Sustainability assessment of food supply chains: an application to local and global bread in Italy

Abstract

Over the 2000s', consumers' food purchases have been increasingly informed by supply chain-related issues, with growing concerns about the sustainability of chains differing for their geographical scope. As a result, short food supply chains and local food systems have risen to policymakers and food chain stakeholders' attention as more sustainable alternatives to mainstream food networks. However, associating food chain's geographical scope and sustainability performance may not be straightforward. This paper aims at shedding lights on the connection between geographical scope and sustainability by comparing and discussing 19 attributes owing to different sustainability dimensions. The analysis anchors on the wheat-to-bread chain, due to its global relevance. Bread is a worldwide staple food and wheat is (generally) a commodity traded globally. However, wheat processing often occurs locally and baking is influenced by local heritage and consumption patterns, particularly in the EU and in Italy, where gastronomy is culturally embedded. The paper identifies critical aspects and provides a qualitative assessment of the performances of local vs global wheat-to-bread chains. The assessment is carried out on Italian case studies.

Are Local Food Chains More Sustainable than Global Food Chains? Considerations for Assessment

“…In several case studies (such as bread in Italy [34], apples in Belgium [33], tomatoes and wine in France [36,40]), local producers adopt organic certification as another strategy for differentiation.…”

“…The localisation strategy pursued by the Tuscan Bread Consortium includes the recognition of the PDO and all operations must take place in Tuscany. The intention of the network is to sell this product on the global market [29,34].…”

Consumers’ Sense of Farmers’ Markets: Tasting Sustainability or Just Purchasing Food?

“…Accordingly, food production can be an interesting resource for the renewal of local economies [20]. In addition, the ethical (e.g., encouraging local food security, social responsibility) and health dimensions (e.g., attention to nutrition and traceability aspects, promoting food safety, seasonality of production) of sustainability are also considered as characteristics of SFSCs, even if they are more implicit rather than explicit [21]. In some cases (i.e., direct selling and farmers' market) SFSCs involve direct contact between the farmer and the end-user of products by means of face-to-face interactions [22].…”

Sustainability of Global and Local Food Value Chains: An Empirical Comparison of Peruvian and Belgian Asparagus

“…Often, the local-global dichotomy is based on the geographical distance between producer and consumer and the supply chain configuration, such as the number of supply chain steps and the kind of marketing channel, e.g., [4,50,51]. However, the maximum distance at which a product changes from being "local" to being "global" is not clearly defined.…”