This study aims to identify the methods and associated indicators that are commonly used in value chain analyses (VCA) and to determine the areas of interest that have been excluded. Value chain analysis generally includes four different dimensions, which are institutional/functional, economic/financial, social, and environmental. This study has two main sources of literature. The first is the guidelines and the other is case studies on value chain analysis. The case study review is limited by the time between 2000 and 2022. The results showed that the researchers mainly focused on the institutional/functional analysis of the value chain, which is the first step of the analysis. Studies were mostly concentrated on the mapping of value chains, which includes the mapping of agents, core activities, and the marketing channels and flows of products. The second important area of interest is economic/financial analysis. Value added analysis is a top research area on the economical side of the value chain (VC). Consumer behavior and financial analysis are also included in the case studies. The research on consumer behavior of the value chain analysis has focused on the preferences, attitudes, and behaviors of the consumers. Financial analysis is another area of interest which generally concentrates on the cost of intermediate inputs, total output value, net present value, internal rate of return, cash flows and cost of fixed assets, and break-even point. The social and environmental sides of the value chain have been studied with less attention. This is much more important for a sustainable food VC.

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Community supported agriculture (CSA), an innovative food distribution model that encourages environ-mentally sound agricultural production, has been embraced in Turkey since the early 2000s. Although the model has been widely studied within the framework of ethical consumption, environmentalism and social justice, its perspectives as a domain of economic exchange in Turkey has yet to be explored. The present study attempts to investigate the viability of CSAs in Turkey as domains of economic exchange by looking at the interaction between their performance and their main resource, namely their social capital. Following an exploratory approach, we, first, examined the characteristics of the operational, organizational and sup-port models to determine the performance factors indispensable for CSAs in Turkey to survive as domains of economic exchange. We then expanded this understanding by looking into the relationship between these performance factors and social capital indicators of three CSAs in Turkey. The findings reveal that each CSA adopts different support, operational and organizational models that result in different levels of risk shar-ing. In all three CSAs, the character of the social capital that interacts with the performance indicators is bonding rather than bridging. Therefore, investing in bridging social capital can be a potentially beneficial strategy for CSAs in order to become more sustainable as domains of economic exchange.