This presentation highlights a need to extend our thinking about food chains and their performance. It explores the way in which local and global food is perceived and defined in the public, market, scientific and policy spheres, by focusing on the relationships between various attributes associated with these food supply chains. The research project GLAMUR is used to contextualize these issues.

1. Re-imagining food chain performance
Damian Maye and James Kirwan
Countryside Values for the 21st Century
The Royal Society, London
22.01.2015
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2. The starting point
• Significant interest in sustainable
consumption practices
• Sustainability credentials, Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) and ‘techno-politics’ (Freidberg, 2014)
• The performance of food chains has multiple
dimensions
• Need to ‘enlarge our thinking about food systems
change’ (Hinrichs, 2014: 143)
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3. A conceptual framework
3
Choice
Decision-making tools Behaviour
Food chain impacts
Indicators Methods
Socio-economic contexts
Discourses Attributes

4. The communication of food
chains and their performance
Rationale:
• To align the multiple meanings that are
attributed to food chains, having regard for the
contexts involved, in order to create a common
understanding of food chain performance.
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5. Putting this approach into practice
• Conduct a systematic analysis of how both ‘local and
global food’ and the ‘performance of food chains’ are
perceived, defined and communicated in the public,
scientific, market and policy spheres across a range
of dimensions (economic, social, environmental,
health and ethical).
• Develop a matrix that catalogues ‘local and global
food’ performance [with the matrix being composed
of attributes].
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6. Some definitions
• Dimensions:
–Economic, Social, Environmental, Health,
Ethical
• Spheres:
–Market, Public, Scientific, Policy
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7. Countries involved
Netherlands
Italy
France
Belgium
Switzerland
Spain/Catalunya
UK
Latvia
Denmark
Serbia
Senegal and Peru
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8. Comparative Methodology
• Identify the principal discourses and controversies
concerning global & local food chains in the 12
countries.
• Draw out the diversity of meanings and perceptions
associated with the performance of both global &
local food chains.
• Develop a Multi-Criteria Performance Matrix that
incorporates the performance of both global & local
food chains.
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9. Composite Matrix
Dimension
/ Sphere
Economic Social Environmental Health Ethical
Public
•Affordability
•Creation & distribution of
added value
•Contribution to economic
development
•Information &
communication
•Food security
•Resource Use
•Pollution
•Nutrition
•Food safety
•Traceability
•Animal Welfare
•Responsibility
•Labour relations
•Fair Trade
Scientific
•Contribution to economic
development
•Technological innovation
•Governance
•Consumer
behaviour
•Territoriality
•Resource Use
•Biodiversity
•Efficiency
•Technological
innovation
•Food waste
•Nutrition
•Food safety
•Fair Trade
•Animal welfare
Market
•Efficiency
•Profitability /
competitiveness
•Connection
•Technological innovation
•Resilience
•Information &
communication
•Territoriality
•Connection
•Efficiency
•Traceability
•Food safety
•Fair Trade
•Territoriality
Policy
•Creation & distribution of
added value
•Contribution to economic
development
•Efficiency
•Resilience
•Food waste
•Consumer
behaviour
•Labour relations
•Food Waste
•Pollution
•Traceability
•Nutrition
•Food Safety
•Food Security
•Governance
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10. Creation and distribution
of added value
• Description: how value is created, but also how it is
distributed within the food supply chains
• Relationship with other attributes
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11. Attributes Indicators Benchmark Local score
Global
score
Local
score %
Global
score %
Creation and
distribution of
added value
Cheese-makers
profit potential,
signified by the
wholesale price of
cheese less the cost
of milk
10 6.65 2.45 66.5 24.5
Share of final price
(milk, cheese, retail)
50
Milk: 15%
Cheese: 41%
Retail: 44%
37%
31%
32%
30
82
88
74
62
64
Contribution to the
economy of the
region (in FTE/tonne
cheese)
0.4 0.365 0.005 91.25 1.25

12. Attribute performance scores

13. Some recommendations for re-imagining
food chain performance
• Inclusion of a wide range of perspectives
• The importance of understanding the context
• Sensitivity to cultural and linguistic differences
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• Moving beyond the dominance of
economic perspectives
• Moving beyond global – local
distinctions
• Take a multi-dimensional perspective

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Thank you for your attention
dmaye@glos.ac.uk
jkirwan@glos.ac.uk
www.ccri.ac.uk
http://glamur.eu/