ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, and specifically on two countries Australia and Thailand with very different culinary and food retail histories, yet whose agri-food sectors as well as food shoppers are now inextricably linked by a globally-integrated food system. The Australian food retail sector is dominated by just two major supermarket chains, Wesfarmers-Coles and Woolworths Ltd, which together account for approximately 70 per cent of all packaged grocery sales in the country and 50 per cent of fresh produce sales. Transgressions can occur as sins of commission as well as of omission. They may lead to crises or ruptures in previously resilient arrangements by undermining capacity for renewal, or they may give rise to more muted transitions between one state to another. Moore dates the appearance of the metabolic rift to the sixteenth century; exemplified by nascent capitalisms establishment of sugar plantations, slave labour forces, and imperial power relations forged through long-distance trade in quick energy.
