Practitioners, economists, and civil engineers experimented with a novel way to diagnose the health and resilience of US food systems. Using publicaly available data and AI to find patterns in the data, the team created maps to provide insights on how perishable products such as meat and prepared foods flow through our networks of cold chain infrastructure — warehouses and distribution centers, reefer trucks, and supermarkets.

Network structure & the resilience property

We found that the Los Angeles metro region is the most important node in these food systems, and Chicago metro is second. Counties in these regions form the core nodes of our food networks for perishable foods and are critical for the functioning of our food systems. While they add economic benefits to these regions, it is not without costs. Food systems are most vulnerable at these points, and these regions disproportionately bare the burdens – such as air pollution – associated with refrigerated freight.

We also found large regions on the edges of food networks – peripheral nodes – to national food distribution networks for perishables. This is troubling since everyone needs nutrient-dense food, even people living in remote rural areas. In fact, this is a global issue. There is evidence that poor access to fresh and frozen foods is of concern globally, especially in low income areas where there is insufficent financial investment in cold chain infrastructure.

Future research to verify how resilient these counties and regions are is a next step to using public data and AI for the public’s benefit.

Food flows: perishable meats 2017 

Food flows: prepared foods 2017

For more information, see the full report: Miller, Michelle and Konar, Megan (2024) “U.S. Food Flows: A Cold Chain Network Analysis of Freight Movements to Inform Local and Regional Food Issues”. A report prepared for the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, Transportation Services Division. https://doi.org/10.21231/qfx4-4f67