Journal of Economic Geography 6 (2006) pp.

181199
Advance Access published on 1 August 2005

doi:10.1093/jeg/lbi006

Beyond the divide: rethinking relationships

between alternative and conventional
food networks in Europe
Roberta Sonnino* and Terry Marsden**

In this paper, we develop the burgeoning research agenda on alternative food

networks in Europe. Through the concept of embeddedness, we argue for a
much more nuanced and complex understanding of the relationships between
conventional and alternative food chainsand, by extension, of their implications for rural development. Rather than viewing alternative and conventional food networks as separate spheres, we see them as highly competitive
and as relational to one another and argue for the need to examine the links
more critically. In particular, we highlight the need to explore the competitive
relationships that alternative food networks have with the conventional
sector to expose power imbalances and the effect these may have on wider
rural development processes.
Keywords: alternative food networks, rural development, re-localization of agri-food,
embeddedness
JEL classifications: Q10, R11, Z13
Date submitted: 5 October 2004 Date accepted: 19 May 2005

1. Introduction: alternative food networks as a research problem

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of case studies on the development of
alternative food networks. Variously and loosely defined in terms of quality,
transparency, and locality, such newly emerging networks are (somewhat contentiously) signalling a shift away from the industrialized and conventional food sector,
towards a re-localized food and farming regime.
Some scholars argue that this shift is facilitating the rise of a new and more territorially based rural development paradigm in Western Europe (van der Ploeg et al.,
2000; Renting et al., 2003). A number of case studies highlight the potential of the
emerging food circuits to revitalize rural areas. Knickel and Renting (2000), for
example, focus on the impacts that the establishment of a new dairy and a new product
line in organic milk by local farmers had in the Rhon area of Germany. Specifically,
they emphasize how, by creating a coherence among the various societal demands for
recreation, high-quality fresh products, and an unspoiled natural environment, the

* School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue,
Cardiff CF10 3WA, Wales, UK. email <SonninoR@Cardiff.ac.uk>
** School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII
Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, Wales, UK. email <MarsdenTK@Cardiff.ac.uk>

# The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

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Abstract

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so-called Rhongold dairy promoted a regional image that attracted to the area tourists
and business. Thus, an innovation strategy conceived to create alternative markets for
local farmers ultimately had economic benefits for the region as a whole. Similarly, de
Roest and Menghi (2000) show that the production system associated with Parmigiano
Reggiano cheese in Italy is, in itself, an example of rural development because of its
contributions to employment and to the perpetuation of artisanal, environmentally
benign, and labour-intensive production techniques.
Other researchers, however, are more cautious about positing a connection between
alternative food networks and the emergence of a new rural development paradigm.
Winter (2003a, p. 31), for example, states that whether the turn to localism represents
the first step towards an alternative food and agricultural economy is an issue open
to question. Similarly, Goodman (2004, p. 9) calls for a more realistic assessment of
the territorial value-added model to understand whether alternative food strategies
are truly mitigating long-standing rural problems of poverty, inequality, and social
exclusion.
Given the paucity of empirical data of sufficient reach and quality and the relatively
early development stage of many of the alternative food practices, it is still too difficult
to judge the viability and efficiency of alternative food networks in delivering goals of
sustainable agriculture and rural development (Marsden, 2004, p. 131). Nevertheless,
much can be done to enhance our understanding of their potential for helping producers to capture a bigger proportion of added value and for bringing consumers closer
to the origins of their food. To meet this goal, in this paper we aim to critically analyze
the rich and heterogeneous empirical dimension of alternative food networks, as this
emerges in the current literature, and then to develop a wider critical and comparative
overview of their nature and impacts in relation to some key debates in the new
economic geography (Clark et al., 2000; Sheppard and Barnes, 2000). These suggest
new processes of re-localization of economic activities and practices, territorial transformations, and contested battles over conventions.
We argue here that this is a necessary step to identify the conceptual and methodological tools needed to grasp the variability of alternative food networks, to explore
their nature and dynamics, and to relate this to broader issues of rural development. In
addition, there is a need to refresh these debates with wider economic geographys
theoretical concerns such as embeddedness, alternative economic spaces (see Lee and
Wills, 1997), and the relational turn (Boggs and Rantisi, 2003). The emergence of
alternative food networks represents a distinctive but contested feature of the new
rural/regional economy. A wider and more integrated analytical perspective is necessary
to understand how such networks begin to unravel Storpers complex organizational
puzzle (Storper, 1997b) in local and regional development.
In the first part of the paper, we analyze the emergence of alternative food networks
in the light of the crisis of the conventional agri-food sector. We then identify and
discuss some theoretical difficulties in drawing a clear distinction between conventional
and alternative food networks. Such difficulties, we believe, relate primarily to the often
ambiguous and highly competitive relationships between alternative networks and the
conventional food economy, as well as to their different (largely empirical) emphases on
differentiated and contested notions of quality (Harvey et al., 2004)an issue which is
also present in wider debates concerning alternative economic spaces (Leyshon et al.,
2003) and the embeddedness of a real social economy (Amin et al., 2003).

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2. Beyond the crisis: the emergence of alternative food networks

The emergence of alternative food networks is commonly conceptualized as a quality
turn by both producers and consumers away from the global agri-food complex
(Goodman, 2004). As Harvey et al. (2004, p. 4) summarize, there are many different
dimensions of concern behind this turn, such as food safety issues, the obesity epidemic,
and the culinary and aesthetic value of food, as well as the social and environmental
externalities associated with the conventional food chain.
The establishment of alternative systems of food provision falling outside the conventional model of agriculture is fundamentally a short-circuiting of the conventional
chain through the development of new relationships between producers and consumers.
In this sense, a key characteristic of the new supply networks is their capacity to
re-socialize or re-spatialize food, which comes to be defined by its locale (i.e. either
the locality or even the specific farm where it is produced). By drawing upon an
image of the farm or the region as a source of quality, alternative food networks
re-localize foodin other words, they link it more directly with local farming
practices, rural nature, landscapes, and resources (Renting et al., 2003, p. 398).
With the emergence of these alternative networks, the contemporary food sector is
increasingly bifurcating into two main zones of production: standardized, specialized
production processes responding to economic standards of efficiency and competitiveness on the one hand; localized, specialized production processes attempting to trade on
the basis of environmental, nutritional, or health qualities on the other (Murdoch and
Miele, 1999, pp. 469470).
In an attempt to understand the alternativeness of the emerging food systems, a
number of scholars have focused on the strained relationship between these two zones
of production. Whatmore et al. (2003), for example, argue that, against the logic of bulk
commodity production, alternative food networks redistribute value through the food
chain, reconvene trust between producers and consumers, and articulate new forms of
political association and market governance. Murdoch and Miele (2004) explain the
varied nature of quality criteria in the alternative food sector by referring to the multifaceted crisis of the conventional sector. Specifically, they argue that Slow Food
responds to the crisis of trust in the food sector by emphasizing the quiet material
pleasure resulting from an immersion in local and regional cuisine; the Soil Association
highlights the environmental problems that spill out of the conventional sector by promoting best organic practice; Fair Trade aims at reconnecting producers and consumers to return increased value to the sites of production in the supply chain.
Finally, in an effort to identify some common dimensions of short food supply chains,

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After reviewing the scholarly discourse surrounding the emerging food practices, we
focus on the concept of embeddednesswhich, as the literature makes clear, is one of
the main traits that distinguish alternative food networks from the conventional chains.
Building upon a growing literature on the meaning and implications of this concept in
the context of food, we utilize embeddedness as an analytical tool to identify a refined
agenda and framework for research and conceptualization on alternative food networks. In particular, by focusing on the new political and institutional scenario created
in Europe by the recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), we emphasize the need to situate more effectively the alternative food networks in their regulatory,
institutional, sociocultural, and spatial context.

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Marsden et al. (2000) emphasize that, in contrast with conventional chains, alternative
food networks display new relationships of association and institutionalization; they
involve companies and actors that have redefined their relationships with the state; they
reconfigure the natural, quality, regional, and value constructions associated with food
production and supply; they show positive value-added gains in terms of farm income;
and they reveal considerable variation in the associational and face-to-face interactions
involved in the production, animation, and sales of food.
A few case studies, however, show that, in some cases, although abstract distinctions
between alternative and conventional food systems can be made, there are no clear
boundaries between them. Murdoch and Miele (1999), for example, provide two case
studies that illustrate the complexities of contemporary food production in Italy. The
first concerns a large egg producer company that, over time, has moved from a standardized, generic production of eggs towards a plurality of new products imbued with
natural and animal-friendly qualities and dedicated to specific groups of consumers.
The second case involves a group of small organic producers, embedded in a traditional
world of production, who, by collectively establishing a commercial structure, have
partially standardized a dedicated organic produce. Similarly, Straete and Marsden
(2003) analyse two dairy companies, in Norway and Wales, which, on the one hand,
operate in the traditional agri-industrial world, trying to modernize traditional recipes
to satisfy industrial claims; on the other hand, however, both companies emphasize
qualities linked to local alternative food and farm-based processing.
These empirical analyses show that, in the context of the evolutionary dynamics of
alternative food networks, the conventional dichotomy between standardized and localized food does not thoroughly reflect the present reality of the food sector. From a
theoretical perspective, this warns against the widespread inclination to posit clear distinctions between conventional and alternative food networks and it encourages the
search for new conceptual and methodological tools to explore the nature and dynamics
of the alternative sector. From an empirical and political perspective, there is also an
urgent need to develop a more rigorous theoretical framework around alternative food
networks. One of the factors indirectly responsible for blurring the boundaries between
conventional and alternative food networks is the latters emphasis on attributes of
quality, a negotiable and contested concept that, as we will discuss, is always open
for interpretation and appropriation. Morris and Young (2000) argue that in the food
sector, quality does not refer exclusively to the properties of the food itself. It also
embraces the ways in which those properties have been achieved. In their words, it
is these different methods and systems that are responsible for the reshaping and
reorganization of food supply networks as producers and other actors are forced to
modify methods of production and processing, build new relationships with others in
the supply chain and adapt to new regulatory pressures (Morris and Young, 2000,
p. 105). This process is not necessarily smooth or problem-free. In fact, it is often the
case that different supply-chain actors, including those who operate in the conventional
system, compete for the authority to define the particular character of food quality. As
with any contested concept, these disagreements are not merely semantic disputes. They
are substantive political arguments that reflect different interests, agendas, and values.
There is potential for powerful actors within the food productionconsumption chain
to manipulate meanings, thereby creating difficulties for small producers who wish to
differentiate their products and secure added value (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000, p. 220).

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3. Conceptualizing alternative food networks:

from practice to theory
Even though the need to conceptualize alternative food networks is increasingly recognized (see, for example, Goodman, 2003; Marsden, 2003), the geographical and sociological literature on the development of such networks remains highly fragmented
and under-theorized. As we will outline through a comparative analysis of various
case studies, this lack of theorization depends mostly on the highly contextual nature
of alternative food networks. By emphasizing different notions and dimensions of
quality, such networks represent an extremely differentiated phenomenon, difficult
to grasp through what Goodman (2003) calls meso-level theoretical perspectives.
Nevertheless, there is a need to develop and refine such perspectives, both theoretically
(if we want to understand whether food re-localization is a new development paradigm)
and practically (if we want to identify the kinds of institutional practices and interventions necessary to stimulate and consolidate the emerging alternative food networks).
To meet this goal, we argue that more focus on and problematization of the
embeddedness of alternative food networks are needed.
As we noted above, alternative food networks often define and position themselves
by making reference to some notion of quality. In the context of food, quality is a
very general idea that plays mostly on a contrast with the orientations of the
mainstream industrialized food system towards low cost, convenience, consistency,
reliability and predictability (Harvey et al., 2004, p. 3). As such, quality is not a monolithic concept. Quite the contrary, it is a multidimensional concept that can involve
anything that the conventional food system is not: an identifiable place of origin, traceability, aesthetic attributes, nutritiousness. After focusing on the variability of
discourses surrounding alternative forms of consumption, Sassatelli (2004, p. 190)
concludes that they vary as to their targetbe it the individual consumer, the community or our relation to the naturaland their scopesubversive, expressive or
integrative. Quality, then, involves a social process of qualification; in other words,
it is established and attributed in the course of justifications, emerging often from
contested episodes (Harvey et al., 2004, p. 17). Far from being inherent in the product,
quality is constructed and negotiated. Therefore, it acquires meaning only with refer-

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The recent history of organic agriculture in California provides a very illustrative

example of the process through which the conventional sector can co-opt alternative
food practices. As Guthman (2004) explains, the involvement of agri-business in
organic farming has altered the conditions under which California growers participate
in this sector by unleashing the logic of intensification (Guthman, 2004, p. 307).
Specifically, Guthman argues, expectations of intensification have become embedded
in land values, so much so that all organic farmers are now constantly under pressure to
adopt technologies or cropping systems that create more crop value per hectare. By
undercutting farmers ability to practice a deep form of organic farmingi.e. rotations
of marginal-value crops for fertility and non-commodity crops for pest control
agri-industrialization is promoting what Guthman calls the conventionalization of
organic agriculture. As this case study shows, a better conceptual understanding of
alternative food networks then becomes necessary also to develop the type of regulatory
mechanisms that can sustain those alternative practices.

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ence to its specific productionconsumption context (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000, p. 219)
and it reflects different patterns and locations of economic power in the particular
food chain.
As a result, at all levels, different alternative food networks are built around different
and competing definitions of quality that reflect differences in farming systems, cultural
traditions, organizational structures, consumer perceptions, and institutional and
policy support (Renting et al., 2003, p. 394). This variation has important implications for our attempts to conceptualize alternative food products. Tregear (2003),
for instance, shows that the classic concept of typical products, informed by Roman
conventions based on a strong cultural belief in the relationship between geographic
origin and special quality, is inadequate to classify typical products in the UK.
By tracing, over time, the key social, economic, political, and cultural influences
on the links between food and territory in the UK, in terms of both production
and consumption, Tregear elaborates an alternative typology and a broadened concept
of typical products. Again, this study emphasizes the difficulties implicit in the attempt
to develop a general and comprehensive framework to classify alternative food
products; as Tregear (2003, p. 103) concludes, if examination is grounded in the
specific contexts and conventions of another country, a different set of norms
emerges and a more subtle and insightful picture ensues of the links between food
and territory.
Several studies can be brought together here to identify the variation in quality
attributes and criteria existing among different countries. For example, in Italy,
Spain, and France the development of alternative food networks mostly builds on
activities of regional quality production and direct selling with long-lasting traditions
(Marsden, 2004). In fact, those countries, along with Portugal and Greece, originate
more than 75% of European registered, regionally designated products. Parrott et al.
(2002) explain this by referring to the combination of a number of cultural and structural factors that mediate and reinforce links among region of origin, tradition, and
quality in southern Europe. These include the predominance of small, diversified, and
labour-intensive family farms employing traditional methods; the prevalence of the
convention of domestic worth, with the market and industrial conventions embedded
in robust localistic and civic orders of evaluation; and the presence of highly fragmented
food-processing sectors. Within this context, southern producers have often been
attuned to traditional and typical regional foods and, more generally, to the view
that the terroir, or the context of production (culture, tradition, production process,
terrain, climate, local knowledge system), strongly shapes the quality of the product
itself. In these European countries, the national and EU legislation on legal protection
of quality production has been an institutional stimulus for the consolidation of
alternative food networks.
In contrast, in countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany the development of alternative food networks is often based on modern and more commercial
quality definitions, stressing environmental sustainability or animal welfare, and on
innovative (and retailer-led) forms of marketing. In this sense, they may exemplify
the general move towards ecological modernization that reconciles agriculture and
environment in ways which continue to support agricultural production (Evans et al.,
2002). Parrott et al. (2002) point out that, in contrast with the south, northern
European countries share cultural and structural factors that tend to militate against

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the construction of regionally distinctive foods and against any clear association with
spatialized notions of quality. Such factors include the prevalence of larger, more
capital-intensive, economically efficient and specialized farms; the presence of localistic
or ecological conventions that are embedded inand gain their value withinan
industrial and market context; and a more centralized and standardized
processing sector dominated by medium-sized and large food manufacturers and
retailers.
In contrast with the south, then, northern European countries have developed a
legal system of protection and marketing revolving around privately owned brand
trademarks and a more functional approach to food governance. In this context, the
quality of food is determined more by matters of public health and hygiene than by
organoleptic properties. As a result, in the north economic efficiency and responsiveness to the market, underpinned by health and safety legislation, are considered the
most effective means of delivering quality food.
In conclusion, we can see from this review that research and understanding of alternative food networks have progressed only so far. The emphasis in what we might term
the first phase of research has been on empirically objectifying the phenomenon and in
realizing and exposing some of its diversity. This diversity, however, raises important
spatial and analytical questions about the degree to which current theoretical and concrete analyses incorporate the evolutionary dynamics of alternative food networks at
different spatial scales. Moreover, this body of work has re-emphasized and questioned
the redefined nature of space and territory as both an active and reactive ingredient in
the development of alternative networks. A common theme here is to frame this in
terms of a re-localization of food. However, thus far, this process is by no means clearly
analytically understood, and there is a danger of it following the political rhetoric
contained in many of the policy documents of recent years. In the UK, for example,
the Report on the Future of Farming and Food (known as the Curry Report), published by a policy commission in 2002 in an effort to chart a course out of the foot and
mouth crisis, urges farmers to develop the alternative sectori.e. to increase the
market share of local, locality, regional, and organic foods. Local food, in particular,
is seen as one of the greatest opportunities for farmers to add value and retain a bigger
slice of retail value (Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, 2002,
p. 43). On the ground, however, the government is doing very little to support the
alternative food sector through the development of much needed forms of innovative
demand management in the areas of public procurement and marketing, for example.
Quite the opposite, in an effort to let the market become more liberalized and to avoid
deviations from the principles of European competition policy, which restricts state
aids, the governments Food Standards Agency is leaving largely intact a private sector
system of food regulation implemented by the retailers. Based on highly restrictive
quality conventions (which require, for instance, the stripping away of fats, offal,
and poorer quality meat cuts) and on strict planning, hygiene, and fiscal control, this
hygienic/bureaucratic regulatory regime allows retailers to maintain control over the
food chain (Marsden, 2004). On the other side, however, producers wishing to diversify
into meeting the market for non-industrially produced foods are still forced to comply
with the logic and requirements of the conventional agri-food system. Examples of this
kind show that there is, therefore, a distinct analytical need, especially from within the
disciplinary realms of economic geography and rural sociology, to assess more rigorously and critically the nature of this supposed re-localization of food as potentially a

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sort of elision between the local and the social (see Amin et al., 2003) and as part of an
emerging and new agri-food paradigm.

4. Understanding alternative food networks: embeddedness

as an analytical tool
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Untheorized notions of re-localization can be interpreted as continually marginalizing

the real effects of alternative food networksalmost by definition. In reality, some
recent studies show that new socially-based economic and value-adding networks are,
often in a clustered fashion, beginning to occupy significant areas of rural space and
regions (Marsden and Smith, in press). This raises the need to build a more robust and
critical approach to the analysis of re-localizationwhether defined by food product,
supply chain, the actors involved, or the design and marketing of food products. For
instance, defining foods as local at the point of purchase does not necessarily expose
the degree to which such products are embedded in, or reliant upon, alternative economic and social networks which extend back to particular territories or producers. It is
in fact through these deeper forms of re-localization that the emerging networks
attempt to recapture rural space as an active and transforming force in shaping
agri-foodthereby potentially giving rise to a new rural development paradigm (that
is, a new defining logic to food supply through more embedded relations).
Localization is, then, a very problematic concept to define and utilize in the context
of food. Indeed, its actual scope and meaning are always contingent and highly contested. A few recent North American case studies have illustrated the complexities
implicit in the use of notions such as local and localization. Hinrichs (2003), for
example, shows that the local food movement in Iowa is characterized by two forms
of localization: defensive localization, which imposes rigid boundaries around the
spatial local and stresses its homogeneity in the name of some local good, and
diversity-receptive localization, which embeds the local into a larger national or
world community. These two types of localization differ radically in their nature and
impacts. In fact, whereas defensive localization often defines itself in patriotic opposition to outside forces, thereby becoming elitist and reactionary (Hinrichs, 2003, p. 37),
diversity-receptive localization recognizes that the content and interests of local are
relational and open to change (Hinrichs, 2003, p. 37). Besides showing that the
globalization/localization dichotomy can prove misleading, the Iowa case study also
warns about the perilous trap of the local (Hinrichs, 2003, p. 44).
Allen et al. (2003) also identify two different, if not contrasting, meanings of local in
their analysis of agri-food initiatives in California. As they argue, on the one hand,
local refers to regional provisioning that links production and consumption around
particular sites; on the other hand, it refers to sites and, through them, to product
differentiationi.e. to the process of attaching particular characteristics of a terrain
or territory to a commodity, thereby imbuing it with environmental and social qualities.
The wide and rapid adoption of these two concepts, the authors conclude, has resulted
in an apparent identity of engagement in alternative agri-food activities. Behind this
fac ade, however, there are significant differences among individual places. These need
to be identified and explored as they have implications for the success of alternative
food initiatives shared goals of environmental sustainability, economic viability, and
social justice.

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The concept of embeddedness can be a very useful theoretical device to deepen the
investigation of the relationship between food and territory. Broadly speaking, this
notion has been long and widely used to emphasize the social component of economic
action. In agri-food studies, embeddedness has proved to be an effective concept to
emphasize the more socially entrenched character of alternative food networks. Sage
(2003), for example, makes the case that social embeddedness and relations of mutual
regard underpin the existence of an alternative good food network in southwest
Ireland.
Various scholars, however, warn against the limitations of studies that utilize the
notion of embeddedness exclusively to describe and emphasize the social dimension
of alternative food networks. As Hinrichs (2000) and Goodman (2004) indicate, this
type of focus can in fact reinforce a very optimistic view of local economic relations,
based on an overly simplistic opposition between global capitalist actors and their
embedded local counterparts (Goodman, 2004, p. 5).
We believe that, for embeddeness to become a truly powerful explanatory concept
(Winter, 2003a, p. 24) in agri-food studies, it is necessary to assess its implications
also outside the social realm. As some researchers have begun to argue, the concept
of embeddedness assumes a much wider meaning in the context of food as it embraces
also the economic, environmental, cultural, and political dimensions of food networks.
Murdoch et al. (2000), for instance, have utilized the notion of embeddedness to
describe the interrelationship among nature, provenance, and quality that differentiates
local food products from globalized commodities. More recently, Kirwan (2004) has
adopted a more actor-oriented approach to suggest that, in the context of the agri-food
system, embeddedness can be utilized in three different ways: first, to create alternative
systems of food production and distribution that incorporate social, environmental,
and health issues into the production and consumption of food; second, to valorize
local assets and obtain a comparative commercial advantage that enables marginal
areas to remain economically viable; third, embeddedness can be appropriated by
actors operating at the globalized level to maximize their commercial profit by accessing
niche markets.
Building upon these wider interpretations and on recent calls for studies that identify
different degrees and qualities of embeddedness (Winter, 2003a, p. 24) and assess
powerful disembedding forces (Goodman, 2004, p. 10), we propose a research framework based upon a more holistic approach to embeddedness. We believe that if we
want to understand how alternative food networks are built, shaped, and reproduced
over time and space and whether or not this process is realistically contributing to a new
rural development paradigm, the development of these networks must be analyzed at
two different, but strongly interrelated, levels. The first level involves the political,
institutional, and regulatory context in which alternative food networks operate. The
second concerns the local/regional context in which they take shape. Schweizer (1997)
illustrates the interconnection between these two levels well when he argues that embeddedness has not just a horizontal facet that involves the interpenetration of
societal/cultural domains. It also has a vertical facet that relates to hierarchical linkages of individual and corporate actors at the local level to the larger society, economy,
and polity of which they are part. This larger context constrains local action but also,
by providing new opportunities, allows local manoeuvring and interacts with the local
level.

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the formation of new local economic or social relationships, the understanding of new ways of
seeing the food system, the background politicking required for the formation of new policies,
the training or mentoring of new civic entrepreneurs, the creation of new food system
infrastructures, and the growing body of research analysing and evaluating new alternatives.
(Feenstra, 2002, p. 104)

In more general terms, the adoption of such a holistic approach to embeddedness

involves integrating political economy and actor-network approaches with some of the
literatures associated with the new economic and regional geography (Storper, 1997a).
This type of integrated focus allows a more sustained and critical analysis of alternative
food networks as spaces of hope (Leyshon et al., 2003), whereby newly assembled
horizontal platforms of action are created out of local systems of production and
product development. The reason for their initiation and for their sustenance relies
upon a hope of creating a new and durable action-space within the prevailing conventional economic system. To be successful, this needs to embed sets of distinctive
organizational principles, knowledges, and natures in new ways. Thus embeddedness is
not just a reliance upon the social over and above the economic. Rather, it relies upon
an incorporation and manipulation in and of space, involving social economy and
nature. Moreover, this holistic approach we propose also implies progressing a research

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Recently, the so-called relational turn in economic geography has also emphasized
the need for an analytical integration of different scales. As Boggs and Rantisi (2003)
explain, relational economic geography emphasizes agency and the micro-level
of analysis, but does not treat the local simply as the most effective site for the coordination of socioeconomic activity. In fact, by recognizing that this conflation takes
place during the translation of the meso-level concept from a network into a scale
(Boggs and Rantisi, 2003, p. 113), relational geographers do not privilege one scale
a priori. Rather, they consider the interrelations among different scales; in so doing,
they problematize space, which comes to be seen as a perspective for examining social
relations instead of the object of analysis (Boggs and Rantisi, 2003, p. 114).
To account for both the horizontal and the vertical embeddedness of alternative food
networks, it is necessary to integrate the analysis of the wider institutional and governance system in which alternative food systems carve and maintain their space (i.e. the
vertical dimension) with a bottom-up consideration of local conditions and agency
(i.e. the horizontal dimension). Although the analysis of food governance identifies
the macro-regulatory context in which food networks develop and operate, the adoption of an agency-oriented approach is essential to uncover local practices and strategies
with regard to the development and consolidation of alternative food networks.
New economic networks of production, processing, and marketing always create new
horizontal platforms of action and actor-space which develop their own discourses of
competition and trust, negotiation and quality. The analysis of such discourses is necessary, for example, to understand the dynamic conventions of quality that alternative
food networks develop and the new type of symbiosis among nature, animals, and
actors in which they are grounded.
In one of the few attempts to reach a practical understanding of what it takes
to make a food system sustainable, Feenstra (2002) supports this need for a
holistic approach when she argues that the development of sustainable food systems
involves an invisible web of very different dimensions and activities. In her words,
these include

Alternative and conventional food networks in Europe

191

agenda that explores in more detail the competitive (and often highly dependent) relations that such alternative food networks have with the corporate sector (particularly
the retailers) and that analyzes more thoroughly their regional/institutional context,
social configuration, and the extent to which they are spreading and impacting on
wider spatial development processes.

5. Key dimensions in assessing the embeddedness of alternative

food networks in Western Europe: a research agenda

5.1. Oppositional and alternative strategies: horizontal questions

First, the occasionally blurred boundaries between conventional and alternative food
networks raise the analytical need to situate the evolutionary dynamics of these trends
in their competitiveand potentially highly dependentrelationships with the conventional sector. As Goodman (2004) points out, even though the crisis of industrial agriculture is absolutely central to theorizations and prognoses of a new European rural
development paradigm, so far this crisis, its social and spatial patterns, and ways
in which the old might shape the new , has received little analytical attention. To
understand the nature of alternative food networks and assess their level and degree of
territorial embeddedness, more research focus is needed on the mutation and evolution
of these networks within the context of the conventional sector. In short, alternative
networks do not operate in isolation.
Some scholars point out that the benefits accruing from the alterity of alternative
food networks are open to appropriation by the conventional sector (Goodman, 2004;
Kirwan, 2004). Sage (2003), for example, relates issues of the distinctive durability and
resilience of an Irish alternative food network to its capacity to withstand pressures for
incorporation into the mainstream food industry. For Allen et al. (2003), to assess the
potential of the new food initiatives to change the agri-food system we need to address a
fundamental issue. That is, are these new food strategies significantly oppositionali.e.
limited in their efforts to incremental erosion at the edges of the political-economic
structures that constitute the agri-food landscapeor are they primarily alternative
i.e. seeking to create a new and more autonomous structural configuration?
The literature shows that local food initiatives have the potential to be both oppositional or alternative to differing degrees in different social and spatial contexts, and that
this holds over geography. In Spain and Italy, for example, there is a more oppositional stimulant to the creation of local food networks (Alonso Mielgo et al., 2001),
owing to historical latifundia and land reform questions. In the UK, the Netherlands,
and Ireland, by contrast, the growth in alternatives, on the part of both
governments and local actors, is often framed within a more instrumentalist and entrepreneurial logic and discourseas an alternative economic and social assemblage which
creates new producerconsumer linkages. In the Curry Report (2002) and in many
Ministerial announcements in the UK, the encouragement of local quality food networks is used mostly as a new entrepreneurial and free market metaphor, which calls

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To account for both the vertical (i.e. the political and institutional) and the horizontal
(i.e. the societal, spatial, and cultural) embeddedness of alternative food networks in
Western Europe, we need to develop and integrate research on at least three main
dimensions.

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5.2. The politics of regionalization and multi-level governance:

vertical questions
Second, there is a need to explore in depth the multi-level process of regional
and institutional building of alternative food networks linked to the recent reform of
the CAP in Europe. This has in fact triggered a regionalization of rural policy in two
fundamental ways. First, with regard to the so-called First Pillar of the CAP, the newly
introduced Single Farm Payment (SFP)which is independent from production and
linked to compliance with environmental, food safety, and animal welfare standards
(cross-compliance)is implemented at the regional level following two possible modalities: an area-based approach, whereby the SFP includes all farmers, regardless of
whether or not they have received CAP support in the past, or a historical approach
that keeps the SFP linked to the historical CAP payment. Second, the recent Rural
Development Regulation (or Second Pillar of the CAP), which aims at transforming the
CAP from a sectoral policy of farm community support to an integrated policy for rural
development, has also been applied at the regional level through the drawing up of
territorially-based seven-year Rural Development Plans.
With regional actors and actions assuming growing significance in shaping the course
of rural development, the re-localization of food is becoming a stronger dimension of
the broader process and politics of regionalization (Murdoch et al., 2003; Marsden and
Sonnino, 2005). This raises the need to analyse the relationship between emerging
regional governance frameworks and regional food innovations. As Jarosz (2000,
p. 281) puts it, the process through which local food networks bring food producers,
brokers, retailers, and consumers together spatially and socially in specific regions
through their relations and interactions with regional agri-food networks remains to
be documented.
A critical focus on these emerging and uneven forms of vertical embeddedness
of alternative food networks is crucial not just to enhance our theoretical understanding
of their political context. It can also have significant practical and political implications
for their sustainability. In addition to discussing the problems that need to be addressed
for alternative food networks to take hold, the few case studies that have focused on the
political and regulatory context of those networks help to identify the type of political
action needed to stimulate and consolidate the alternative food sector. Documenting
vente directe, or direct selling by farmers in France, Gilg and Battershill (1998) advocate forms of political intervention that specifically support the traditional low-intensity

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for producers to compete more on quality than on priceand to do so in a context of

reduced CAP commodity support. In this spatial context, the very framing of the
re-localization of food is set up as an alternative, rather than an oppositional, framework which may provide more longevity to low-income producers. Hence
re-localization is seen as a palliative rather than a counter-movement to the dominant
agri-industrial system and its labyrinthine state support mechanisms. These alternative
and oppositional strategies display different geographies across nation-states and
regions, and they also rely on different combinations of vertical and horizontal embeddedness. For instance, the alternative modes of the UK are partly structured not only
by the regional state (vertical); they obtain most of their vibrancy also from a stronger
(horizontal) commitment from many producers who are prepared to detach themselves
from the conventional system.

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193

5.3. Towards a new agrarian eco-economy through the quality battlefield?

Third, it is time to begin assessing the economic, environmental, and sociocultural
impacts (real and potential) of alternative food networks. The fundamental question
here is whether or not such networks are signalling (and contributing to) a shift towards
a new rural development paradigm which redefines nature by re-emphasizing food
production and agro-ecology and which reasserts the socio-environmental role of
agriculture as a major agent in sustaining rural areas. Two issues are especially urgent
to address here. The first concerns the social and spatial origins of these innovations. In
other words, are alternative food networks a bourgeois phenomenon, mostly grounded in the urban context and hence destined to have limited multiplier effects on rural
areas, as well as narrow consumer dividends restricted to high-income groups?
Or are they symptoms of a process of re-peasantization and re-valorization of the
countryside and the rural community? Can we expect localized and alternative food
networks to eventually penetrate the problems of low-income urban food deserts
(Wrigley, 2002)?
The second issue concerns local practices and strategies with regard to the development and consolidation of alternative food networks. The various actors in the agrifood chain (farmers, food processors, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers) are not
passive recipients of policies and market signals (Winter, 2003b, p. 509). They are social
actors who actively construct alternative markets through new discourses of authentic
social, economic and ecological relationships between all actors in a food system
(Hendrickson and Heffernan, 2002, p. 361). The analysis of such discourses has
much to say about the sociocultural embeddedness of alternative food networksi.e.
the different meanings attached to such networks by different actors. An investigation
of these meanings is crucial to understand the relationship between quality and power
in the food chain. The relational turn in economic geography proves especially useful
here. In fact, as Boggs and Rantisi (2003) point out, this theoretical orientation considers actors and the dynamic processes of change and development engendered by their
relations as central units of analysis. By viewing actors as interdependent subjects
whose identities and resource capabilities are constituted by their relations with other

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farming sector. These should include, they argue, measures that expand the market
for this quality sector as well as policy measures based on targeted environmental
action, such as financial aid for avoiding absorption into more intensive systems and
regulations and programmes which restrict the activities and externalities of the
conventional agri-food sector. In Wales, on the other hand, an analysis of the
constraints to the embodiment of local and regional quality in food supply networks
leads Banks and Bristow (1999) to suggest a specific need for public investment in
processing capacity. Marsden and Smith (in press) compare two socio-technical
food niches in the UK and the Netherlands which seem to require alternative forms
of regulation to defend their spatial and social boundaries against the CAPs lock-in
effects of production-based subsidy structures, intensively based production systems,
low value-added chains, and a clientelistic farmerstate relationship. Finally, in supporting the need to develop local products through mainstream channels in the UK,
Weatherell et al. (2003) advocate a more interventionist approach in the food supply
chain to promote explicit and independent mechanisms that monitor and certify the
production and distribution of local foods.

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6. Conclusions: re-localization and the problematic reclaiming

of geography in the new agri-food paradigm
In this paper we have attempted to analyse critically the growing literature on alternative food networks as part of a wider shift in thinking, practice, and policy. A central
element of this literature has been concerned with understanding a highly contested
(but largely unproblematized) re-localization process, whereby these trends variably
recapture rural space as an active and transforming force in shaping agri-food. More
broadly, alternative food networks are beginning, to varying degrees, to re-create one
type of alternative economic space (see Leyshon et al., 2003) which challenges the larger
and more universalistic conventional food system. This could be seen as contributing,
at least for the agri-food and rural development sectors, to the emergence of a
more heterodox agri-food paradigm which reconstitutes Storpers (1997a) Holy
Trinity of new regional economics: technological changes, organizations, and territorial
transformationsall of which involve the revised and more embedded evolution of
regionally and locally specific relational assets.
However, such theorization has not been progressed. So far, a particular emphasis
has been placed upon empirically-rich case studies and the reading off from these
of the distinctive evolutionary and specific internal features of alternative food networks. Their competitive relations with (and their alternative embeddedness from)
the conventional sector have been largely ignored. This literature, we have argued,

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actors (Boggs and Rantisi, 2003, p. 112), the relational turn approach enables
researchers to uncover the role of power in shaping peoples interrelations and to
identify different governance structures.
Constructions of quality entail power relations among different social actors. The
two processes are inseparable now in both the alternative and conventional food
systems. In this respect, the dichotomy between alternative and retailer-led food
supply chains can be represented as a battlefield of knowledge, authority and
regulation fought around different levels of embeddedness and socio-technical definitions of quality (Marsden, 2004). The outcome of this ongoing battle is to empower or
disempower particular sets of supply chain actors, which in turn sets in train a geographical dynamica process that has ramifications both at the level of food production, where it can affect rural development, and at the level of food consumption,
largely, but not exclusively, in the urban realm. In fact, it is important to emphasize
that, in the context of food, power ought not to be located unequivocally in the sphere
of production. Consumers also must be acknowledged as relational actors in recursive,
mutually constituted food circuits (Goodman, 2002, p. 272).
In short, to assess the level and degree of horizontal embeddedness of alternative
food networksi.e. the extent to which they are socioculturally, economically, and
environmentally embedded in their localityit is crucial to investigate the strategies
used by different actors to start, consolidate, and develop these innovations. Often
based on negotiated and socially constructed notions of quality, such strategies speak
about power relations within and between food chains. Investigating how power is
distributed across the food chain and, more specifically, how actors involved in alternative food networks see their role in challenging and reshaping the agri-food system is
an essential step for understanding the nature of these networks and their potential for
new forms of rural development.

Alternative and conventional food networks in Europe

195

DE-LOCALIZATION
Conventional agri-food

RE-LOCALIZATION
Alternative agri-food

Intensive production 'lock-in';

declining farm prices and
bulk input suppliers to
corporate processors/retailers

Emphasis on quality;
producers finding strategies to
capture value-added; new
producer associations; new
socio-technical spatial niches
developing.

Type of spatial
relationships
Producer relations

Processing and
retailing

Institutional
frameworks

Associational
frameworks

Absence of spatial reference

of product; no encouragement
to understand food origin;
space-less products
Traceable but privately
regulated systems of
processing and retailing; not
transparent; standardized vs.
other than spatialized
products
Highly bureaucratized public
and private regulation;
hygienic model reinforcing
standardization; national CAP
support (Pillar I)
Highly technocraticat-a
distancerelationships;
commercial/aspatial
relationships; lack of trust or
local knowledge

CHANGING COMPETITIVE SPATIAL BOUNDARIES

Consumer relations

Variable consumer
knowledge of place,
production, product, and the
spatial conditions of
production; from face-to-face
to at-a-distance purchasing.
Local/regional processing and
retailing outlets; highly
variable, traceable, and
transparent; spatially
referenced and designed
qualities.
Regional development and
local authority facilitation in
new network and
infrastructure building; local
and regional CAP support
(Pillar II).
Relational, trust-based, local,
and regionally-grounded;
network rather than linearbased; competitive but
sometimes collaborative.

Figure 1. Rural space as competitive space and the battleground between the conventional and
alternative agri-food sectors.

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represents the first phase of scientific treatmenta phase which has been severely hampered by the lack of official statistical data on the trends themselves, and a reluctance
by many national governments to alter the increasingly outmoded data collected under
the conventional agricultural sector.
In the second part of the paper we have begun to posit a second phase of critical
scholarly engagement. This, of course, builds upon the assumption that these processes,
and the academic interest and commitment towards them, will continue to grow. We
believe that this is almost certainly the case given the continuing crises associated
with the conventional agri-food system and the growing vibrancy of the new rural
development/agri-food paradigm which is developing in Europe (see Marsden, 2003;
Van der Ploeg et al., 2000). However, as we attempt to frame in abstract terms in Figure
1, like all intellectual developments this is a highly contingent and contested process.
We cannot assume, for instance, that the agri-industrial system will simply wane despite
its crisis-ridden tendencies. Neither can we expect many new alternative and re-localized
agri-food initiatives not to fall prey to the intense price competitive and economiesof-scale pressures the agri-industrial system places upon them. The processes of
de-localization and re-localization outlined in Figure 1 only begin, in abstract terms,
to delineate what is represented more broadly in the new economic geography literature
as Storpers puzzle (Storper, 1997b, p. 255). As he defines it:

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Sonnino and Marsden

The modern economy can therefore be conceived as a complex organisational puzzle,

consisting of multiple and partially overlapping worlds in which reflexive collective action
unfolds. For any given domain of economic analysis, the task is to understand the
functional nature of the actions spaces involved, and the substantive content of the
conventions relationsthe world of actionby which actors co-ordinate and give shape to
their concrete, functioning activities in that domain.

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Indeed, in this second phase of development we might expect a growing intensity

of pressure on such alternativesnot least from the new technologies associated
with genetically modified (GM) crops, the internationalization of corporate retailing
(Wrigley, 2000), and the continued development of retailer own-brands, which may
alter and rearrange the balance between the alternative and the conventional (see
Bridge et al., 2003).
In the third part of the paper, then, we have attempted to provide some pathways
for further research and debate around deepening the concept of the re-localization of
agri-food. This attempt has highlighted the need for more conceptual and theoretical
progress to be made to strengthen the relationships between vertical and horizontal
forms of embeddedness, and to do so through a more holistic perspective, one which
attempts to integrate strands of political economy, social network theory, and the new
economic geography.
Of central importance here, as Figure 1 suggests, is to infuse our interpretations of
agri-food developments with a stronger understanding of the nature and dynamics of
the relatively embedded competitive spaces occupied by conventional and alternative
foods. This would begin to uncover the evolution of new micro-geographies of rural
space as outcomes (as well as causal factors in their own right) of these competitive
battles. At the very least, the development of alternative food networks is recasting
rural space, or reshaping it by creating niches and new spatial organizational structures
and networks which compete with the more standardized productionist systems established within the conventional sector. In this sense we can posit the arrival of competing
agri-food geographies operating within the same regions, built as they are upon different
sets of quality and commercial conventions and different degrees of horizontal and
vertical embeddedness.
By problematizing the horizontal and vertical dimensions of embeddedness, we
identify three strands, or pathways, for development and exploration under this spatial
and intellectual challenge: (i) to situate more effectively the alternative networks in their
highly competitive, regulatory, and spatial context associated with the conventional
sector (see Figure 1); (ii) to assess the variable ways in which, from both a public
and private governance point of view, agri-food developments and innovations are
becoming a significant part in the broader processes of the social, economic, and political regionalization affecting all European economies (Keating, 1997); and (iii) to give
more weight to assessing the real rural development benefits (and potential dis-benefits)
of agri-food developments, especially by paying more attention to the power relations
among actors both within and among new food networks and in the new types of
spatialized governance and associationalism in which they operate.
In this context, we can conclude that re-localizationas a contested geography of
embedded processes which we identify as a growing and transforming process in the
European agri-food systemis only in its infancy both as an active social, economic,
and political process and in terms of its critical scholarly development. Moreover, the
puzzle is, as we have argued, far more than crudely a reaction to globalization in

Alternative and conventional food networks in Europe

197

Acknowledgements
This paper is part of a research project supported by the Economic and Social Research Council
(UK) entitled Going Local? Regional Innovation Strategies and the New Agri-food Paradigm
(ref Toe50021). The authors would like to thank the editor of this journal and two anonymous
referees for their very helpful comments. They also wish to acknowledge the support of their two
partners in the project: Kevin Morgan and Jonathan Murdoch.

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