TABLE 1.

Factors affecting the future food supply

Factor	Description
Population growth	The US population is expected to reach 352 million in 2025, up from 304 million in 2011. By 2050, the world population is expected to reach 10 billion, up from 7 billion in 2011.
Food insecurity	Environmental disasters, climate change, and the global recession have sorely tried the food security system. Food prices have risen in many countries, including the United States.
Globalization of the food supply	Today, the American food supply comes in part from other countries and travels long distances to reach consumers. This globalization poses transportation, storage, and food safety challenges that must be managed, especially for raw foods such as fruit and vegetables and seafood. Traditional methods used by regulators to ensure product safety have proven insufficient to deal with a global food supply with much food production and processing being done in remote parts of the world and imported into the United States (8–10).
Food-borne illness	Better surveillance and detection techniques in the United States and globally have increased the capacity to monitor the cause of food-borne illnesses such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, and others as well as Listeria monocytogenes (11).
Aging population and increased noncommunicable chronic degenerative diseases	As populations throughout the world live to older ages, the influence of diet-related chronic degenerative diseases also increases, and these changes have given rise to new dietary needs. The leading causes of preventable death worldwide include several conditions that are associated with diet, including hypertension, high cholesterol, malnutrition and poor diet, overweight and obesity, alcohol abuse, and physical inactivity (12). The links between these diseases and diet are complex, but it is clear that simply getting enough food is no longer the sole criterion for a “good” diet. Balance between different nutrients, moderation, and avoidance of excess are also important. The challenge confronting food and nutrition scientists today is how best to provide foods that fit well with human nutritional needs and promote health while preventing both the diseases of insufficiency and those of excess.
Economic recession	Economic growth has been slow in the United States for several years, increases in real income have been very modest for several decades, and food prices are increasing. These trends exert price pressures on consumers.
Women in the workforce and time constraints	As women spend more time outside the home, home food processing and food preparation have declined and Americans are eating out more (13).
Consumer demands	People buy foods for the benefits they provide, particularly taste, safety, quality, availability, convenience, price, healthfulness, and nutrition, and how the foods fit into personal and societal values such as sustainability and environmental concerns. People appear to care more about these benefits than about the technologies that were used to achieve them, but this issue needs further research. However, consumers need and want to understand why new processing approaches are needed if they are being used, why they are necessary, and what, if any, risks are involved.
Competition	The US food system has become increasingly competitive at the retail level, with the increased presence of nontraditional grocery retailers, including drugstores and supercenters, and the need for food marketers to develop unique product characteristics. These may include developing brands that incorporate such characteristics as corporate responsibility and highly tailored food product offerings (14).