There is no single reason for the development of food industry. If society is changing, the relationship of people to the society they live is also liable to change. Society has changes over along period of time due to a range of influences that inextricably linked. Some of those influences can be listed.
• The industrial revolution
• Growing populations
• The changing role of women
• Advances in technology such as transportation, canned food and microwaves
• Rising standard of living and an increase in disposable income
• The use of market research within food technology
• The increasing popularity of convenience foods
• Changing styles of shopping from supermarket to internet
• Advances in food production such a biotechnology
• An increasing knowledge of food related disease
The result of these and other influences is what we can see today in supermarket, shops, homes and restaurants and cafes.
Eric Schlosser, who has written about the permeation of society by fast food culture claims that ‘a nation’s diet can be more revealing that its art or literature’.
He relates the growth of the fast food industry to fundamental changes in American society, including the vast entry of women onto the paid labor market, the development of an automobile culture, the increase reliance on low-wage service jobs, the decline of family farming, and the growth of agribusiness.
The food industry moves at fast pace in order to keep up with the latest developments and consumer trends.
Changes in society
