Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Of the many challenges facing the global industrial food system, the concentration of power is at the centre. A decreasing number of corporations have increasing control over what, where, how and for whom food is produced, distributed and sold. In Sweden, the food retail sector is characterized by an oligopoly of three corporations owning 90% of the market. This research highlights how the uniform food retail sector constrains sustainable food systems transformation. The food retail sector is the main link between farmers and citizens in the industrial food system. In many ways, farmers are trapped in the ‘treadmill’ of agribusiness, and consumer demand is an insufficient tool to achieve profound change.
Through the lens of political agroecology and urban food planning, this research investigates how national policy and local planning shapes the food retail sector and how this sector in turn shapes the food system. Through a qualitative and comparative case study of the city of Malmö, Sweden, the research examines how the food retail sector influences urban foodscapes and what that signifies for food sovereignty and food justice for the citizens of Malmö, and beyond. The methods include a policy review, interviews with key stakeholders, foodscape mapping, and field observations. Findings suggest that national and municipal governance protect hegemonic structures in the food system through supporting dominating food retail. On a national level, these asymmetric power relations disfavor food producers, especially smaller and sustainable production, and consumer-citizens through the promotion of corporate diets. On a local level, food retail shapes urban populations’ availability to food, which varies between socioeconomic weaker and stronger areas. Concepts of food sovereignty and food justice were used to reflect upon citizens’ accessibility to nutritious, sustainably produced and culturally appropriate foods through urban food retail.