It might surprise you that Robert Kenner didn’t start out as a sustainable-food-system activist who wanted to make a documentary. Rather, he’s a film director who set out to tell the story of food and found himself uncovering food-system secrets that shocked him.
“I’m not a food person. I’m a filmmaker. All of a sudden, I became more conscious [about what I eat]. Food just didn’t taste the same,” Kenner told a packed theater after a showing of Food, Inc., at The Precarious Alliance Symposium in Doylestown, Pa. As he visited farms and food-production factories during filming, he realized, “This was no longer a film just about food, but a film about our loss of rights.”
Kenner has a busy speaking schedule as more groups want to hear the story of Food, Inc., and he says his message is always the same: Consumers have the power to change the system. While filming Food, Inc., Wal-Mart representatives told him the company was making a commitment to no longer purchase milk produced with recombinant bovine growth hormone, and he realized it was consumer demand that made this change in the largest corporation in the world.
Watch the video above to hear what else Kenner has learned about sustainable food systems and how you can help shape the future of your food.
