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The Ethics and Politics of Food Purchasing Choices in Italian Consumers’ Collective Action

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Abstract

Currently, many consumers have expressed strong opinions about food production process, its distribution, and guaranteeing models. Consumers’ concerns about ecological and social sustainability issues can have significant impacts on both food demand and food policies. The choice of approach to an asset or service could determine the orientation of the markets; therefore, it is particularly important to pay attention to novel, collective, social movements which are practicing alternatives to the mainstream models of production, distribution, and consumption. Farmers markets, solidarity-based purchasing groups, box scheme, shopping groups, ‘pick your own’, social shopping, are all examples of sustainable consumption patterns involving thousands of people seeking quality and ethical products and services at the best price. While a variety of definitions of the concept of ethical consumption have been suggested, throughout this paper it will refer to the participation of consumers in, and their orientation toward, political discourses on sustainable and fair agro-food production. Ethical consumption attitude has been analysed in the framework of political consumerism theory by administering six focus groups among Italian participants of a specific form of collective action, namely the solidarity-based purchasing group. Findings provide insights that represent a fruitful starting point for deepening the analysis of ethical consumers’ behaviour at a broader level in order to sustain and spread eco-socially production practices and ethical consumption behaviour.

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Notes

  1. As noted by DuPuis (2000) and Long and Murray (2013) not all ethical consumers have the same level of commitment to purchase ethical products. When the ethical consumers “[are] not social activist[s], nor [are they] committed to a particular political point of view” it would be more appropriate to refer to them as reflexive consumers (DuPuis 2000: p. 289).

  2. Figure 2 reports the 24 topics more discussed.

  3. For reference, consult IFOAM website: https://www.ifoam.bio/en/organic-policy-guarantee/participatory-guarantee-systems-pgs

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Acknowledgements

This study is part of the research project EcoLab: Alternative Eco-labelling strategies for sustainable consumption of food products, financed in 2015 by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy.

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  1. Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Via delle Pandette, 9, 50127, Florence, Italy

    Giovanna Sacchi

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  1. Giovanna Sacchi
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Sacchi, G. The Ethics and Politics of Food Purchasing Choices in Italian Consumers’ Collective Action. J Agric Environ Ethics 31, 73–91 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-018-9710-2

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