What contributes to locavorism as a consumer ideology?

Local food consumption: an increasing trend

Local food consumption constitutes a relevant part of local cultures and economies. Despite globalising forces, the consumption of local food is highly supported by many local food advocates and policymakers worldwide. Consumer research has highlighted various insights into consumer preferences for local food, which are mainly linked to personal and societal drivers. With respect to the former category, researchers have identified many factors that positively influence preferences for local food. For example, local products are perceived as having superior taste and as being more connected to rural life and healthier, fresher, and safer than non-local food (Birch et al., 2018). With respect to the latter category, societal drivers are associated with a perception of higher environmental sustainability (i.e. short-distance systems) and social responsibility in terms of supporting local communities (Bianchi and Mortimer, 2015). Accordingly, scholars have noted that the increasing interest in food origins and food chain transparency is due to enhanced sensibility in environmental- and health-related issues (Arsil et al., 2013) and governmental attention to protecting local communities (Coderre et al., 2010). Accordingly, researchers have highlighted that the purchase of local food is also a form of ethical consumption (Young, 2021).

The current positive trend towards local food consumption has been recognised by industry experts as an appealing opportunity to generate additional revenue through the development of appropriate marketing management strategies (Carpio and Isengildina-Massa, 2009). When food is perceived as local, firms experience several benefits related to sales performance (Hoskins et al., 2021). Moreover, despite benefits related to the achievement of global brand status, marketing management research has indicated that an increasing number of consumers are avoiding global brands and preferring locally focussed marketing strategies and offerings (Verhaal et al., 2017). Accordingly, a stream of research within the marketing management field has started to study how brands can leverage locational clues to attract this emerging segment of consumers. For example, recent studies have noted that within-country brands can reach “Local Icon” status, becoming recognised as a cultural symbol by local communities and experiencing significant market success based on this consumer perception (Halkias et al., 2016). In this regard, the perception of localness is boosted by the use of local resources (Davvetas and Diamantopoulos, 2016). Additionally, brands that intend to build a local image can recur to specific labels emphasising the local traits of their business activities (e.g. “artisanal product”) for reinforcing the association of the brand with farm-to-table and farmers markets in the minds of consumers (Weber et al., 2008).

Locavorism as a consumer ideology: what do we know?

For a long time, the purchase of local food was considered the standard option. However, agricultural industrialisation made it possible to increase the distance between producers and consumers in the food industry (Conkin, 2008), which brought a number of benefits. For example, in terms of producers, agricultural industrialisation enabled industrial farms to leverage economies of scale and scope, whereas in terms of social factors, it incentivised technological innovation and reduced food waste. For consumers, this industrialisation increased food accessibility and availability. However, agricultural industrialisation has also had detrimental effects on smaller food economies, the environment and overall food quality (Anderson, 2008). In response to such unintended consequences, an increasing number of consumers are positioning themselves towards prolocal and anti-scale orientations, instigating locavore movements (Reich et al., 2018). As suggested by Reich et al. (2018), locavore consumers distinguish themselves from other consumers in three primary ways based on their belief system: (1) the lionisation of local food, (2) the opposition to long-distance food systems and (3) support for the communalisation of food economies.

To date, the extant literature has offered various empirical findings on locavorism. For example, Stanton et al. (2012) observed that locavore consumers tended to shop more frequently and in a larger number of stores compared to non-locavore consumers. Furthermore, compared to non-locavore consumers, locavore consumers were more sensitive to mass media communication, even if they considered themselves more knowledgeable about food quality and safety. Moreover, they tended to spend more on organic fruits and vegetables and typically had higher incomes than non-locavore consumers. Similarly, Contini et al. (2017) noted that locavore consumers were often aged 45 years or under, prioritised self-enhancement, felt as though they were members of their local community and exhibited greater respect for their local gastronomical traditions. In their scale-development article on locavorism, which aimed at assessing the nomological validity of the scale, Reich et al. (2018) found empirical evidence supporting the concept that locavorism is positively correlated with environmental concerns, ethnocentrism, local retailer loyalty, social desirability and community values. Drawing on the new social movement theory, Choi et al. (2021) found that pro-environmental attitudes, a strong sense of community attachment, and health consciousness positively contributed to the formation of the locavore ideology. In addition, when products were locally sourced, locavorism significantly enhanced the likelihood of purchasing and the willingness to pay more. Kim and Huang (2021) found that locavorist residents perceived restaurants that serve locally sourced food to be more authentic than other restaurants. In addition, they felt better about themselves when visiting restaurants that served locally sourced food. Likewise, Scozzafava et al. (2017) observed that when a restaurant was certified as serving locally sourced food, it was more likely to be selected by locavore consumers. Spielmann and Bernelin (2015), drawing on the theory of reasoned action, found that locavore consumers' product traceability and social influences are positively associated with product involvement. Zhang et al. (2020) noted that collectivistic-type values and long-term orientation were positively associated with locavorism, which positively influenced attitudes towards buying local food.

Despite these empirical articles on locavorism as a consumer ideology, many questions remain regarding the psychological drivers behind the formation of locavorism. Specifically, no researchers have explored the psychological and contextual drivers and main actors that contribute to the formation of locavorism. As Reich et al. (2018) claimed, we still know little about what societal, developmental and system factors can motivate consumers to believe that local foods are superior in quality compared to long-distance food systems and can persuade them to pay greater attention to the welfare of the local food community. To fill this research gap, we complement the extant quantitative research with an in-depth qualitative study.

The narrative approach

To investigate the factors that influence locavorism formation, we adopted an inductive research approach based on narrative enquiry approach (Pentland, 1999). Narrative enquiry has some common elements with grounded theory (Josselson, 2011), such as the iterative use of first- and second-order coding (e.g. Annosi et al., 2022; Bloom et al., 2020; Ferraris et al., 2019). However, unlike grounded theory, we move from the whole to the specific (Josselson, 2011). We believe there are several reasons why narrative enquiry is a suitable approach for this research. First, narrative enquiry allows researchers to gather information in ordered sequences and examine connected events to capture key insights. Second, it would allow us to identify the key actors involved and build a coherent framework. Third, the narrative approach is one of the most frequently used approaches to elicit vivid memories and evaluate detailed stories. Moreover, through in-depth interviews, researchers can identify the mechanisms of interest and observe how they unfold in practice. However, narrative enquiry is not only concerned with the mirroring of social phenomena. Rather, it is a “cognitive and cultural ether that permeates and energises everything that goes on” (Pentland, 1999, p. 712). Fourth, as participants reorganise their thoughts by attempting to reinterpret them in a more rational manner, this allows researchers to reconstruct a stream of thoughts and capture information from behind the collected stories (Czarniawska, 1997). We position our research consistently with the narrative identity approach, which postulates that individuals form their identities in the contexts in which they live by framing their life experiences and re-creating an internalised and evolving story of the self with the aim of unifying and making sense of the events they have experienced (Josselson, 2011).

Methodological procedures

In this study, we followed the guidelines described by Riessman (2008) for each of the five phases: attending, telling, transcribing, analysing and reading. Thus, we started with an attending phase. Narrative enquiry requires great emphasis on the role of empathy, as the creation of emphatic relationships between interviewers and interviewees can increase the likelihood of collecting detailed and vivid information. To familiarise ourselves with the people and context under study, we read several magazines and online blogs on locavorism, conducted informal conversations with local farmers and producers and examined on-topic books to gain a more complete understanding of the roots of locavorism. We also studied a variety of secondary sources to acquire sufficient background knowledge to foster more empathy by gaining insights into this form of consumer ideology, which often manifests as food activism.

After the attending phase, we progressed to gathering information on the participants and their lives. Since narrative enquiry must be conceived in relation to the context, we were aware that the collected interviews would have been largely influenced by the context in which the participants lived and the people with whom they often interacted. Following Bloom et al. (2020), we scheduled interviews on days in which the participants did not have to work or had any particular time constraints. In this way, we tried to elicit rich stories and allowed participants to take all the time they needed to reconstruct key passages. To increase methodological rigour, we conducted and transcribed three preliminary semi-structured interviews to refine our research method. The participants were recruited through snowballing techniques, whereby the authors started by seeking participants from personal contacts and then asked them if they knew other people who might be interested in being interviewed on the topic. Prior to conducting each interview, we administered pre-screening questions to identify locavore consumers, and we excluded non-locavore consumers from the interviews. In particular, we paraphrased the three primary belief dimensions outlined by Reich et al. (2018) and only selected consumers to whom locavorism clearly emerged as a consumer ideology. Our interview protocol covered three main areas of investigation, the first of which concerned the path to locavorism formation. In this section of the research protocol, we focussed on which episodes, events and memories were associated with positive perceptions of local food. The second area was about the types of networks, people, or contextual factors that may have encouraged them towards locavorism formation. The third set of questions was devoted to identifying the triggering mechanisms behind the enhancement of locavorism formation. However, as allowed in the semi-structured interviews for narrative enquiries, we did not rigidly follow all the predefined questions. Rather, we adapted the questions as each interview proceeded, asking participants to provide probes or more details about specific episodes (Riessman, 2008). All the interviews were recorded with the interviewee's permission and lasted 40–70 min. The interviews lasted until the material exhibited repetitive patterns, suggesting a stage of saturation (Eisenhardt, 1989).

The next phase consisted of transcribing and analysing. The analysis initially consisted of representing narratives and then interpreting documents to go beyond literal meanings (Josselson, 2011). Thus, we carefully read each of the transcripts while listening to our audio recordings while simultaneously creating memos and notes in in vivo codes. Subsequently, we reconsidered our transcripts and performed open coding. Specifically, we focussed on narrative segments and performed line-by-line coding (Riessman, 2008). Among other segments, we devoted great attention to the personal episodic tales of what occurred, when and where. For example, we had a variety of open codes such as “I know how the people work here …” or “I go to buy meat from [name of local producer] and I know it is good meat …” that we combined into the code “I know how “we” work”. In general, we exerted great effort to remain close to the participants' expressions and linguistic choices. We then attempted to analyse the stories holistically to build narrative maps and structures. Each researcher carried out this procedure independently, and ultimately we compared narrative maps and discussed the main differences. At the end of this process, the coding procedures exhibited good intercoder agreement between the two authors. When the analyses created different results, they were jointly discussed until a consensus was reached. Subsequently, we entered into a second-order coding phase, providing our interpretations of the stories, grouping similar experiences and highlighting any salient passages. After drawing a number of graphical representations to visualise patterns, we arranged a final model to capture the main psychological and contextual mechanisms that contributed to forming locavorism and what aspects reinforced locavorism in the minds of the locavore consumers. Finally, we entered the reading phase, in which we read our findings with some colleagues and discussed the degree of readability and understandability of our main results.

Sample

The final sample of interviewees consisted of 43 Italian locavore consumers, and the interviews took place from September 2020 to January 2021. Of the 43 interviewees, 23 were female and 20 were male, with an average age of 42.65 years (standard deviation = 15.07). The sample characteristics are reported in detail in Table 1.

For practical reasons, the interviews were conducted in Italian and then translated into English. Back translation was then employed to convey the exact meaning of the translations. To guarantee anonymity, we randomly assigned a unique code to each participant (i.e. I1, I2 and I3), which we refer to when providing quotes.

Individual-level influences on the formation of locavorism

We observed that personal values, beliefs and experiences influenced locavorism formation, as presented in Tables 1–4, respectively.

From the representative quotes and respective codes presented in Table 2 (relating to how personal values influence locavorism formation), the following emerged as determinants of the formation of locavorism: authenticity, respect for nature, issues linked to environmental sustainability, fair trade, preservation of traditions, a return to previous ways of doing things, solidarity and reciprocity.

For example, locavore consumers bought food that met their search for authenticity, which has two meanings for locavore consumers. On the one hand, they searched for products “connected to a sense of genuineness and transparency” (I11), while on the other hand, they looked for an internal consistency between “what labels claim and what [products] actually have” (I30). Such multiple perspectives on authenticity are consistent with the extant literature (Lehman et al., 2018). With respect to the former, locavore consumers perceived local products as more authentic and “intrinsically more genuine and fresher” (I21), which contributed to the formation of their beliefs about which local products were superior to other products. With respect to the latter, local producers proposed more consistent labels between their promised and proposed offerings, rendering them more capable of meeting the search criteria for authentic experiences demanded by locavore consumers. In sum, the findings indicated that locavore consumers search for authentic food and reward those producers who are able to keep their offerings genuine and coherent. This excerpt from I43 illustrates this pattern: “After a few months of trials, I decided to select only products coherent to their labels [which in most cases are] local ones”. Consistently, we formulated the following proposition:

From the representative quotes and respective codes presented in Table 3 (relating to how personal beliefs influence the formation of locavorism), it emerged that locavore consumers believed they had a deep knowledge of the area where they lived, of the production processes and treatments related to local production, and of the way in which local people worked. Locavore consumers also believed that local food is fresher and of greater quality than non-local food and that the consumption of local food is in tune with our organisms.

For example, with respect to the ‘I know how “we” work” code, several locavore consumers believed they knew how local producers operated. Interviewee I4 from the Veneto region stated, “I know how we Venetians work”, while I20 from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region stated, “We all know how Friulians work”. This belief had a direct influence on locavorism formation because, as stated by I20, “Even if I do not know the brand, I know I can trust Friulans”, and therefore “most of the times I opt for local food”. Considering these patterns, we formulated the following proposition:

From the representative quotes and respective codes presented in Table 4 (relating to how past experiences influence the formation of locavorism), it emerged that locavore consumers often associate the purchase of local food with good memories, established habits and the perception of relevant differences between local and non-local products in light of past experiences. For example, with respect to this latter aspect, various locavore consumers were in close contact with farmers and appreciated the freshness and quality of local food. Here, I3 stated, “I started hanging out with a friend who had a farm, and this made me better appreciate what it means to eat products from our area”. Accordingly, we formulated the following proposition:

Social-level influences on the formation of locavorism

We found that consumers can be influenced by the groups they frequent (e.g. family, friends and colleagues), local communities (e.g. local farmers and shopkeepers) and society in a broader sense (e.g. social movements and mass media). Tables 5–7 cover these three aspects.

From the representative quotes and respective codes presented in Table 5 (relating to how groups influence the formation of locavorism), it emerged that people are exposed to locavorism through various constructs. These included exchanging opinions with close contacts, being inspired by people close to them, word of mouth, family habits and changes in family contexts (e.g. going to live with a partner). Therefore, locavorism can be influenced by word of mouth, especially among people who trust each other. As noted by I2, “when [her] mom talks with [her] friends, she takes note of many interesting places to buy fresh local food”, although, more generally, their town is characterised by “word of mouth and mutual trust”. Accordingly, we formulated the following proposition:

As shown by the representative quotes and respective codes presented in Table 6 (relating to how local communities influence the formation of locavorism), people are exposed to locavorism through various methods. These included shopkeepers' suggestions, the creation of emphatic relationships by local consumers, self-managed marketing campaigns, fairs, events, grassroots organisations, collective purchase groups and municipalities' initiatives. Several interviewees stated that they appreciated self-managed marketing campaigns by small local farmers. As stated by I11, “The presence on social networks by small local activities allows me to always be informed about what is the product of the season”, which, in turn, “creates a relationship [based on] trust”. Based on our interviews, we formulated the following proposition:

Based on the representative quotes and respective codes presented in Table 7 (relating to how local communities influence the formation of locavorism), it emerged that people are exposed to locavorism through social movements, mass media communication, marketing campaigns, social media, food bloggers and “objective” quality rankings. For example, mass media communication shaped the way consumers think, which was particularly evidenced by I1, who stated, “Watching TV increased my awareness of climate change. On my own, I was never informed much about it, but then, following the news, I realised that there are many ways to support our planet, [and one of them is to buy] local food to pollute less”. Based on these findings, we formulated the following proposition:

The impact of exogenous factors on locavorism formation

From our interviews, it emerged that exogenous factors could also affect locavorism formation, with our interviewees explaining how the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the “blue mozzarella” scandal, and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the formation of locavorism. For example, I25 stated,

In the 90s, there was the talk of mad cow disease that perhaps influenced a bit all the consumption of those who eat meat. I started buying local from that time. […] Or do you remember the ‘blue mozzarella‘? There have been these scandals that have somewhat directed consumption to local products; even those episodes have left their mark on our culture, at least on mine. So, even if I buy at the supermarket, I make sure that the product is local.

With respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, I31 noted, “Consider, for example, the period passed with the lockdown [for the Covid-19 pandemic]: it somehow taught us to appreciate our territories and to consume local products”. Therefore, we formulated the following proposition:

Reinforcing loops among the three belief dimensions of locavorism

Consistent with Reich et al. (2018), we found empirical evidence that corroborated the presence of reinforcing loops among the three belief dimensions of locavorism. For example, I27 stated,

When I walk in the local markets, I smell the food of our land, and I realise how lucky we are to be able to benefit from these flavours and great quality. […] Sometimes, I wonder why certain foods have to come from Germany or France when ours have a very high quality.

This demonstrates how lionisation and opposition are intertwined. In a similar vein, I28 stated, “The local economy should be supported, and not only for a matter of solidarity for our small economic reality, but also because it means greater naturalness, authenticity and seasonality of the products”. Overall, our interviews confirmed the presence of co-influences among the three belief dimensions of locavorism. Lionisation enhanced trust in local systems as opposed to long-distance ones (opposition), which resulted in support for the local system (communalisation). Accordingly, and consistent with Reich et al. (2018), we formulated the following proposition: