Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships in alternative food networks (AFNs) between the purchase of food, the motivations of consumers and their socio-demographic profiles. Design/methodology/approach The study includes a total sample of 1,200 individual questionnaires, administered to the customers of 34 AFNs in different urban areas. The methodology employed is multilevel regression analysis, which is useful for dealing with data with a nested structure. Findings The results allowed us to depict some findings: the most important motivations in purchasing decisions are the perceived quality as well as comfort with the location of the markets, shopping experience, variety of offered products and delivery methods. Other interesting results relate to the presence of children in the families and the role of women in the choice of quality food. Practical implications The observations could represent a basis for thinking about how to improve consumers’ behaviour and, at the same time, try to remove the obstacles to a greater recognition of the importance of AFNs by consumers. Originality/value The paper contributes to the debate on food policies. Indeed, the integration of the results into food policies could help to intercept the consumers’ trends and promote a transition of the food system towards a path of sustainability, in which the AFNs are the organisational expression of a change that concerns a wide geography and a large number of social and economic actors.

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the sustainability of Alternative Food Networks in Italy through the construction of a composite indicator, the Global Sustainability Index. The index is able to provide decision-makers with indications on synergies and tradeoffs between the different dimensions of sustainability. The methodological approach is of the quantitative type, and the information used in the study comes from a direct survey that involved 226 producers. The results show that the environmental indicators that take the greatest value are those concerning problems of great impact on the actual debate such as the loss of genetic diversity and the use of packaging for agro-food products. Regarding economic sustainability, the indicator with the highest value is related to the ability of the Alternative Food Networks to diversify sales channels. This evidence confirms the producers' increasing difficulty to adopt mono-directional strategies, favoring a differentiation of markets and, consequently, a reduction of economic risks. In terms of social sustainability, two interesting evidences emerge: the considerable importance attributed to the information of the features of the products and the increase in work involvement following participation in the Alternative Food Networks.

In light of the challenges that all cities face today, food is offered as a prism through which to read and intervene on various areas that affect the quality of life of the population: circular economy, urban metabolism, social relations, economies, and food quality. In the Roman context, in recent years, numerous initiatives have revitalized the debate on food and brought the discussion to the center of the interest of an ever-increasing number of citizens. However, these experiences appear unrelated and there is a lack of coordination and political coherence. Faced with this evidence, starting from a territorial analysis, this contribution analyzes the process that led a local group of stakeholders to formulate a proposal for a food policy for the city of Rome. The proposal contains a series of possible actions that aim, on the one hand, to recompose the relations between the city and its territory, with a view to re-localization and re-territorialization of agro-food productions and, on the other hand, to reconnect the economic and social relations that the industrialization of food chains has compromised. The network analysis of the bottom-up process, which mainly investigates networking and negotiation skills between various interests, is carried out and related to a careful analysis of the food system in the Roman context. Furthermore, an overview of the state of the art of urban food policies in Italy has been provided to better contextualize the study case. The findings show actors and topics involved in the process, identifying further development towards a more comprehensive participatory process for a systemic food strategy at the metropolitan level.

The demographic processes of the last decades have led to variations in urban and peri-urban territorial configurations, questioning the patterns of traditional productive localisation. They have begun to outline new perspectives related to proximity to trading and commerce sites as well as to the services offered by the city. Business strategies, such as multifunctionality and diversification, have begun to consider these new possibilities that, at a larger scale, have triggered the process of territorialisation. The study analyses the influence of proximity to the city on the strategies of farms diversifying income through short food chains, with the aim of identifying the prevailing behaviours adopted in three different concentric areas at the urban centre of gravity: peri-urban, belt and rural. The study involves a dataset constituted by 217 farms, where each farm has been associated with a set of explanatory variables that outline some structural, social and economic characteristics. The sample has been segmented through a hierarchical cluster analysis, which allowed us to identify 5 groups of farms, after having reduced the number of variables through PCA (Principal Component Analysis). The results show that short food chains and, more generally, AFNs, are based on strategies alternative to those of traditional chains, and which involve a different economic dimension of the same chains and the construction of a different place-based agro-food system, also envisaging a re-localisation of space near the final market.

The restriction measures linked to the COVID-19 shock suddenly highlighted the vulnerability of most socioeconomic systems, including the food sector. In a context in which the limitation to the movement of people and goods has put the longer and more structured supply chains in serious difficulty, many experiences and initiatives have emerged as viable alternatives. The aim of the research was to understand if and how the Solidarity Purchasing Groups (SPG) of Rome have contributed to the resilience of the food system of the metropolitan city during the lockdown. The research was based on the results of a questionnaire administered to the SPGs of Rome during the first period of the pandemic (April–July 2020), enriched by some in-depth interviews carried out by the authors. What emerged was that, despite the limited extent in terms of products conveyed within the whole food system, the SPGs represented an important food supply channel during the lockdown period, for two main reasons: a greater flexibility and agility in moving and in handling goods and the possibility of remunerating local farms, contributing to the resilience of the local agri-food fabric. The analysis of the results confirms the strong vitality of such Food Movements in Rome and, at the same time, allows for the identification of a series of interventions that the institutions could adopt to favor the spread of a food environment more compatible with more sustainable and fairer forms of food production and distribution.