IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i2p772-d722118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Buying Local Food a Sustainable Practice? A Scoping Review of Consumers’ Preference for Local Food

Author

Listed:
  • Lucio Cappelli

    (Department of Economic and Law, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, 03043 Cassino, Italy)

  • Fabrizio D’Ascenzo

    (Department of Management, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Roberto Ruggieri

    (Department of Management, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Irina Gorelova

    (Department of Management, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Access to healthy food and the introduction of sustainable nutrition practices are two important issues today. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new challenges to food security but it has also provided opportunities for local food production. The discussion on local food has been gaining attention in recent years, but there is still a lack of clear understanding of the term ‘local food’ in the literature. The relationship between local food and sustainability issues is still unclear and has various connotations. This discordance leads to further discussions on whether buying local food should be considered a sustainable behavior and whether consumer preference for local food can be perceived as a sustainable practice. A scoping literature review was conducted in order to fill this gap and to shed light on the main tendencies of the scientific literature regarding this topic. The outcomes of the research revealed three dimensions of ‘local food’ definitions in the literature: geographical, geopolitical, and organic; while the problem of a unified local food definition remains open. The studied literature did not show any sound evidence for sustainability attributes in the definition of local food and consumer perception of local food.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucio Cappelli & Fabrizio D’Ascenzo & Roberto Ruggieri & Irina Gorelova, 2022. "Is Buying Local Food a Sustainable Practice? A Scoping Review of Consumers’ Preference for Local Food," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:772-:d:722118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/772/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/772/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jitka Kalábová & Stanislav Mokrý & Jana Turčínková, 2013. "Regional differences of consumer preferences when shopping for regional products," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 61(7), pages 2255-2259.
    2. Azucena Gracia & Jesús Barreiro-Hurlé & Belinda López- Galán, 2014. "Are Local and Organic Claims Complements or Substitutes? A Consumer Preferences Study for Eggs," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 49-67, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark Schoor & Ana Patricia Arenas-Salazar & Irineo Torres-Pacheco & Ramón Gerardo Guevara-González & Enrique Rico-García, 2023. "A Review of Sustainable Pillars and their Fulfillment in Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Aquaponic Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-20, May.
    2. Magdalena Raftowicz, 2022. "Prospects for the Development of the Demand for Carp in Poland among Young Consumers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-17, March.
    3. Groth, Carolin & Wegmann, Christoph & Meyerding, Stephan G.H., 2023. "Perception of product sustainability: The case of processed tomatoes – A qualitative study in Germany," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Ruifeng & ,, 2021. "What We Can Learn from the Interactions of Food Traceable Attributes? a Case Study of Fuji Apple in China," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315916, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Printezis, Iryna & Grebitus, Carola, 2018. "Marketing Channels for Local Food," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 161-171.
    3. Sylwia Żakowska-Biemans & Agnieszka Tekień, 2017. "Free Range, Organic? Polish Consumers Preferences Regarding Information on Farming System and Nutritional Enhancement of Eggs: A Discrete Choice Based Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-16, November.
    4. Kassas, Bachir & Cao, Xiang & Gao, Zhifeng & House, Lisa A. & Guan, Zhengfei, 2023. "Consumer preferences for country of origin labeling: Bridging the gap between research estimates and real-world behavior," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    5. Eva Tebbe & Korbinian von Blanckenburg, 2018. "Does willingness to pay increase with the number and strictness of sustainability labels?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(1), pages 41-53, January.
    6. Zhu, Zhanguo & Zhang, Tong & Hu, Wuyang, 2023. "The accumulation and substitution effects of multi-nation certified organic and protected eco-origin food labels in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    7. Ana I. Sanjuán‐López & Helena Resano‐Ezcaray, 2020. "Labels for a Local Food Speciality Product: The Case of Saffron," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 778-797, September.
    8. Claudio Acciani & Annalisa De Boni & Francesco Bozzo & Rocco Roma, 2020. "Pulses for Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems: The Effect of Origin on Market Price," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Qianfeng Luo & Pengfei Liu & Zhi Li, 2023. "The influence of African swine fever information on consumers’ preference of pork attributes and pork purchase," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 71(1), pages 49-68, March.
    10. Azucena Gracia & Miguel I. Gómez, 2020. "Food Sustainability and Waste Reduction in Spain: Consumer Preferences for Local, Suboptimal, And/Or Unwashed Fresh Food Products," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-15, May.
    11. Shi, Wei & Halstead, John & Huang, Ju-Chin, 2016. "Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Locally Grown Produce: Comparison of New Hampshire and Massachusetts Results," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236109, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Lefèvre, Mélanie, 2014. "Do Consumers Pay More for What They Value More? The Case of Local Milk-based Dairy Products in Senegal," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-20, April.
    13. Hempel, Corinna & Roosen, Jutta, 2020. "Die Bedeutung des bayerischen Bio-Siegels für Konsumenten in Bayern," 60th Annual Conference, Halle/ Saale, Germany, September 23-25, 2020 305597, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    14. Hempel, Corinna & Roosen, Jutta, 2020. "Die Bedeutung des bayerischen Bio-Siegels für Konsumenten in Bayern," 60th Annual Conference, Halle/ Saale, Germany, September 23-25, 2020 305597, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    15. Faical Akaichi & Klaus Glenk & Cesar Revoredo‐Giha, 2022. "Bundling food labels: What role could the labels “Organic,” “Local” and “Low Fat” play in fostering the demand for animal‐friendly meat," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 349-370, April.
    16. Ali Eldesouky & Francisco J. Mesias & Miguel Escribano, 2020. "Consumer Assessment of Sustainability Traits in Meat Production. A Choice Experiment Study in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-16, May.
    17. Ellen J. Van Loo & Fien Minnens & Wim Verbeke, 2021. "Consumer Preferences for Private Label Brand vs. National Brand Organic Juice and Eggs: A Latent Class Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-12, June.
    18. Yiwen Yang & PingSun Leung & Chu‐wei Tseng, 2022. "Price premium or price discount for locally produced food products? A 5W1H approach in meta‐analysis," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 2261-2274, September.
    19. Francesca Gerini & Frode Alfnes & Alexander Schjøll, 2016. "Organic- and Animal Welfare-labelled Eggs: Competing for the Same Consumers?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 471-490, June.
    20. Duan, Dinglin & Gao, Zhifeng & Uddin, Md Azhar & Nian, Yefan & Nguyen, Ly, 2022. "Tracing the Trends in Consumer Preferences for Eco-labeled Food: A Text Mining and Topic Modeling Approach," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322419, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:772-:d:722118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.