Does scale matter? Investigating the growth of a local organic box scheme in Austria

Abstract

Marketing organic products locally with close consumer-producer relationships has been suggested to foster sustainable development of the food chain in numerous ways. However, the volume of products is small as well as the number of farmers and consumers involved. Also, there is a lack of knowledge on how farms are affected when local organic food networks grow in scale and output. This paper presents preliminary findings of research exploring growing local organic food chains and how the farms in these chains are affected in terms of social-ecological resilience. Resilience is the capacity to deal successfully with change and is a systemic approach to the assessment of farming systems. Two cases are studied indepth. The first case is an organic vegetable subscription system ("box-scheme") outside Vienna, Austria, and the second case is a farmer cooperative that created a label of organic, local beef in Uppland, Sweden. First results indicate that growth leads to changes and restructuring of the networks, influencing resilience and the relationship with consumers. In both cases there was an ambition to have direct contact and communication with end consumers, and growth of the networks influenced this ambition in different ways. In the Austrian case producers that could provide larger quantities became more important in the network and could therefore stay well in contact with end consumers. On the other hand, diversified and/or small-scale producers had to make an effort to find new connections with consumers. In the Swedish case, growth led to challenges in the wholesale part of the food chain. The butcheries used by the network could not deliver directly to the supermarkets, and the middleman who could, was not able to declare from what farm each piece of meat came. Thus, the label could not communicate with end consumers as well as the network would have liked.

The Diversity of Organic Box Schemes in Europe—An Exploratory Study in Four Countries

“…This feature has also been pointed out by other authors as a defining feature of box schemes in general, and AMAPs/CSAs in particular [42]. However, some schemes might offer the possibility of choosing produce and add-on products to boxes for the consumers' convenience [19,29]. As in our sample, box schemes can be farm-based or non-farm-based, and consequently sell products only from one farm or also sell imported products and have a number of suppliers.…”

“…Less food is lost in short chains where there can be a higher acceptance of less-than-perfect crops [33] (p. 1926). However, the benefits of reduced distance and fewer intermediaries create higher distribution costs and less efficient logistics [19,39].…”

“…These values include the relationship and trust established with the farmers [35]. Scaling out can be practical arrangements where box scheme farms with different soil and climatic conditions cooperate to offer a broader range of produce [19]. According to Haldy [14], who investigated different sizes of organic food subscription schemes, big box schemes grow by exploiting market opportunities within a region or country by having a retailing approach, and by being more volatile than smaller schemes [14] (pp.…”

“…Haldy [14] further remarks that the most successful organic subscription schemes have "either never been farms, or production is not their core business anymore" [14] (p. 18). Rather, they can be described as food hubs, acting as a type of middlemen or intermediaries with greater distributional capacities than individual farms, but still keeping the links in the overall supply chain low [19,35]. Thus, when a higher level of organisation, logistics, and structures is needed, food hubs can be helpful in scaling up local organic food ventures [8,11].…”

Box-scheme as alternative food network—the economic integration between consumers and producers

“…In Mastronardi et al (2015:1), it is described as "sales method whereby the farmer sends produce directly to the homes of participating consumers." But we also find it as composed by products from different farmers (Milestad, Kummer, and Hirner 2017) as the practice gains scale and reaches over 60,000 people with large companies operationalizing box-schemes in the UK. Hashen et al (2018:1600) define box-scheme as a system that "usually works by subscription, using the Internet as shopping platform.…”