Local Food System Vitality – Looking at Components across Consumer Age Groups

Assessing the performance of Local Food System (LFS) programs across diverse community food stakeholders is challenging for economic development professionals. This paper introduces a methodological approach that identifies place-specific resident food consumer perceptions regarding the performance of different components of a LFS. While several studies tried to better understand and measure these systems (McFadden et al., 2016) and identifying the assets and barriers to expanding the local food economy (Rossi and Hyden, 2015), no standard measures of performance for LFSs have been embraced, partly due to the diversity of expectations associated with these markets across consumer segments. Hence, in order to address diverse needs of local customers, we need to have an understanding of both broad residential perspectives and smaller segments within the population. Furthermore, some studies tried to investigate the characteristics of local food buyers and their effects on local food purchase (Zepeda and Li, 2006). Assessment of local food demand across different consumer groups, particularly by age, can assist research and community development organizations who try to set priorities that would strengthen and create economic opportunities for producers and local food businesses (Goodwin, 2013; McFadden et al., 2016; North et al., 2017; Woods et al., 2017).