In a world faced with growing instability and inequality, food supply is a constant challenge for governments and societies. Beyond concrete organizational aspects, two fundamental issues are at stake: the strategic control of flows and the geographical and social relations operating within supply systems. This article focuses on the complementary approaches commonly adopted to address this question, rarely studied in recent years. By closely associating the field of resources and power, it shows that food supply is not simply a technical question of price, volumes and flows, but depends ultimately on the relations between different types of actors – governments, businesses, communities, trade networks, etc. – thus becoming a truly political issue. We observe that under certain authoritarian regimes (Gulf States, Latin America), the organizing state remains ever-present, while outside times of crisis (sub-Saharan Africa), there is greater scope for developing more informal dynamics.