Our access to food involves networks of businesses – sometimes from our immediate area, sometimes covering much longer distances. Each network has its advantages. Local food supply chains can be better for the environment and regional economies, while global supply chains could cut waste and provide cheap, plentiful food. Which should we support? Or do both have their place?

To help answer these and other questions about food chains’ sustainability, the GLAMUR project is developing a flexible method to assess different food supply systems. Designed for use by governments and businesses, the method analyses the economic, environmental, social, health and ethical aspects of systems. Furthermore, it enables users to easily focus on the aspects that matter most to them from a set of frequent stakeholder concerns.

The aim is to help policymakers shape food supply systems so that they are better for people and the world around us.

GLAMUR’s scientific coordinator, Gianluca Brunori of Pisa University and Firab (Fondazione Italiana per la Ricerca in Agricoltura Biologica), explains that the traditional assessment of a food supply’s performance primarily focuses on low cost and abundance. This needs to be updated to reflect new production and consumption patterns – locally and globally – and new consumer concerns, he says.

Covering the whole spectrum of food supply system’s real costs and benefits – including biodiversity and ethics criteria – ensures that nothing is overlooked. It also reveals how local and global chains support each other, correcting the bias towards global supply chains that Brunori says is present in many assessment methods.

And by analysing food chains using a combination of criteria important to users, the method is designed to limit any unintended consequences from policies that can happen when not everyone affected is consulted. “People need education and information to make sustainable choices,” he notes.

Inclusive assessment

GLAMUR's researchers looked for a definition of sustainability that reflects the issues that matter most to the general public.

They did so by identifying the most important food chain issues covered in national media and academic literature in 12 European, African and South American countries. They also looked at advice from national experts in food chains, farming, consumer affairs, public policy and marketing.

From this research, the team developed a set of criteria for comparing the economic, environmental, social, health and ethical dimensions of different types of supply chains. They then developed an assessment method integrating the most relevant concerns from each dimension. This method was tested in 36 case studies on meat, milk, bread, wine, fruit and vegetable production industries. The case studies cover most of the diversity within food supply chain configurations for these industries.

For example, researchers compared the Italian 'Cinta senese' supply chain, for a traditional breed of pig reared in the forests of Tuscany (about 980 sows registered in 2010), with VION, a Dutch pig processor (19 million pigs slaughtered  each year). They also compared Creamery Cheddar in the UK (241 000 tonnes produced) with Swiss Etivaz cheese (436 tonnes produced). And a global tomato chain based in Almeria, Spain was compared with a local organic tomato chain in Languedoc-Roussillon, France.

Stakeholder experts will now assess the criteria themselves, to suggest additional criteria and further trade-offs between the different goals.

Because GLAMUR aims to support better policymaking, the project will conclude with recommendations on how public and private bodies can promote more sustainable food supply chains. These recommendations focus on the concerns revealed in the project and look at existing policies and initiatives.

GLAMUR gives great importance to the value of consumer, civil society and company forums in shaping rules and industry governance. “Sustainability is a never-ending process, based on a dialogue between business, science and society,” says Brunori.

To improve this process, he encourages companies to go beyond Life-Cycle Analysis, which is now a standard among corporates, share data on sustainability monitoring (for example data necessary to measure CO2 emissions), and to involve stakeholders in the definition of their sustainability strategies. At the same time, he recommends specific efforts to develop assessment methodologies tailored to the specificity of short food supply chains.

Dissemination of the project’s own methods and data is already taking place online, in print publications via the project website and in academic courses. And Brunori believes that the project’s criteria can inspire future research and targets.

He particularly praises the dialogue with civil society made possible by the structure of GLAMUR. “There was a lot of new information. We looked at how to provide a framework for future discussion of legislation and how to work towards sustainability, particularly for local chains,” he adds.