Local Food Sales Research Articles

Gastronomic Heritage Tourism Destination Travel Pattern Map in Kuningan Regency

Kuningan district in West Java Province has a local food has uniqueness as gastronomic cultural heritage destination. Integrative information about gastronomic heritage tourism destinatio was not yet available, so tourist cannot easy to choose to visit industry who sell local food as tourist attraction. The general objective is to identify and map the locations of the potential Kuningan local food which can later be used by various stakeholders such as local governments, local culinary business actors, the travel industry, including tourists. While the specific objectives of this study are: (1) identifying potential of Kuningan local food, (2) making a map of the location of potential local food sales in Kuningan District. This study uses a descriptive-qualitative research method in the identification of typical/unique culinary tourism in Kuningan. Data collection techniques were carried out through participatory observation, interviews and literature studies. Data collection through observation and interviews was conducted in local government agencies, the travel industry and culinary tourism businesses in Kuningan District. Literature studies cover all concepts and theories related to culinary tourism, especially culinary references in Kuningan. The results obtained from this study indicate that there are quite a lot of potential local food of Kuningan with their own unique identity. Another result is a map of the location of the potential Kuningan local food sales that can be used by stakeholders in developing Kuningan culinary tourism.

Digital technologies in local agri-food systems: Opportunities for a more interoperable digital farmgate sector

Agriculture e-commerce technologies are transforming how small and medium-scale farmers distribute food, consumers access local food, and market vendors negotiate sales. However, most of the social scientific literature exploring digital agriculture concentrates on big data analytics in the context of commodity farming systems and conventional supply chains. In this paper we review the social scientific literature on agriculture e-commerce technologies and situate this literature within broader debates over digital agriculture and its uneven social and economic dynamics. We find that most social scientific literature does not include agriculture e-commerce in its definition of digital agriculture, instead defining it predominantly in terms of production (e.g., variable-rate technology) or verification (e.g., blockchain) technologies. We contextualize this review with results from a series of focus groups exploring the challenges faced by Ontario's “digital farmgate sector”—the suite of agriculture e-commerce platforms that organize local food sales for hubs, farmers' markets, and small- and medium-scale farmers—related to lack of platform interoperability. We find that local food systems actors are increasingly adopting e-commerce platforms, particularly in the context of the pandemic, and observing substantial business-related benefits to their adoption. Yet, there are common frustrations with digital tools due to market fragmentation and lack of platform interoperability. We recommend the collaborative development of an open standard for e-commerce platforms that allows for the cross-platform sale of local food and farming products.

The profitability implications of sales through local food markets for beginning farmers and ranchers

PurposeThe Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 directed the US Secretary of Agriculture to report on the profitability and viability of beginning farmers and ranchers. Many beginning operations use local food markets as they provide more control, or a premium over commodity prices, and beginning operations cannot yet take advantage of economies of scale and subsequently have higher costs of production. Little research assesses the relationship between beginning farmer profitability and sales through local food markets. In this paper, the profitability implications of sales through local food markets for beginning farmers and ranchers are explored.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilize 2013–2016 USDA agricultural resource management survey data to assess the financial performance of US beginning farmers and ranchers who generate sales through local food markets.FindingsThe results point to four important takeaways to support beginning operations. (1) Local food channels can be viable marketing opportunities for beginning operations. (2) There are differences when using short- and long-term financial performance indicators, which may indicate that there is benefit to promoting lean management strategies to support beginning operations. (3) Beginning operations with intermediated local food sales, on average, perform better than those operations with direct-to-consumer sales. (4) Diversification across local food market channel types does not appear to be an indicator of improved financial performance.Originality/valueThis article is the first to focus on the relationship beginning local food sales and beginning farmer financial performance. It incorporates short-term and long-term measures of financial performance and differentiates sales by four local food market type classifications: direct-to-consumer sales at farmers markets, other direct-to-consumer sales, direct-to-retail sales and direct-to-regional distributor or institution sales.

Local food sales and point of sale priming: evidence from a supermarket field experiment

Purpose An intention-behavior gap often occurs for socially responsible consumption, where despite positive consumer attitudes, sales remain disappointing. This paper aims to test the ability of in-store priming to increase sales of local foods vis-à-vis imported, cheaper equivalents. Design/methodology/approach Laboratory and field experiments in three countries (Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia), working with an international grocery retailer, assess the ability of textual and pictorial-based point of sale (PoS) materials to increase the purchase of local foods. Field sales data, for the purchase of local apples and cherries and their imported equivalents, are complemented by an analysis of loyalty card transactions. Findings Field data indicate that both pictorial and textual PoS materials, significantly increase the likelihood of purchasing local foods, against cheaper imported equivalents. Pictorial PoS materials appear more effective than textual equivalents. Laboratory study data indicate that PoS materials increase the salience of goal consistent mechanisms in decision-making at the expense of mechanisms to achieve non-primed goals. Research limitations/implications The field experiment lasted for only two weeks and focused on seasonal produce. Practical implications PoS materials offer a low cost intervention for modifying consumer behavior in stores. Originality/value The paper develops a theory regarding how priming works and its application in a supermarket setting. This is investigated and validated in the context of local foods. The study offers encouragement for the usefulness of other in-store primes, such as relating to diet, to improve socially desirable outcomes without economic incentives or coercion and in a cost-effective manner.

Local Food and Civic Engagement: Do Farmers Who Market Local Food Feel More Responsible for Their Communities?

AbstractDo farmers who participate in local food systems attach greater importance to civic engagement than farmers whose livelihood is not tied to the vitality of local markets? The literature on local food as a social movement continues to paint a picture of local food systems as contributing to, and benefiting from, rich networks of civil society groups. Yet to date, few studies have directly addressed the question of whether marketing local food is actually associated with higher levels of civic engagement among farmers. In this paper, I draw on local capitalism theory to identify two different mechanisms—depth of economic reliance on local markets, and breadth of social networks related to local food sales—that might spur farmers who market local food to feel more responsible for their communities. Then, using data from a large‐scale survey of specialty crop growers, I explore whether a relationship exists between farmer involvement with local food markets and attitudes toward civic engagement. Results suggest that while farmers strongly committed to local food markets attach greater importance to civic engagement, participation in multiple categories or kinds of local food supply chains is not necessarily associated with stronger civic values.

Who Leads the Price in Honolulu’s Food Market? An Evaluation of the Competitiveness of Local Foods

We investigate the market dynamics of local and imported foods in Honolulu’s retail market. Our study employs weekly Nielsen scanner data covering 3 years for four selected foods, namely lettuce, tomatoes, milk, and eggs. The results from vector-autoregressive models and impulse response functions indicate that the prices of imported foods are exogenously determined while prices of local foods are responsive to variations in the prices of their imported counterparts. Moreover, imported food sales seem to recover faster after a price shock than local food sales, perhaps because of consumers’ relatively higher dependence on cheaper imported foods. One important policy implication from the findings is that Hawaii’s food marketers need to further differentiate their products, even in the low-price categories, in order to face competition from imports.

From Anecdote to Formal Evaluation: Reflections from More Than Two Decades on the Local Food Research Trail at USDA

Introduction In the waning days of my career at the U.S. Depart­­­­ment of Agriculture (USDA), the editors of this journal encouraged me to share some reflec­tions about the evolution of local food research and data collection during the past two decades, and I am deeply appreciative for the opportunity. It has been my great fortune to have witnessed the extraordinary transformation of the local food sec­tor firsthand since the mid-1990s. What started out as a minor assignment to oversee a single—and eventually unsuccessful—cooperative research agreement on school food procurement with the Georgia Department of Agriculture in 1995 ended up piquing my interest about the opportunity for growth in local food sales within institutional and commercial food service, as well as retail channels. This subject has remained the primary focus of my professional life and a subject of vast curiosity for me ever since. For someone like me, who has been immersed in the world of local food systems for more than 20 years, it is staggering—and gratify­ing—to consider both the profound changes in research and data availability that have occurred over the course of my career, and the multiplicity of ways that relevant evidence and data can now be employed to guide business and community devel­opment through local food system expansion. My intent in this article is to briefly examine the chron­ological history of local food research at USDA as I experienced it “in the trenches,” and observe the combination of Congressional mandate, political influence, personal curiosity, and, sometimes, pure serendipity that permitted this body of work to emerge. It should be noted that my personal experi­ences and observations are strongly shaped by my career-long affiliation with USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), an agency that has been mandated by Congress since 1946 to promote effi­ciency in the U.S. food marketing system and help producers attain a greater share of consumer food expenditures.[1] Therefore, while I acknowledge the many health, equity, and environmental benefits that may be achieved through local food system development and expansion, I am deliberately con­fining the bulk of my remarks to the economic contributions of local food systems from a pro­ducer standpoint, and USDA’s important role in bringing such data and information to light. . . . [1] Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, Sec. 203. 7 U.S.C. 1622. The original text reads: “to foster and assist in the development and establishment of more efficient marketing methods…for the purpose of bringing about more efficient and orderly marketing, and reducing the price spread between the producer and the consumer.” See https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Agricultural_Marketing_Act_Of_1946%5B1%5D.pdf See the press release for this article.&nbsp

Policies Supporting Local Food in the United States

Local food has been the subject of federal, state, and local government policies in recent years throughout the United States as consumer demand has grown. Local foods have been linked to several government priorities—including enhancing the rural economy, the environment, and supporting agricultural producers. This article provides an overview of U.S. Federal, State and regional policies designed to support local food systems. It details the latest economic information on policy, relying on findings from several national surveys and a synthesis of recent literature. Federal policies related to local food systems were greatly expanded by the 2008 Farm Bill, and are further expanded in the Agricultural Act of 2014. United States policies address several barriers to the further expansion of local food markets, including scaling up output of small farms to address the needs of larger commercial outlets, lack of infrastructure for increasing local food sales, ability to trace product source, and producer education regarding local food expansion.

How Do We Ensure Good Food For All?

First paragraph: How do we provide good food for all 323 million Americans? Differing answers to this question continue to distract, if not misdirect, the sustainable food movement. Some argue that organic, local, and other so-called good foods must accommodate the current industrial system of food processing and retailing. They point to the fact that organic food sales of nearly US$40 billion per year (Organic Trade Association, 2016) are still less than 5% of total retail food sales. In addition, mainstream supermarkets and large specialty markets, such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, account for more than 90% of organic sales (Porterfield, 2015). Large corporate food processors also own and control production for most of the major organic food brands (The Cornucopia Project, n.d.). So, about 99% of foods still move through the industrial food system, even after accounting for local food sales of an estimated $12 billion per year (Vilsack, 2015). To accommodate the 99%, some good food advocates urge farmers to find ways to accommodate the industrial food system....

Differential expenditure patterns of local food system participants

AbstractSince 2009 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has funded over 2600 local food initiatives. However, the economic impacts of these policies remain unclear largely due to data deficiencies that preclude the understanding of differential expenditure patterns of farms participating in these local market channels (both in terms of what inputs they require, and where the inputs are purchased—local or not). This paper utilizes two unique data sets from samples of producers in New York State (NYS) to build expenditure profiles for local food system participants. We employ USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey data as a robustness check on our results. The primary contribution of this paper is to provide preliminary evidence that local food system participants in NYS have different expenditure patterns than farmers who do not sell through local food markets. We show that farmers with local food sales have higher reliance on local labor and other variable expenses as primary inputs than farms without local food sales, and that local food producers spend a higher percentage of total expenditure in the local economy. Based on our results, we recommend that future economic impact assessments utilize revised expenditure profiles that more accurately reflect inter-industry linkages of the local food sector.

Using the Diffusion of Innovations to Develop Healthy Cooking Demonstrations at a Farmers’ Market

A community collaborative between the city, local nonprofit organizations, academicians, and local food producers developed a farmers’ market in a low-income and ethnically diverse area to encourage fresh food access to all residents as well as promote local food sales. Furthermore, culturally tailored cooking demonstrations using the diffusion of innovations theory were implemented at the market. Fruit and vegetable consumption significantly increased among market attendees. Furthermore, the inclusion of cooking demonstrations at the market was positively correlated to fruit and vegetable consumption and had vendors indicated that they had positive effects on sales.

Communities, Supermarkets, and Local Food: Mapping Connections and Obstacles in Food System Work in North Carolina

What is the role of retail chains in the institutionalization of local food systems? The most basic issue in the development of community based food systems is also the thorniest: how to sell local food through regular supermarkets without giving up the ideals of keeping the food system local. Beginning in 2009, a team of researchers in North Carolina has examined the potential for partnerships between local producers and grocery stores. The goals were (1) to document the way food producers and retailers defined local food, (2) to record how consumers related local food to notions of community, and (3) to identify how a community's cultural assets might reinforce economic cooperation among food enterprises. The research identified key differences between retailer and consumer conceptions of local food. Yet, through a sketch mapping task, the work also uncovered the ways that consumers saw stores as community connectors. Subsequent work has documented how actors within a conventional grocery chain work to align often divergent interests at stores, corporate headquarters, and distribution facilities in order to support local food. The paper concludes with an assessment of how a relational approach can address obstacles to local food sales in conventional supply chains.

Direct and Intermediated Marketing of Local Foods in the United States

This study uses nationally representative data on the marketing of local foods to assess the relative scale of local food marketing channels. This research documents that sales through intermediated marketing channels, such as farmers’ sales to local grocers and restaurants, account for a large portion of all local food sales. Small and medium-sized farms dominate local foods sales marketed exclusively through direct-to-consumer channels (foods sold at roadside stands or farmers’ markets, for example) while large farms dominate local food sales marketed exclusively through intermediated channels. Farmers marketing food locally are most prominent in the Northeast and the West Coast regions and areas close to densely populated urban markets. Climate and topography favoring the production of fruits and vegetables, proximity to and neighboring farm participation in farmers’ markets, and good transportation and information access are found to be associated with higher levels of direct-to-consumer sales.

Factors Affecting Small Colorado Producers’ Local Food Sales

Increased globalization of food trade has dramatically increased “food miles,” the distance food travels. The impacts of food miles on the environment, biodiversity, food security, and farmers' livelihoods are garnering increasing attention, but market forces affecting a lessening of food miles are little studied. This project examined previous literature; direct, local fresh produce operations; and producer insights to develop recommendations for increasing locally produced food. Producer size, product perishability, proximity to a population center, consumer perceptions, and producer philosophy influenced where Colorado growers sell. Growers suggested increased quality standards, marketing, and consumer education to increase the demand for local foods.

O37: Factors Affecting Small Producer's Local Food Sales

Objective: Identify crop and producer characteristics affecting food miles. Design, Setting and Participants: A convenience sample of growers, drawn from the Colorado Agriculture Directory Database, was balanced across high weight/low value (potato), low weight/high value (spinach) and high weight/ high value (fruit) producers. Outcome Measures and Analysis: Structured telephone interviews collected data on producer characteristics and perceptions about critical factors affecting where they sold their produce and what was needed to increase local food sales. Thematic data analysis identified the importance of each factor in determining whether sales for the selected crop were primarily focused at in or out-of-state marketing (secondary focus on direct versus wholesale channels). Results: Fifteen growers completed the interviews and most produced on 50 acres or less. More than half the sales were direct to consumers and most producers used multiple channels: farmers markets (73%), farm stand (53%), small retail store or co-op (47%), and CSA or mail delivery (20% each). Highly ranked factors relative to local marketing included production capacity, product characteristics (perishable crops, quality), access to buyers/location, postharvest considerations, and consumer perceptions. Respondents perceived that local sales could be increased by maintaining quality standards, increasing education of and marketing to consumers, promoting agro-tourism, and developing local and state policies to support local sales. Conclusions and Implications: The most critical factors supporting local sales were smaller volume, niche markets, and belief that local food is important while packaging and transportation costs were not a major consideration for local sales. Smaller producer size and limited volume encourages local, direct sales to maximize profits while limiting access to larger markets.