There is growing consumer interest in locally produced food and farmers and retailers play an important part in this growing niche market. Up-to-date and reliable data are necessary to create efficient distribution lines, but there is currently a dearth of aggregate data available to assess the distribution channels of local foods. The research questions for this thesis are motivated by the potential for growth in the local food market, and a need to investigate the role of consumer co-ops in achieving that potential. In Article 1, results from 67 surveys by consumer co-op managers and memberworkers from the American Northeast are reported. A conservative estimate for the Northeast co-ops’ contribution to the local food market is $21,253,750 annually, an average of 17.2% of co-ops’ expenditure being spent on local food. Article 1 identifies the consistency with which various food categories are sourced locally by co-op, and identifies the reasons for and barriers to sourcing locally. An ordinary least squares model reveals that the average percent locally sourced by co-ops whose mission includes sourcing locally is 12.7-percent higher than those whose mission does not include sourcing locally. No difference in percent locally sourced is found between co-ops from different settings (urban, suburban, rural), or Cooperative Grocer ranking (large, medium, small). Article 2 reports on the follow-up unstructured interviews with 58 co-op managers and member-workers. The five principal barriers to sourcing locally – locating local producers, co-op cooperation, organic certification, competition, and distribution – are discussed and various solutions that co-op managers have implemented are described. It is argued that co-ops act as local food hubs in the local food market, providing local producers with a year-round outlet for their products. Alleviating the specific barriers to sourcing locally will allow co-ops to achieve their potential in that role. Overall, improved communication among co-ops and between co-ops and farmers can begin to address some barriers to sourcing locally. Further, other groups such as NOFA, regional localvore groups, state agricultural extension agencies, and others can continue to facilitate communication and share pertinent information. It further suggests that filling some of the gaps can contribute to alleviating barriers identified by co-op managers and member workers. If co-ops are interested in sourcing more of what they sell from local producers, using percent of expenditure locally sourced as a marker can be useful for setting specific goals, while addressing the barriers to sourcing locally can help co-ops and producers meet these goals.

No description available.

Background: Research focusing on Food Distribution (FD) from various professionals’ and organisational perspectivesare lacking. The aim of this study was therefore to explore various professionals’ experiences of involvement in FD inorder to get comprehensive understanding of the organisation, responsibilities and roles. Methods: This qualitative study is a part of a larger project with an action research approach focusing on FD in themunicipal home service and care for home-living elderly persons in a municipality in southern Sweden. The data wascollected through participatory observations (n=90 occasions and in total 480 hours), repeated focus group interviews (n =4) with different professionals (n =10) involved in the FD process and one individual interview. The material was analysedby qualitative manifest and latent content analysis. Results: The study indicates that Food Distribution is a fragmentary intervention where a comprehensive perspective andclear roles of responsibility are lacking. The FD organisation seemed to be strictly divided and limited by constraintsregarding time and money. The fragmented organisation led partly to staff only taking responsibility for their part of thechain and no one having the full picture of and responsibility for the FD process, but also to some professionals takingmore responsibility than they were supposed to. Conclusions: The aim of the study was met by using an action research approach. The study was however limited by thatno home help officers were represented. The FD appeared as an extremely complex chain of different but connectedactivities. It is not merely the distribution of a product, i.e. the meal box. The fragmentation of FD means that staff onlytakes responsibility for their part of the chain, and that no one has the full picture of or responsibility for the FD process.Consequently, there is a need for an outline of responsibilities. The findings have implications for nursing, gerontology,and in the care for the elderly. / <p><strong></strong> </p>

Food distribution (FD) is a part of the public social and care service in Sweden aiming to prevent improper food intake for persons that they are unable to do their own shopping, and prepare their own meals, and in that way ensure reasonable standard of living. Before a person can be granted the FD service, from any municipality, an assessment of their individual requirements has to be made by a public home care officer. The aim of this study was to explore how public home care officers reason when they make a needs assessment for homebound elderly people. The data was collected through individual interviews (n=18). The transcribed interview material was analysed by means of the grounded theory method. The findings showed that the public home care officers were confronted with many challenges when making an assessment of a person’s individual needs. They are influenced by their subjective feelings related to their personal views as to what should be the right solution for the individual. However, they remained aware that they needed to be guided by the legal requirements.  Further, they described that the level of an individual’s living standard is a leading concept in the governing laws that they need to interpret. Interpretation of this concept is very subjective with the possible consequence that an assessment result may lead to inefficient support. In conclusion, the concept of a reasonable standard of living needs to be clearly defined, decision regarding FD should not take long time, need assessment and decision should be based on the whole picture behind each individual case and there are needs to develop general guidelines for making needs assessment. The findings in this study have implications for public administration, nursing and gerontology.

This study delves into the local food system of Eugene, Oregon to focus on this community’s small-scale growers and their distribution strategies. The various distribution strategies open to small-scale local growers each require their own kind of work. In determining how to allocate their time and energy, growers consider these activities alongside the benefits that each distribution strategy offers. Certain distribution arrangements with smaller bulk buyers like restaurants and community grocery stores, which I term “direct wholesale” arrangements, offer the benefit of providing long-term, close relationships. These arrangements provide value that more than compensates for the work of establishing and maintaining these arrangements in the first place. In this context, these close-ties developed through “direct wholesale” provide the best platform for the viability of a small-scale, local farm in Eugene, Oregon.

Yes / Based on their study of the food distribution supply chain, Can Eksoz and Dilek Önkal argue that the distributor has largely been overlooked in the principles we’ve created for collaborative demand and supply planning. Their article re-inserts the distributor into the supply chain and examines the challenges of collaboration from the distributor’s vantage point. This is a good lesson in how collaborative agreements must address the particular structures of the supply chain as well as the markets in which the supply-chain partners operate.

The corner store represents a significant part of New Orleans' history and neighborhoods. From essential grocery providers to bars and restaurants full of local character, these buildings have held a number of roles in the community. These roles have changed in response to development patterns, market pressures, and land-use regulation. A number of these traditional businesses still exist today as neighborhood cultural institutions throughout the city. Many more, however, have faced conversions to residential buildings, abandonment, or demolition. This case study addresses the significance of the corner store, identifies a number of factors leading to its decline, and suggests that a newly revised Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance in the city of New Orleans should reserve a place for these neighborhood businesses.

Syftet med studien var att beskriva hur äldre personer som bor i ordinärt boende och har matsdistribution genom kommunen upplever sin matsituation. Studien har genomförts genom ostrukturerade intervjuer med åtta personer som var över 75 år som bodde i hemmet och hade matdistribution genom kommunen. Data bearbetades genom kvalitativ manifest innehållsanalys. Resultatet redovisas i fem olika kategorier som handlar om matens beskaffenhet och innehåll, interna och externa förutsättningar, anpassning, behov och strategier och beroende av andra personer. De äldre personerna upplevde att de saknade socialt sällskap vid måltider. De upplevde att matdistributionen var ett bra sätt att få i sig mat när man inte klarade det själv. Det största missnöjet med matlådan var att potatisen inte upplevdes smaka bra. Upplevelsen att inte känna hunger var särskilt märkbar bland de som upplevde att hälsan var försämrad, var nedstämd, hade få sociala relationer, hade fysiska begränsningar och var i behov av mycket hjälp från hemtjänsten. Hemtjänsten beskrevs vara en viktig social kontakt, men alla informanter upplevde att personalen var stressade. Studiens slutsats visar att informanter önskar aktivare personal som stöd vid måltider och att matlådans portion bör minskas. Den minskade portionen ska innehålla näringstät kost för de som är i behov av det. Matlådorna och potatisen bör göras mer aptitlig för att äldre ska få ökad aptit. Nyckelord: äldre människor, undernäring, matdistribution, ordinärt boende. / The aim of the study was to describe how older people living in ordinary housing and had food distribution by the municipality was experiencing its meal situation. The study has been carried out through unstructured interviews with eight people who were over 75 years who living in their own homes and had food distribution by the municipality. Data were analysed using qualitative manifest content analysis and five categories revealed: about food's nature and content , internal and external conditions , adaptation, needs and strategies and being dependent on other people. The informant felt that they missed having social companionship at mealtimes. They felt that the food distribution was a good way to ingest food when you were unable to do it youself . The biggest gripe with the mealbox was that the potatoes were perceived not tasting good. The informant also described not feeling hungry this was particularly noticeable among those who felt that their health was deteriorating , was miserable, had few social relationships, had physical limitations and was in need of much help from home care services . Home service was described as an important social contact, but all informants felt that the staff was stressed. The study's conclusion indicates that informants wish more active staff support at mealtimes and that lunchbox portion should be reduced. The reduced portion should contain nourished diet for those who are in need of it. Lunch boxes and the potatoes should be made more appetizing to older should get increased appetite Keywords: older people , malnutrition, food distribution, ordinary housing .

Food is fundamental for humans to survive and vital for development. Food security is a major issue and sustaining it is a challenge for the countries of the world. With climate change and other environmental andsocial factors greatly influencing the current chances for world food security, it is of prime importance for countries to work towards achieving it. A major part of the poor and vulnerable section of people lives in the developing and poor countries with rampant food insecurity issues. To achieve the UN‟s Millennium Development goal of halving hunger by 2015, food security measures are implemented in poor and developing countries with the help of world organizations to alleviate poverty and hunger. This paper studies the situation in India, where poverty and hunger is a major block for the development progress. India has proven its authority in various fields with a fast developing economy. On the other hand, poverty and hunger prevail among almost half of the country‟s people. The country has taken various measures to attain food security and curb hunger among the poor. The major welfare measure in the country is the food distribution schemes implemented by the government. The performance among different states in the country varies due to various factors. The performances of the country as a whole and of the southern state of Tamil Nadu are taken into consideration for this paper. The paper will deal with the performance and related issues such as policies, administration, operations and social influences on the food distribution system in a comparison between Tamil Nadu and the rest of the country. Based on the official records on procurement and distribution of food grains as well as on literature studies on the food security situation in India and Tamil Nadu state, this paper suggests that there is a need to modify the mechanisms that constitute the distribution system, which can be learnt from Tamil Nadu state where the performance is better than the average for India as a whole. Even though Tamil Nadu faces similar problems asother States, the better performance of Tamil Nadu does not affect the food distribution system in the country. At the national level, the situation is worse with magnified problems of performance affecting the food distribution system.

The methods and principles of cybernetics are applied to a discussion of stability and regulation in social systems taking a global viewpoint. The fundamental but still classical notion of stability as applied to homeostatic and ultrastable systems is discussed, with a particular reference to a specific well-studied example of a closed social group (the Tsembaga studied by Roy Rappaport in New Guinea). The discussion extends to the problem of evolution in large systems and the question of regulating evolution is addressed without special qualifications. A more comprehensive idea of stability is introduced as the argument turns to the problem of evolution for viability in general. Concepts pertaining to the problem of evolution are exemplified by a computer simulation model of an abstractly defined ecosystem in which various dynamic processes occur allowing the study of adaptive and evolutionary behaviour. In particular, the role of coalition formation and cooperative behaviour is stressed as a key factor in the evolution of complexity. The model consists of a population of several species of dimensionless automata inhabiting a geometrically defined environment in which a commodity essential for metabolic requirements (food) appears. Automata can sense properties of their environment, move about it, compete for food, reproduce or combine into coalitions thus forming new and more complex species. Each species is associated with a specific genotype from which the species’ behavioural characteristics (its phenotype) are derived. Complexity and survival efficiency of species increases through coalition formation, an event which occurs when automata are faced with an “undecidable” situation that is resolvable only by forming a new and more complex organization. Exogenous manipulation of the food distribution pattern and other critical factors produces different environmental conditions resulting in different behaviour patterns of automata and in different evolutionary “pathways.” Eve-1, the computer program developed to implement this model, accepts a high-level command language which allows for the setting of parameters, definition of initial configurations, and control of output formats. Results of simulation are produced graphically and include various pertinent tables. The program was given a modular hierarchical structure which allows easy generation of new versions incorporating different sets of rules. The model strives to capture the essence of the evolution of complexity viewed as a general process rather than to describe the evolution of a particular “real” system. In this respect it is not context-specific, and the behaviours which are observable in different runs can receive various interpretation depending on specific identifications. Of these, biological, ecological, and sociological interpretations are the most obvious and the latter, in particular, is stressed.