Buying Local Food: Shopping Practices, Place, and Consumption Networks in Defining Food as "Local"

Increasing awareness and concern with global climate change has led to a push to identify local food consumption as a way to reduce food miles and help preserve the environment. The journey from farm to fork is rarely a simple connection between farmer and consumer but involves a range of different...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2010-04, Vol.100 (2), p.409-426
Main Authors: Blake, Megan K., Mellor, Jody, Crane, Lucy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural and food market
alimento local
Bgi / Prodig
Climate change
Consumer economics
Consumer research
consumo
Consumption
England
Europe
Food
Food consumption
Local economy
local food
Local food systems
Local foods
lugar
menudeo
People, Place, and Region
Place
Qualitative research
Reino Unido
retail
Retail stores
Shopping
Social research
Socioeconomic factors
Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable food systems
The British Isles
United Kingdom
本地食品
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Summary:Increasing awareness and concern with global climate change has led to a push to identify local food consumption as a way to reduce food miles and help preserve the environment. The journey from farm to fork is rarely a simple connection between farmer and consumer but involves a range of different actors and agents, located in different places and at different socioeconomic scales. The result is a confusing array of meanings that can be attached to food items considered to be local (e.g., local supplier, local producer, local commodity chain, local cultural product). This research explores the ways that retailers seek to sell local food, ways that this term is understood by consumers, and ways that consumers negotiate these differences. The research employs a case study methodology and draws on interviews with producers and white, middle-class consumers located in West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. Shopping is a skilled activity and the local is revealed as a complex intersection of provisioning decisions and practices that household food buyers undertake in the context of food availability and the racialized and classed marketing strategies of retailers, which in turn makes problematic the food miles concept for political mobilization.
ISSN:0004-5608
2469-4452
1467-8306
2469-4460
DOI:10.1080/00045601003595545