Tuna

Synopsis

When it comes to food, we are spoilt for choice. From top class restaurants to low cost supermarkets, we take it for granted that we can buy whatever food we want, whenever we want it.

But would we feel the same if we knew the human cost of food production?

Six typical young British food consumers go to live and work alongside the millions of people in south east Asia's food production industries. They must catch, harvest and process food products that we eat every day, seeing behind the scenes of the tuna, prawns, rice and chicken industries for the very first time.

They eat, sleep and live with food workers in the poorest regions of Indonesia and Thailand, surviving on the same wages. The average wage for food workers here is around 3 pounds a day.

To begin with, the Brits tackle Indonesia's tuna industry in Bitung on the island of Sulawesi. In the UK, we consume over a billion tins of tuna a year and Bitung's canneries supply to many British supermarkets and sandwich chains.

The Brits live with tuna workers in basic communities, endure 90-degree heat in the canneries and struggle with the harsh realities of life on a traditional wooden tuna boat in the western Pacific. The extreme conditions affect them all in many different ways, as do the hand to mouth existence of the workers they live with.

Credits

Director

James Christie-Miller

Producer

James Christie-Miller

Executive Producer

Mark Rubens

Executive Producer

Tim Quicke

Broadcasts

1. Tue 19 May 2009
   21:00
   BBC Three
2. Wed 20 May 2009
   00:45
   BBC Three
3. Thu 21 May 2009
   03:55
   BBC Three
4. Thu 21 May 2009
   20:00
   BBC Three
5. Fri 22 May 2009
   01:45
   BBC Three
6. Sun 24 May 2009
   22:45
   BBC Three
7. Mon 25 May 2009
   02:05
   BBC Three
8. Sun 31 May 2009
   03:05
   BBC Three
9. Thu 2 Jul 2009
   01:45
   BBC Three
10. Mon 13 Jul 2009
    03:10
    BBC Three
11. Mon 27 Jul 2009
    22:35
    BBC One (except Northern Ireland, Wales)
12. Mon 27 Jul 2009
    23:05
    BBC One (Wales only)
13. Wed 29 Jul 2009
    23:45
    BBC One (Northern Ireland only)