The perception of the local in food consumers: the case of Milan

Abstract

The contribution analyses "The perception of the local in food consumers: the case of Milan", with attention to the context, the reading tools and the implications for policies. These narratives or constructions of sense of the phenomenon of Local Production (PL) are owned by all actors of the supply chain, producers, consumers, distributors/resellers and regulators. Definition of food consumer profiles through a clustering algorithm (k-means) applied to information related to age, income, education and budget share spent on food spending; 3. On the basis of age, income, education and family budget variables for food purchases, it was possible to identify four groups of respondents. The fresh priorities in the opinion of the attention seem in fact to highlight a high level of knowledge of the potential of the local supply chain that goes beyond their immediate interest. The analysis of the recurrences of the terms chosen by food consumers in the metropolitan area of Milan in association with PL shows that the concept that is more closely associated with PL is that of short supply chain.

Keywords

environment; prices and competition; agriculture; agri-food systems; Networks of enterprises; urban economy

JEL codes

Q13; Q18; R11