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Much is being made of local food. It is at once a social movement, a diet, and an economic strategy—a popular solution—to a global food system in great distress. Yet, despite its popularity or perhaps because of it, local food (especially in the US) is also something of a chimera if not a tool of the status quo. This paper reflects on and contrasts aspects of current local food rhetoric with Dalhberg’s notion of a regenerative food system. It identifies three problematic emphases—the locavore emphasis, the Wal-Mart emphasis, and the Pollan emphasis—and argues that they are shifting local food (as a concept and a social movement) away from the deeper concerns of equity, citizenship, place-building, and sustainability. It is suggested that local food activists and advocates might consider the use of multiple methodologies and forms of expression to explore the integration and reintegration of local food into diverse and redundant place-based practice. A short case study of a low-income, urban neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan, illustrates the value of contextual analysis for more fully enabling the local food movement and a regenerative food system.

Buying local is a prominent form of ethical consumption. We commonly assume that products that are local are in some respect ethically superior to ones that are not. This article contributes to research on local food by scrutinizing this assumption in light of some central values of the locavore movement. It identifies four central ethical causes from prior literature on locavorism: protecting the environment, promoting community, promoting small business, and contributing to the prosperity of one’s local economy. It then analyzes whether the contribution of buying local to these causes can justify the general perception that buying local is a good way to be an ethical consumer. Its main finding is that these justifications fail to provide a strong positive ethical reason for consumers in general to adopt the practice of buying local.

The majority of food in the US is distributed through global/national supply chains that exclude locally-produced goods. This situation offers opportunities to increase local food production and consumption and is influenced by constraints that limit the scale of these activities. We conducted a study to assess perspectives of producers and consumers engaged in food systems of a major Midwestern city. We examined producers’ willingness to include/increase cultivation of local foods and consumers’ interest in purchasing/increasing local foods. We used focus groups of producers (two groups of conventional farmers, four local food producers) and consumers (three conventional market participants, two locavores) to pose questions about production/consumption of local foods. We transcribed discussions verbatim and examined text to identify themes, using separate affinity diagrams for producers and consumers. We found producers and consumers are influenced by the status quo and real and perceived barriers to local foods. We also learned participants believed increasing production and consumption of local foods would benefit their community and creating better infrastructure could enhance efforts to scale up local food systems. Focus group participants also indicated support from external champions/programs could support expansion of local foods. We learned that diversifying local food production was viewed as a way to support local community, increase access to healthy foods and reduce environmental impacts of conventional production. Our research indicates that encouraging producers and consumers in local food systems will be more successful when support for the local community is emphasized.

Future trends in sustainable food consumption include the emergence of short food supply chains and growing interest in local food products. Among the drivers are the more urgent sustainability expectations, the emphasis on environmental and social responsibility, and the changing consumer needs, of which the desire for healthy and quality products, curiosity, uniqueness, and experience are the most prominent drivers. Today’s customers are becoming more aware and open to culinary discoveries and exotic delights. In this study, we investigated the importance of product attributes related to local products, and the motivational factors that determine purchase intentions. The significance of our work lies in the fact that we have studied young consumers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. A quantitative consumer survey was conducted using a hybrid data collection method on a sample of 1756 respondents aged between 18 and 45 years. The questionnaire focused on product features, intrinsic and extrinsic motivational elements, and demographic characteristics. The results of our study provide strong evidence that the features associated with local products include but are not limited to the following: freshness, high quality, nutritional value, reliability, safety, evoking domestic flavours, naturalness, being healthy, environmentally friendly, etc. The motivational elements were grouped into four factors: hedonism, curiosity, nutritional value, and tradition. The main reasons for young respondents purchasing local food were taste and curiosity. Based on the results of the cluster analysis, we formed three groups having different features and different motivations for purchasing local products. Moreover, we had the opportunity to understand the attitudes and perceptions of young people towards buying local products. A key result of our study is that the “value-creators” segment considers local products to be healthy and nutritious.

Spatial localization, often demarcated by food miles, has emerged as the dominant theme in movements for more socially just and environmentally benign alternative food systems, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States. We analyze how an emphasis on spatial localization, combined with the difficulty of defining and measuring adequate indicators for alternative food systems, can challenge efforts by food system researchers, environmental writers, the engaged public, and advocacy groups wanting to contribute to alternative food systems, and facilitates exploitation by the mainstream players using “localwash” to maintain the status quo. New indicators are urgently needed because research shows that spatial localization in general and minimized food miles in particular are not adequate or even required for most of the goals of alternative food systems. Creating indicators to operationalize goals for alternative, local food systems requires asking the right questions to make sure indicators are not misleading us: What are the goals of alternative food systems? What actions and policies will most effectively achieve those goals? What is the potential of reducing food miles as an action and a policy for achieving goals? What are the best indicators for measuring progress toward goals? We discuss how these questions can be answered for a wide range of alternative food system goals via four categories according to the role of food miles reduction as an action and policy in promoting them: necessary and sufficient, necessary but not sufficient, potentially important, and potentially supportive.

This study provides insights and best-practice recommendations for marketing managers in the US food retail sector and the horticultural industry. An online survey distributed via a crowdsourcing platform in 2021 aimed to explore the factors that explained the intentions of US consumers to purchase locally grown apples. The Theory of Planned Behavior was used as a conceptual framework to shape the proposed model. The results emphasize the importance of behavioral, normative and control beliefs as important factors towards attitudes. Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control were also found to be key drivers in understanding behavioral intention. All concepts, with the exception of perceived behavioral control, were found to be significant behavioral predictors.

Purpose – Although locally sourced and produced foods are a growing trend in food marketing, they are not yet clearly understood nor consistently defined. There is no lack of definitions currently offered, however, based on expanding, evolving, and sometimes conflicting, dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate various emerging definitional elements of local foods to determine which elements may be as important to food shoppers today as the prevailing food miles definition. Design/methodology/approach – A shopper survey is fielded and repeated measures ANOVA conducted to measure the relative importance of various definitional elements, assess where shoppers expect to acquire local foods, the price premium they are willing to pay, and differences that may exist across customer groups. Findings – The study finds that consumers do consider other definitional elements as important as distance in their definition of local foods and they expect to find them in secondary outlets beyond farmers markets and the produce department. Consumers are willing to pay a price premium and there are differences across light, medium, and heavy users. Practical implications – This study provides researchers with an expanded and clearer definition of local foods for future research and practitioners with guidance on what shoppers expect and value today and how to better source, merchandise, and promote local foods. Originality/value – By combining definitional elements from across industry, government, and academia and analyzing them together, this study offers a more comprehensive definition of local foods and consumer expectations.

Concerns within the conservation community about declining hunting participation and associated conservation consequences have catalyzed hunter recruitment and retention strategies targeting nontraditional hunting populations. One emerging group of interest includes individuals motived to eat food that is grown, raised, produced, or harvested locally. Sometimes referred to as “locavores,” this group has motivated many wildlife agencies and organizations to develop hunting programs focusing on their assumed desire for local wild game. However, little empirical information speaks to locavore interest in harvesting and consuming wild game. We surveyed 1 subgroup: 471 subscribers to a local food-oriented magazine in the Finger Lakes Region of central New York, USA. Most respondents (82%) had eaten wild game at least once, though <20% of respondents did so on a regular basis. Few respondents (8%) personally harvested wild game (most [77%] received it from friends and family), and <10% were active hunters. However, 23% said they would consider hunting, and many (59%) expressed interest in learning about preparing wild game and conservation benefits associated with wild game consumption. Our findings, although limited to one particular population, suggest that, at minimum, the local foods movement could generate indirect conservation impacts through expanding social networks supporting wildlife-based recreation. Future research should explore these possibilities and identify strategies that might foster links between different types of food-motivated stakeholders and hunting.

The main goal of this paper is to measure and compare the awareness and preferences of consumers in relation to local products in three countries: Albania, Bulgaria, and Poland. (1) Background: The analysis focused on consumer choices when presented with local products, specifically knowledge as to their environmentally friendly status. The study was evoked by the need to recognize and evaluate changes in consumer behavior as a result of the pandemic and the global challenges related to climate change and the widespread call for nature preservation. (2) Methods: An online survey was conducted with 300 respondents from Poland, 262 from Albania, and 250 from Bulgaria. Statistical analysis was applied. (3) Results: The study answered research questions about consumer readiness to pay a premium price and awareness about the impact of regional products on the environment and livelihood of rural communities. (4) Conclusions: The study proved that consumer perceptions and behavior are influenced by a variety of factors and driving forces in the three countries surveyed depending on socioeconomic characteristics and relevant policies. COVID-19 accelerated the demand for products derived from nature-friendly production systems. Products with geographical indication (GI products) are a better choice from the perspective of sustainable consumption.

Local food critics have recently argued that locavores, unaware of economic laws and principles, are ironically promoting a future characterized by less food security and more environmental destruction. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which mainstream economics discourse is employed in arguments to undermine the proclaimed benefits of local food. We focus on several core concepts in economics—comparative advantage, scale, trade and efficiency—and show how they have been used to challenge claims about local food’s benefits in the areas of economy, environment, food security, and food quality. After reviewing the arguments, we then evaluate some shortcomings that emerge from this reliance on economic logic and, importantly, we assess what local food proponents may take away from these critiques. We conclude by identifying several pathways for future research.