What is meant by ‘Local’ food? The case of Independent Coffee shops in a British market town.

Abstract

Only limited academic attention has been paid to the perspective of the owner/manager of the independent coffee shop in the UK, particularly with regards to the journey of ‘local’ food onto the plate of the customer in that setting. This lack of attention is surprising; the role of owner/manager who exists between supplier and customer is pivotal, as it is they who source and display what they perceive to be ‘local’ food items on the menu. If increased local food consumption is to be encouraged in order to contribute to the current sustainability imperative, it is important to consider how these owners/managers understand the term ‘local’ food and the extent to which they operationalise it in the everyday experience of the coffee shop. The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to explore the owner/manager perspective of local food by focusing on their attitudes towards ‘local food on the menu’, ‘sourcing of local food’, and ‘definitions and concepts of local food’ whilst also acknowledging the importance of the customer dimension.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten coffee shop owners/managers with ninety-one customer survey questionnaires also completed in five of those coffee shops, in the small rural market town of Oswestry, Shropshire. The results reveal that independent coffee shop owners/managers adopt a reflexive approach to both the sourcing and understanding of ‘local’ food and they do this in order to accommodate their own operational reality. The role of the owner/manager in the pursuit of getting local food onto the plate of customers, who like to see it on the menu, cannot and should not therefore be underestimated.

An intervention of a best practice aide-memoire for owners/managers is therefore proposed, which offers the potential to assist the independent coffee shop owner/manager in achieving further provision of local food on the menu, for their customers.