Abstract
Public institutions such as universities and hospitals are being increasingly encouraged by social movements to direct their substantial foodservice budgets toward supporting local farmers and producers. This paper examines a key obstacle to the buy local challenge: the transnational corporations who are contracted by many public institutions in North America to provide foodservices. The institutional food sector is dominated by three large transnational foodservice corporations: Compass Group, ARAMARK, and Sodexo. It is their centralized supply chains and management structures, along with a dependence on prepared and "ready to eat" food, that are barriers to local food procurement. Up to this point, there has been little scholarly attention to the origin and organization of these corporations. This paper's examination of the history and political economy of the institutional foodservice industry illustrates a long association between these companies and public-sector goals over the last 70 years. Comparing past public-sector goals to contemporary campaigns directed at institutional foodservice is therefore instructive. We examine three different political economies that have fostered the development of these corporations: the Second World War, the post-war era from 1945 to the 1970s, and the neoliberal era beginning in the 1970s through today. While recognizing that the barriers to local procurement are real, we also argue that the structure and competitive dynamics of these corporations offer opportunities to make positive changes.
Highlights
Academics, social movement organizations, and food system practitioners are calling for public institutions to support local farmers with their substantial foodservice budgets (e.g. Équiterre, 2010; Sustain UK, 2009, 2012; Vogt & Kaiser, 2008) and, in turn, to help “scale up” local food systems (e.g. Friedmann, 2007)
This paper argues that social movement organizations and food system practitioners can leverage the structure of the foodservice industry and create opportunities for change
Public institutions are being pressured by social movement organizations to facilitate the scaling up of local food with the aim of furthering sustainable agriculture, health, and environmental goals
Summary
Social movement organizations, and food system practitioners are calling for public institutions to support local farmers with their substantial foodservice budgets (e.g. Équiterre, 2010; Sustain UK, 2009, 2012; Vogt & Kaiser, 2008) and, in turn, to help “scale up” local food systems (e.g. Friedmann, 2007). Drawing on Schurman (2004) and Schurman and Munro’s (2009) research on “industry opportunity structures,” which identified several aspects of the biotech industry structure that made it vulnerable to social movements’ critiques in the 1990s and early 2000s, and applying these concepts to the institutional food service industry, we show how strategic pressure can be applied to support sustainable local food systems We argue that it is the foodservice industry’s structure and location in public institutions such as universities and hospitals that make it especially vulnerable to critique and boycotts, opening them to new ways of doing business. We look to the emerging literature on “industry opportunity structures” (e.g., Schurman, 2004), and its four factors: inter-firm competitiveness; the nature of the goods sold; corporate cultures; and relationships in the industry’s organizational field This provides a launching point for our analysis of why and how institutional foodservice corporations are responding to current calls for change. These two frameworks help us make sense of past changes while helping us think strategically about how to encourage further change, this time toward more local and sustainable procurement
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