IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i8p1797-1813.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collective Purchase: Moving Local and Organic Foods beyond the Niche Market

Author

Listed:
  • Ruth Little
  • Damian Maye
  • Brian Ilbery

Abstract

The authors draw attention to the creative possibilities offered by collective purchase as a mechanism to move local and organic foods beyond the niche market. The food-buying group and cooperative style of food purchasing has received only scant reference in the alternative food and ethical consumption literatures, but it offers much in terms of historical context and future lessons for growth in the sector. ‘We can do it better’ is an experimental ethic of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, but it resonates strongly with the present-day ‘alternatives’ associated with the local and organic food movement. The authors use Gibson-Graham's notion of ‘diverse economies’ to examine selected buying groups and food cooperatives in North America, Europe, and Japan. The results reveal a highly pixilated and evolving mix of motivations and ethics. The ‘ideology first, practicalities later’ approach appears to be a powerful influence, symbolising the ‘becomingness’ of ethical purchasing in these contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruth Little & Damian Maye & Brian Ilbery, 2010. "Collective Purchase: Moving Local and Organic Foods beyond the Niche Market," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(8), pages 1797-1813, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:8:p:1797-1813
    DOI: 10.1068/a4262
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a4262
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a4262?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harriet Friedmann, 2007. "Scaling up: Bringing public institutions and food service corporations into the project for a local, sustainable food system in Ontario," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 24(3), pages 389-398, September.
    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. Benjamin Wills & Anthony Arundel, 2017. "Internet-enabled access to alternative food networks: A comparison of online and offline food shoppers and their differing interpretations of quality," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 701-712, September.
    2. Waldrop, Megan & McCluskey, Jill, 2016. "Impact of Organic, Sustainable, and Biodynamic Wine Making Practices on Wine Prices," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235217, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Adanella Rossi, 2017. "Beyond Food Provisioning: The Transformative Potential of Grassroots Innovation around Food," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, January.
    4. Giaime Berti & Catherine Mulligan, 2016. "Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-31, July.
    5. Silvia Blasi & Silvia Rita Sedita, 2020. "The diffusion of a policy innovation in the energy sector: evidence from the collective switching case in Europe," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 680-704, June.

    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. Alison Blay-Palmer & Roberta Sonnino & Julien Custot, 2016. "A food politics of the possible? Growing sustainable food systems through networks of knowledge," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 33(1), pages 27-43, March.
    2. Shawn A. Trivette, 2017. "Invoices on scraps of paper: trust and reciprocity in local food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 529-542, September.
    3. Rebecca Dunning & J. Bloom & Nancy Creamer, 2015. "The local food movement, public-private partnerships, and food system resiliency," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(4), pages 661-670, December.
    4. Naomi Beingessner & Amber J. Fletcher, 2020. "“Going local”: farmers’ perspectives on local food systems in rural Canada," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(1), pages 129-145, March.
    5. Lori Stahlbrand, 2016. "The Food For Life Catering Mark: Implementing the Sustainability Transition in University Food Procurement," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, September.
    6. Robbins, M.J., 2013. "Locating food sovereignty: geographical and sectoral distance in the global food system," ISS Working Papers - General Series 557, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    7. Mikkola, Minna & Post, Anna, 2014. "Children and School Meals: The New Party to Negotiations for Sustainability," 2014 International European Forum, February 17-21, 2014, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 199369, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    8. Hingley, Martin & Mikkola, Minna & Canavari, Maurizio & Asioli, Daniele, 2012. "Local and Sustainable Food Supply: The Role of European Retail Consumer Co-operatives," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 2(4), pages 1-17, March.
    9. Minh Ngo & Michael Brklacich, 2014. "New farmers’ efforts to create a sense of place in rural communities: insights from southern Ontario, Canada," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(1), pages 53-67, March.
    10. Erin Nelson & Laura Gómez Tovar & Rita Schwentesius Rindermann & Manuel Gómez Cruz, 2010. "Participatory organic certification in Mexico: an alternative approach to maintaining the integrity of the organic label," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(2), pages 227-237, June.
    11. René Audet & Sylvain Lefèvre & Éliane Brisebois & Mahdiah El-Jed, 2017. "Structuring Tensions and Key Relations of Montreal Seasonal Food Markets in the Sustainability Transition of the Agri-Food Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-16, February.
    12. Virginie Baritaux & Carole Chazoule, 2018. "Légitimité et positionnement des marchés de gros dans les dynamiques de relocalisation de l’alimentation : les cas du marché de Lyon Corbas et du MIN de Grenoble," Post-Print hal-03122984, HAL.
    13. Kuhmonen, Tuomas, 2017. "Exposing the attractors of evolving complex adaptive systems by utilising futures images: Milestones of the food sustainability journey," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 214-225.
    14. Estevan Coca, 2021. "Food Procurement in Post-neoliberal Countries: Examples from South America," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(2), pages 275-295, August.
    15. Giaime Berti & Catherine Mulligan, 2016. "Competitiveness of Small Farms and Innovative Food Supply Chains: The Role of Food Hubs in Creating Sustainable Regional and Local Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-31, July.
    16. Yaying Zhu & Juan Chen, 2022. "Small-Scale Farmers’ Preference Heterogeneity for Green Agriculture Policy Incentives Identified by Choice Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-19, May.
    17. Alison Blay-Palmer & Guido Santini & Marielle Dubbeling & Henk Renting & Makiko Taguchi & Thierry Giordano, 2018. "Validating the City Region Food System Approach: Enacting Inclusive, Transformational City Region Food Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-23, May.
    18. Phil Mount, 2012. "Growing local food: scale and local food systems governance," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(1), pages 107-121, March.
    19. Stevens Azima & Patrick Mundler, 2022. "Does direct farm marketing fulfill its promises? analyzing job satisfaction among direct-market farmers in Canada," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(2), pages 791-807, June.
    20. Becot, Florence & Conner, David & Nelson, Abbie & Buckwalter, Erin & Erickson, Daniel, 2014. "Institutional Demand for Locally-Grown Food in Vermont: Marketing Implications for Producers and Distributors," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 45(2), pages 1-19, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:8:p:1797-1813. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.