EDUARDO’S APPLES The Co-Production of Personalized Food Relationships

Abstract

This article tells the modern love story of the organic grower Eduardo and the people who savor his apples. One remarkable paradigm shift when it comes to contemporary food culture is that the product’s social, political and cultural entanglements are no longer hidden from view. This new context has created platforms where producers and consumers come together to co-produce. Here, I broaden the concept of co-production to account for the plurality of actors who contribute to engagements with food. My focus is on the online platform where the meaning of Eduardo’s apples is co-produced through the immaterial labor of storytelling. Such food storytelling is the secret ingredient that is needed to forge affective bonds between local producers, individual consumers and global food companies.