Attitudes toward local foods in the UK

I thought this might be a good space to share articles that I've been reading related to my food/environment interests. I will give brief summaries here and the full citation. Here goes the first one!

Chambers S, Lobb A, Butler L, Harvey K, Traill WB, (2007). Local, national and imported foods; a qualitative study. Appetite 49, 208 -213.

This study utilized four focus groups, structured into socio-economic groupings, to identify relevant themes related to local foods in the UK, and whether attitudes varied based on SES. The themes that emerged were: cost, lifestyle, food quality, consumer ethnocentrism, choice and farmers. The context for this study is the policy interventions of the British government and position of the EU, to encourage “sustainable consumption”, with a focus of promoting direct sales of local food products. The authors observe that previous research suggests that consumers generally feel positively about locally produces foods, but at the same time there is little information in the literature regarding perceived and actual barriers to buying local foods. The authors sought to conduct focus groups to explore these issues, how they relate to consumer preference, and also obstacles in accessing these preferences.

The authors point out the lack of an official definition of “local foods”, and thus operationalize it for the purposes of their study as “products produced and sold within a 30-50 mile radius of a consumer’s home. Interviewers asked group participants to think of geographical definitions at the beginning of each session, and the consensus was close to the authors’ original definition at 20-50 miles. Also of interest was the observation that for this sample (N=33) that the overall consumption of local foods was low. Specific observations related to the themes identified include:

· Cost - local foods were viewed as more expensive than national brands and imported foods

· Lifestyle -lack of time and convenience were seen as obstacles to access local foods with a preference towards super market shopping

· Food quality – local foods were judged to be of higher quality in terms of freshness, and improved taste

· Choice – participants wanted the option to eat foods out of season (i.e. strawberries in winter) and greater variety than what is grown locally

· Ethnocentrism – belief that shopping locally would help the local economy, support farmers in the region, and also resist against purchasing from sources that were politically distasteful (in this case it was not buying French products out of dislike for the French government)

· Farmers – there were some who wanted to buy local to support farmers in the area