of the world to supply the food items. The countries exporting the product rely on global supermarkets to buy the product.

They are interdependent.

So we can see here that the supermarkets are buying food from all across the world, okay? And therefore, those supermarkets rely on the countries to supply them with the products.

But on the flip side to that, the countries that are supplying the product, they are producing it are reliant on the supermarkets to buy the product, okay? They are interdependent, they are relying on each other.

Let's check our understanding.

Where are most bananas grown in the world? Is it A, within the tropics? B, in Asia? Or C, in Europe and North America? The answer's A, within the tropics.

Okay, we are moving on to our second task for today's lesson.

So for task B, you are going to research the supply chain of a pint of milk.

I would like you to create a flow diagram which shows it as a raw material to where it ends up in the supermarkets.

So you may have to use the internet for this research.

Pause the video and have a go at the task.

Okay, our second task here is explained.

So in the UK, we use milk produced locally, but we also import milk from other countries.

Most of our imported milk comes from Ireland, France, Poland, Germany, and Belgium.

So for task two A, I would like you to locate these countries on the map and use an atlas or digital map to measure the distance the milk would travel to us from these different countries.

You are then going to rank the countries from the least to the most food miles.

So yeah, you'll have to use an atlas or a digital map such as Google maps for this task, okay? So remember, you need to be using the scale bar appropriately.

So pause the video and have a go at the task.

Okay, here's my example of a supply chain of a pint of milk.

So cows are milked in a dairy farm is the first step to the journey, because that's where the raw material is coming from.

Then the milk is pasteurised at a processing plant.

The pasteurised milk is put into cartons, and the cartons are transported to supermarkets.

Well done if you got that right.

If there's a stage that you are missing to your flow diagram, it might be worth pausing the video and just adding it in now.

Okay, and let's have a go or let's see what we've got for task two.

So Belgium is 321 away, so that was the closest.

France is 342 kilometres.

Ireland 465 kilometres.

Germany, 935 kilometres.

Okay, and Poland, 1,452 kilometres.

Now, you might have got slightly different distances to me depending on whereabouts in the country you measured from.

So it's absolutely fine if you did get different measurements, because, obviously, these are not exact, because it depends on where in the country you went from.

So if you got different measurements, it's likely that you might have got different rankings, and that is absolutely fine.

Okay, here we have a summary for today's lesson.

So supermarkets are the main way that people shop for food.

Several supermarkets in the UK are global companies and operate in different countries around the world.

Supermarkets import goods and food from other countries of the world.

Items with more food miles can have greater impact on the environment as they produce greenhouse gases.

And supermarkets sell many different goods and food items which all have their own complex supply chains.

Right, that's it for today's lesson.

Well done.

You've done a fantastic job there, 'cause there were some tricky things to get your head around.

So that's it for today.

Well done, and I'll see you next time.

Bye.