Consumption and Grocery Shopping

Mass retailing affected how people shop for food but also how the food was distributed all along, the local and global supply chain. Supermarkets are the largest and which holds more of the power in the agri-food supply chains. Thus they also affect what happened with other possible grocery shops, such as the smaller shops, farmers markets and wholesale markets of fruits and vegetables.

There has been some resistance to the supermarket model. For example, consumer activist have lead some changes through i) Local Agrifood Systems and ii) Alternative Systems such as fair trade, food sovereignty, supranational certification agencies (Clapp, 2012). Local Agrifood System (Systèmes Agroalimentaries Localisés, or SYAL) have emphasis on the community of a specific enclave and their shared forms of knowledge and identity as well its focus is on a territorial production. Alternative Systems are focused also on the place but in a socially constructed way, emphasizing distribution and consumption of a particular commodity.

According to Bowen and Mutersbaugh (2013) SYAL is also linked to environmental characteristics and cultural knowledge, as well political-economy dynamics assert to indicate that the territory determinates rural development. The extensions of this approach is reflected in the territorially based and cooperative agriculture in Mediterranean Europe and Latin America, state-sponsored instructions such as denominations of origins and Geographical indications, mostly in Latin America and Asia (Bowen and Mutersbaugh, 2013).

Alternative Systems contains several different initiatives but with some elements in common, such as the focus on ‘embeddedness,’ which is conceived as social connections in which food relations are circum...

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