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A preliminary assessment of its form and impact in Gloucestershire
Countryside and Community Research Unit, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK
Keywords Food products, Localization, Rural development, Economic sustainability, Trust, Farms, Retailers, United Kingdom Abstract ``Local food'' is attracting considerable policy and public interest, but evidence is lacking about the emerging contours of the local food sector. This paper offers a preliminary assessment of the local food sector in the county of Gloucestershire. Based on interviews with farmers and retailers, it investigates the scope of local food production in the county, assesses the nature of the local food chain and considers the potential of local food production and marketing for adding value for the various actors in the chain, from producer to retailer. Questions are raised in the conclusion about the coherence and sustainability of the local food sector in the county given the differences in the ways in which producers and retailers construct ``local'' and some unintended consequences of the efforts to promote local food.

The local food sector
Carol Morris and Henry Buller

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A growing enthusiasm for ``local food''
We believe that one of the greatest opportunities for farmers to add value and retain a bigger slice of retail prices is to build on the public's enthusiasm for locally-produced food, or food with a clear regional provenance (Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food, 2002, p. 43).

The identification, by the Policy Commission, of ``local food'' as a rural development and farm income opportunity is mirrored in a growing number of policy statements and programmes that are emerging from government departments and agencies (e.g. DEFRA, 2002; Countryside Agency, 2000), non-governmental organisations such as the CPRE (2001) and Sustain, and also, increasingly, institutions within the private sector (e.g. Waitrose's (2003) ``locally sourced'' and Somerfield's (2003) ``local life'' initiatives). The advocates of ``local food'', together with those investigating the phenomenon, appear to be concerned with two types of inter-related development. The first approach to local food emphasises ``locality as a closed or bounded system'', where food is produced, processed and retailed within a geographically circumscribed area defined in various ways as ``local''. Typically, although not exclusively, this entails the development of mechanisms or systems of food supply that are in some ways ``alternative'' to the ``conventional'' channels (particularly those associated with the multiple retailers and large food processing companies), and include farmers' markets, farm shops, box schemes, community supported agriculture, and LETs schemes (e.g. Hinrichs, 2000; Holloway and Kneafsey, 2000; Marsden et al., 2000; Hinrichs, 2003). The second approach looks to the ``locality as value added for export''. This places more emphasis on particular

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food products that are distinguished, by means of devices such as labelling and accreditation/certification schemes, as coming from a defined geographical area but may not necessarily be purchased and consumed in that place (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 1998, 2000a; Banks and Bristow, 1999; Murdoch et al., 2000). Examples abound, but include Jersey Royal potatoes, Orkney beef and Welsh lamb. In either case, the increased attention to ``localness'' is often associated, indeed in many cases conflated, with ``speciality'', ``traditional'' and/or ``quality'' foods (Bessiere, 1998; de Roest and Menghi, 2000; Treagar, 2001; Parrott et al., 2002; Winter, 2003). The recent rise to prominence, over the last decade or so, of local food as an issue of public and policy interest is widely attributed to a complex combination of political, economic and socio-cultural conditions. Key amongst these is the problem of declining agricultural incomes combined with a succession of crises within the agricultural sector, such as those involving Listeria, Salmonella, E. Coli, BSE and Foot and Mouth Disease, all of which have lead to a loss of consumer confidence in the food system and a rise in the level of concern for the way in which food is produced (Nygard and Storstad, 1998). Thus we have witnessed the emergence of the ``reflexive'' and ``discerning'' consumer (Morris and Young, 2000; DuPuis, 2000; Goodman and DuPuis, 2002). Many of the reasons underpinning the emergence of local food can be understood as a reaction, by producers and consumers alike, to the standardised and mass-produced food products of the globalised food economy, typically associated with trans-national food processing and retail companies, in which ever greater distances (and disconnection) have been created between the production and consumption of food. Local food, in either of its forms outlined above, offers an alternative to this globalised system and a number of potential benefits such as a reduction in ``food miles'', market opportunities for producers who are struggling to remain competitive in a global market place, income multiplier effects (as a greater proportion of the money spent in local food outlets remains within the local economy), rural development, and better information flow to consumers about where their food has come from and how it has been produced. In short, local food, it is believed, is more sustainable than its global counterpart. While the idea of local foods is clearly capturing the imagination of a wide range of actors, much of the activity surrounding the issue exists at the level of advocacy, rather than in relation to detailed empirical research into the extent and impact of local food initiatives or analysis of this evidence and the development of critique. There are some notable exceptions to this general rule (e.g. Marsden et al., 2000; Hinrichs, 2003; Winter, 2003), but a lack of evidence about the existing and emerging contours of the local food sector is a problematic feature of the debate. Specifically, evidence is lacking of the ways in which key actors within specific localities are adapting to the challenges and opportunities of local food, and in particular, the strategies adopted by farmers to capture a greater share of the value added in the (local) food chain. In response to this research lacuna, this paper offers a preliminary assessment of

the local food sector in the county of Gloucestershire. It investigates the range and scope of local food production in the county, assesses the nature of the food chain operating with respect to local foods and considers the potential of local food production and marketing for adding value for the various actors in the chain, from producer to retailer. It thereby intends to provide empirical evidence for some of the claims currently being made about local foods as a wide-ranging panacea for producers, retailers and consumers alike. In methodological terms, the research has entailed interviews (conducted during 2002) with 15 farmers and producers, identified as participants in the local food sector, and with eight retailers who specifically offer local foods to consumers. In the concluding section of the paper, questions are raised about the coherence and sustainability of the local food sector in the county given the differences in the ways in which producers and retailers construct ``local'', and some unintended consequences of the efforts to promote local food. The Gloucestershire local food sector A necessary starting point must be the definition of ``local food sector''. Agronomic or environmental factors or historic precedent are generally employed to define the territorial parameters of product designations such as the French Appellation d'origine controlee or the EU's PDO and PGI labels  (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000b). However, in the British context ``local food'' is more often defined simply by reference either to the existing socio-administrative area, such as a county, in which it is generally produced or to an unspecified distance factor (where, for example, under 50 miles might constitute ``local'' whereas 100 miles might not). A second difficulty is with the concept of a distinct ``sector'' for such sectors are never closed systems. Producers do not solely serve the local area but often seek to sell beyond it (indeed, economics may dictate this). While they may direct specific parts of their production to the local retailers and consumers, other products may enter the global agro-food sector. Consumers, likewise, rarely meet all their food needs from local sources but frequently combine them with other more conventional food acquisition modes that draw upon the provenance of international food trade. Hence, from the outset, we acknowledge that the organising concept of a local food sector is empirically contestable and spatially indeterminate, other than in a relatively arbitrary sense. Nevertheless, it has important symbolic and arguably economic potency in the development of an alternative model of food chain relations that is currently proselytised within policy discourses. For the sake of convenience, for this study the county of Gloucestershire was taken as the defining territorial focus with participants in the local food sector being identified as those who sold a proportion of their output to local retailers or directly to consumers within the county; though, as we show below, this definition was on occasion contested by respondents. Although agricultural modernisation has made arable farming the predominant land user within the county, Gloucestershire displays an impressive range of food products which build upon a longstanding tradition of

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socially and geographically embedded local production (Table I). The county boasts two EU PDO/PGIs. There are a large number of farm shops and over 150 organic and local food and drink producers who seek to market at least some, if not all, their production within the county. One of the characteristic features of the local food sector is its reliance upon a different set of food chain outputs from those customarily associated with more conventional agro-food product chains. For a selected number of farms, Table II identifies the relative importance of the different outputs employed by product and by farm. Three points can be made from this distribution. First, the concentration of output volumes in sales at the farm and at farmers' markets suggests that the growth of the local food sector has been largely contingent upon the emergence and multiplication of such new nodes of producer-consumer interchange. Second, it is significant that the dynamic for establishing these new outputs is coming essentially from the food producers themselves and not from other actors in the food chain. Third, the relative abandonment of the more conventional output channels, such as wholesalers and food processors, implies that the local food sector is becoming increasingly independent of them, operating within its own organisational food-chain framework. This is supported by the fact that a number of interviewees were in the process of actively disengaging from their former dependence upon mainstream commercial food chain businesses, shifting output volumes from large-scale dairies and abattoirs, for example, to local butchers shops and specialist shops. An obvious motivation for selling farm produce at these alternative venues is the greater sale prices that can be obtained there. Respondents to this survey virtually unanimously identified sales at the farm and farm shops as being the most profitable in terms of added value. For meat producers, prices for beef cuts sold directly to consumers were considered to be on average around 50 per cent higher than those from meat wholesalers. Farmers' markets, though also widely used, involve generally higher running costs to producers, either through registration or site fees or through labour costs incurred as a result of producers having to present at the point of sale. Traditional outlets (abattoirs, caterers, wholesalers) offer lower prices certainly but this has to be offset
Milk, yoghurt, dairy products Duck eggs Double Gloucester cheese Geese eggs Single Gloucester cheese Chicken eggs Forester cheese Poultry Dunlop cheese Lamb Smoked Dunlop cheese Beef Blue Heaven cheese Pork Hard cheese Sausages Soft cheese Pies Goat's cheese Trout Bread and bakery products Goat's milk Sheep milk Mushroom logs Over 50 vegetable types Apples Pears and other orchard produce Cider Perry Apple juice Other beverages Comfrey fertiliser Herbs Asparagus

Table I. Principal products of the Gloucestershire local food sector

Product Goat's milk Sheep milk Cheese Duck eggs Herbs Beef Pork Lamb Eggs Prepared food Mushroom logs Apple juice Chickens Beef Cheese Cheese Milk Pork Sausages Pies Beef Vegetables Fruit Cider/apple juice Lamb Turkey Pork and beef Asparagus Apple juice Cider Perry Apples

Sales at Farmers' Specialist or farm markets local shops Shows Catering Wholesale Processors 50 100 20 90 65 25 ± 20 50 40 10 30 60 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± 70 50 30 20 67 20 25 ± 10 5 ± ± ± 50 10 10 25 40 30 50 60 20 25 40 50 95 50 ± 80 100 40 100 20 50 25 20 ± ± ± 60 90 95 100 50 ± 30 ± ± ± ± ± ± 70 45 ± 50 ± 50 ± 20 ± 60 ± ± ± 30 ± 33 ± 50 20 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± 25 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± 25 40 30 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± 25 20 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± 20 ± ± ± ± ± ± 5 ± 100 ± ± ± ± 10 ± 15 60 ± 80 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± 25 10 ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ± ±

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Note: All except one of the surveyed producers provided relevant information

Table II. Percentage of total product volume by sale on output

against the fact that, in the words of one producer: ``there are no selling costs and less hassle''. A critical factor in the choice between the two sets of outlets is the size of the operation:
Wholesalers offer the worst unit price, but they are high volume. Farmers market and direct are the best although these have a more variable customer base.

For many producers in the local food sector, their production volumes are insufficiently large to meet the requirements of supermarkets and wholesalers. However, local food sector producers claim to seek more than just financial advantage and greater profitability in their bridging of the classic producerconsumer divide. Amongst the wider benefits to producers identified in this survey were:

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engendering support for the local farming community and small businesses; re-establishing trust between producers and consumers; developing a sense of community integration; contributing to, and seeking just remuneration for, the maintenance of regional landscape and identity; and keeping traditional foods and food knowledge alive.

It is significant, therefore, that in line with this newly acquired sense of social responsibility, new organisations and networks are coming into being, on the one hand, to promote local products (such as ``Taste of the West'' and ``Gloucestershire food links'') and, on the other hand, to foster collective endeavour amongst producers (from farmers' market organisations to self-help, speciality trade and advisory groups). All of the producers interviewed were members of one or more of these organisations and networks whose existence reinforces the sense that a distinct food sector is emerging, lying within the interstices of the mainstream. Retailers comprise another important component of the local food sector and Gloucestershire is renowned for the number of its specialist food retailers. A selection of these were also interviewed in a parallel element to this research. Their role in maintaining the local food sector is highly significant though at least as much for the overall profile it gives to local produce as for the volumes actually sold. Indeed, the quantities of many locally supplied foods varied depending upon the season, upon the need to meet shifting regulations and upon the vagaries of small-scale production, leading to what could be major shifts in the ratio of local to non-local foods sold throughout the year. This was often described as erratic with many retailers ultimately preferring the security of wholesaler delivery schedules (though these can obviously include wholesalers who source locally). Hence while many retailers expressed their support for local produce and stressed the advantages of selling it, identifying a clear customer preference, a number also reported falling local product sales in recent years. This can be explained not only by the steady encroachment of supermarkets into local and quality food retailing but also by the growth of the alternative retailing outlets, such as farmers' markets, identified above. Conclusions Evidence from empirical research into Gloucestershire's producers and specialist retailers provides support for the contention that the local food sector is a growing and dynamic element of the food system in the UK. However, the evidence also suggests that the current policy framework may be acting to marginalize this activity by limiting the access of producers to support for conversion to local food provision. New policy measures such as the Processing and Marketing Grant (PMG) scheme and Rural Enterprise Scheme (both of which are designed to assist the development of local/quality foods and were

introduced in England under the England Rural Development Programme which operates 2000-2006) have had a limited impact in Gloucestershire. None of the producers interviewed had used these grant schemes to help them develop their local food enterprises, indeed a general lack of financial support was emphasized. Interestingly, of the two producers who had sought financial assistance from government initiatives, both had drawn down grants from the Foot and Mouth recovery programme, lending support for the notion that the Foot and Mouth outbreak has acted as a watershed between the operation of food regimes. If the recommendations of the Policy Commission, with respect to the local food sector, are to have a genuine impact, more diverse and appropriate policy mechanisms may need to be put in place. Finally, some observations can be offered about the nature and meaning of ``local''. It is apparent that three types of localism are operating within this food sector. The first of these, which might be termed ``parochial localism'', emphasizes the defense and support of local farmers, in addition to the protection of the local area (either in a socio-cultural or environmental sense) and the maintenance of tradition (see also Hinrichs, 2003; Winter, 2003). ``Flexible localism'', meanwhile, implies that the emphasis on local food provisioning is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Thus, Gloucestershire retailers used ``local'' in a very fluid sense which typically related to their need to maintain supplies, sometimes referring to ``British'' as local and at other times ``within a 25 mile radius''. Producers also used the notion of local in a flexible way (although less frequently than retailers) where they extended their networks, e.g. buying in from outside the county, in order to ensure the output of a locally branded product. Finally, a ``competitive localism'' can be identified which, more than the other two forms, arguably presents one of the biggest threats to the sector. This was most apparent in the survey where ``new'' forms of local food sector activity, such as farmers' markets and other forms of direct retailing organised by producers, had negatively impacted on the ability of more established local retailers to source local supplies. The evident tensions presented by these different forms of localism will need to be addressed if the local food sector is to realize its potential.
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