Fresh paradoxes in food data

Abstract

This article frames some of the implications of consumer-facing ‘fresh food traceability systems’ for designers. These infrastructures, which support the production and transportation of perishable food, enable the tracking, or ‘traceback’ of different items as they move from farm to table. Food traceability presents a unique paradox: communicating new information about the provenance of food contradicts a longstanding history of obfuscation in the design of its packaging and advertising. In this article I analyze this paradoxical nature of food as a data object, and present designers with a series of contradictory positions they have to navigate when working with fresh food traceability systems. These include ambiguity regarding stakeholders, issues of schematization, and third order effects of ubiquitous food data.

Keywords:

• Traceability
• food systems
• infrastructure
• design

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Carl DiSalvo, Ian Bogost, Thomas Lodato, and my reviewers.