Community food projects, social innovation, and the past

Abstract

Community food projects (CFPs) have diverse purposes relating to correcting market failures, community cohesion and not-for-profit operation. These are well served by social innovations relative to technical and/or economic ones. Whilst innovation is invariably associated with 'new' ideas, innovation theory accommodates learning from the past, acknowledging its relative neglect. This paper explores the extent to which the purposes and innovative actions of CFPs are informed by past practice. The significance of a 'return' in food is assessed, where policies for regenerative agriculture, relocalisation and food resilience all draw on 'the way we used to do things'. The flexibility of social innovation, too, has meant recourse to past practice in emergency responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical evidence from three research projects which benchmark historical food practice against contemporary actions of CFPs, identifies both explicit reference to historical practice to inform current behaviour, as well as the mimicking of past practice. Close examination of historical food innovations to inform current practice allows choices to be made in adopting or adapting such innovations or identifying what to avoid.