(Re)establishing the Normal

Jung, Yuson

doi:10.1525/gfc.2014.14.4.52

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Supermarkets can have real power over local governments, influencing land-zoning policy, or lobbying against farmers' markets in city centres, or vice versa lobbying for farmers' markets outside their doorstep as a way of improving the decorum of the urban space surrounding them -and attracting clients anyhow. Certain supermarkets may well participate in Food Policy Councils, recruit local producers with franchise operations, make space on their shelves for local and organic produce, and actively participate in urban planning action to relieve the problem of food desertification in urban centres (Yung 2014). Even though on the whole large organized food distributers act callously in the market in a race to the bottom, driving competitors out of business, not every supermarket chain has the same policy or size, or strategy.…”

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Direct food provisioning: collective food procurement

Grasseni¹

2020

The Handbook of Diverse Economies

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Direct food provisioning is a term I use here to indicate any way of procuring food that does not conform to the 'Western' norm of individuals shopping in supermarkets. According to this form of food procurement, consumers sit at the receiving end of a long, complex, often global food chain. In fact, this 'norm' is not at all 'normal', namely it is neither long-established nor sustainable. Indeed, there are so many ways of practising direct food provisioning, including traditional subsistence farming all over the world, that we can consider direct food provisioning as the norm. In short, procuring food is a multifaceted social phenomenon that has accompanied the history of the human species and the differentiation of its cultures. It should be natural then to expect comparison between different types of direct food provisioning in diverse locations and at different scales. This chapter challenges the idea that direct food provisioning should be considered per se 'alternative' or 'radical'. In particular, I will show how collective food procurement allows reflection on the consequences of globalized food systems vis-à-vis direct food provisioning. SUPERMARKETS VS. DIRECT FOOD PROVISIONING The separation of food provisioning from food production and exchange has become the norm with the establishment of supermarket chains as worldwide models for food logistics. The disconnect between consumers and producers is the topic of widespread scholarship about and against 'big food' (Sage 2012). More traditional ways of producers meeting consumers have become increasingly seen as 'alternative' fringes in a global food system. These new 'reinventions' include farmers' markets, small independent retailers, and community gardens. In effect, they are 'transgressions' in the face of the ever-increasingly consolidated worldwide food capital of seed-to-table agribusiness. According to this latter model, a few companies concentrate resources and centralize purchasing; they also maximize profit, thus guaranteeing cheaper prices to the consumer than it might cost the smallholder to produce food. This race to the bottom is unsustainable for independent food producers, who then have to specialize in niche markets. The reason is that niche customers are prepared to pay a premium for their products, such as heritage foods, geographic denominations, or community supported agriculture schemes-and this 'premium' price is necessary to independent food producers for survival. Access to markets for small producers is very difficult. Large distributors often impose precise quotas and dates of delivery, with fines for failing to deliver. Small and seasonal productions with their variations are unwelcome and unrewarded. On the other hand, where smallholders and local farming have disappeared, we find rural areas where accessing fresh and seasonal food from local farms has become impossible. Even when people want to buy local and organic food, if the economy of scale is too small and the cost of production is too high, farmers cannot sustain busin...

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Direct food provisioning: collective food procurement

Grasseni¹

2020

The Handbook of Diverse Economies

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“…We return to the concept of good food because the focus in many previous explorations of this theme was situated either in nutritional understandings of good, which conflated it with healthy, or in ethical understandings of good, such as "ethical consumption" or alternative, artisanal foods. This emphasis risks focusing attention solely on situations where the language of nutritional science or alternative food movements is used, thereby ignoring the many other ways in which food comes to be seen as good (Jung 2014). Much of the work presented here has to do with adjusting to new systems of food processing, changing demands on our time, and new versus old systems of power and class.…”

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Re-examining the Contested Good: Proceedings from a Postgraduate Workshop on Good Food

et al. 2019

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Following the 2017 postgraduate research workshop hosted by the SOAS Food Studies Centre, in collaboration with University of Warwick Food GRP, this article brings together nine research briefs written by various participants. Inspired by the workshop's provocative theme, “What Is Good Food?”, each author explores how food categories are shaped and negotiated in different contexts and across scales. In this multi-authored article, the question of “good” food is first presented as contingent upon nutritional, economic, political, ritual, or moral conditions. Each author then reveals how globally defined notions of food's goodness are often resisted on the ground by producers and consumers, beyond the notions of ethics or “alternative” food movements that have often been the emphasis of previous literature dealing with the topic of good food. Taken together, this article scrutinizes the effects of various hierarchies of power and invites readers to reassess why and how good food continues to be a contested category.

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(Re)establishing the Normal

Cited by 2 publications

References 20 publications

Direct food provisioning: collective food procurement

Direct food provisioning: collective food procurement

Re-examining the Contested Good: Proceedings from a Postgraduate Workshop on Good Food

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