The regional economic effects of local food in Finland

Local food is seen as a counterforce and alternative to globalization of the food economy. It is seen to be a sustainable way of producing food ethically, economically and socially. The food sector is viewed in national guidelines as an expansive activity in the future. The general goal in Finland is to increase the production and value-added of local food, as well as to improve the balance of its demand and supply. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the use of local food in the manufacturing of foodstuffs and in public kitchens. Two comprehensive surways were done which gave information about the current and future use of local food. According to the results, the food manufacturing companies buy on average slightly more than 20 per cent of the raw materials from primary production from the region where they are based. The joint procurement groups and entities purchase about 15 per cent of food used in the public-sector kitchens from their own region. In both cases regional differences were large. There were also some expectations for the use of local food to grow in the future. The multi-sector and interregional CGE RegFin simulation model was used to evaluate the importance of agriculture and manufacturing of foodstuffs along the value chain of food economy. According to the results the impact of agriculture on the Finnish GDP is approximately 2.8 percentage points, and that of the food industry is about 7.1 percentage points. Our conclusion is that local food is an economic potential for Finnish regions.