Sustainability Free Full-Text Between Imitation and Embeddedness: Three Types of Polish Alternative Food Networks

Jung, Klein and Caldwell remark that informal networks between peasants and consumers were raised out of necessity under conditions of the shortage economy and recurring problems with food supply. The period of ‘real socialism’ with its ’structural production of mistrust’ to institutions made people rely on personal bonds rather than institutional signs of quality. Describing the dynamics of mixing, we want to point out that food obtained from short food chains is commonly used in Poland as a local development tool able to increase the added value of small, family-based agricultural farms and boost the attractiveness attractions of a particular area for tourists. The practices involved in food production, processing, and sale are linked to ideas of developing rural or, more rarely, urban areas. For this reason, Poland has seen the development of a number of similar initiatives that refer to local tourist products, tourist fairs and open air marketplaces, restaurants, and farm tourism.

AFNs have been an important part of this trend , as they have been defined as practices opposed to the mainstream, industrial food system. They are centred around the notions of quality and spatial /social embeddedness. AFNs represent a variety of structures, in fact, based on different values defining their specific goals.