Funder: College of Social Sciences Research Fund 2012/13

Context: Different authors have been discussing supply chains for mass distribution of food across borders and regions, but efforts to develop special, local, sustainable and innovative markets for food are fragmented. Supply chain expertise lags behind marketing innovation in these areas (Hingley et al, 2012). Different definitions and theories seem to be available to explore this phenomenon: Micro, Small and Medium Entreprises, MSMEs (European Union, 2005; Holter et al, nd); Supply Chains, SC (Christopher, 2005; Sanders, 2012); cooperation (Axelrod, 1990); relationships and networks (Barabasi, 2003), and systems theory (Checkland, 1999; Stowell and Welch, 2012). It is at the intersection of these disciplines where the Marketing and Supply Chain research group (MaSC) is committed to the development of “knowledge which supports sustainable value for market, chain and network stakeholders” (MaSC, 2013). Our first task in terms of exploring innovative aspects of research in Supply Chains has been defined as identifying, from a local/regional perspective, potential contributions that previous theories may provide to support the development of sustainable food supply chains, and when and where their application can be considered. This aim involves uncovering challenges and proposing possible solutions for creating and maintaining effective/efficient SCs in this arena. As an initial step, this project will concentrate our efforts on developing and testing a research design to explore the intersection between to related topics, Supply Chains and Food Security:

• Supply chains: specifically ways for supporting different stakeholders (self-) organisation.
• Food security: local autonomy vs. global dependence, maintaining and developing skills inside the (local) workforce.

.