Food storage

Yup'ik elevated food cache (qulvarvik), Hooper Bay, Alaska, 1929. Photograph by Edward S. Curtis
U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) food storage containers stacked on shipping pallets in Texas, 2008.
A new braided granary is inaugurated. Kapsiki, North Cameroon.

Food storage is a way of decreasing the variability of the food supply in the face of natural, inevitable variability.[1] It allows food to be eaten for some time (typically weeks to months) after harvest rather than solely immediately. It is both a traditional domestic skill (mainly as root cellaring) and, in the form of food logistics, an important industrial and commercial activity. Food preservation, storage, and transport, including timely delivery to consumers, are important to food security, especially for the majority of people throughout the world who rely on others to produce their food.

Significant losses of food are caused by inadequate storage conditions as well as decisions made at earlier stages of the supply chain, which predispose products to a shorter shelf life.[2] Adequate cold storage, in particular, can be crucial to prevent quantitative and qualitative food losses.[3]

Food is stored by almost every human society and by many animals. Storing of food has several main purposes:

  • Storage of harvested and processed plant and animal food products for distribution to consumers
  • Enabling a better balanced diet throughout the year
  • Reducing food waste by preserving unused or uneaten food for later use
  • Preserving pantry food, such as spices or dry ingredients like rice and flour, for eventual use in cooking
  • Preparedness for catastrophes, emergencies and periods of food scarcity or famine, whether as basic emergency preparedness (for most people) or in its more extreme form of survivalism (prepping)
  • Religious reasons: for example, leaders in the LDS Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) instruct church members to store food.[4]
  • Protection from animals or theft
  1. ^ Lawrence, R.J. (2014). Freedman, Bill (ed.). Global environmental change. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. XXVII+973. ISBN 978-94-007-5783-7. OCLC 888154438. ISBN 978-94-007-5784-4 ISBN 978-94-007-5785-1 p. 507
  2. ^ Butler, C.D. (2014). Freedman, Bill (ed.). Global environmental change. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. XXVII+973. ISBN 978-94-007-5783-7. OCLC 888154438. ISBN 978-94-007-5784-4 ISBN 978-94-007-5785-1 p. 645
  3. ^ The State of Food and Agriculture 2019. Moving forward on food loss and waste reduction, In brief. Rome: FAO. 2019. p. 12.
  4. ^ "Provident Living." Archived 2011-10-29 at the Wayback Machine, Latter Day Saints Family Home Storage.