Developing sustainable food consumption: a case study of localized food supply in Beijing

Abstract

Purpose

China’s rapid economic growth has greatly changed its consumption pattern of agricultural food. Wealthy Chinese consumers demand food of superior quality. However, with the national grain security goal focused primarily on self-sufficiency, China has no choice but to keep increasing the scale of agricultural industrialization and modernization, which inevitably brings in unwanted chemical input that puts food safety at risk. China’s consumers started to adopt an alternative food supply method. This paper aims to examine how Chinese consumers use privatized ways (i.e. their own social capital) to select high-quality local agricultural products as a unique type of inverted quarantine.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper mainly used a qualitative research method, including participant observation and in-depth interviews as the main sources of data. For the fieldwork, two providers of high-quality food in Beijing were selected as the research sites. Data were collected by in-depth interviews with consumers and organizers of the two local food suppliers and participant observation of online and offline interactions between food providers and consumers.

Findings

Instead of seeing development of consumer citizenship, what is witnessed is consumers use their private resources or networks to deal with risks created by institutional failure. In this sense, it is a type of inverted quarantine, but is different from what Szasz described in his book. Instead of purchasing bottled water or organic food sold in the mainstream supermarkets, Chinese middle-class consumers rely more on their personal relations with food suppliers and start to adopt an alternative way of food supply.

Research limitations/implications

Beijing consumers are among the most privileged, in terms of income level and access to alternative trusted sources of food. Therefore, the findings of this paper may not be applicable to other provincial cities in China. A comparative research on healthy food consumption patterns among major cities in China still require further attention. In addition, with the flourish of online shopping platforms, it is highly likely that the current shopping patterns among the affluent middle-class consumers will change accordingly.

Originality/value

This paper reveals the current uncertainty experienced by Chinese middle-class consumers and showed their concerns related to food safety. It may shed some lights on the current discussion about middle-class anxiety in Mainland China. It also developed a typology of inverted quarantine with empirical evidence, and therefore helps further develop the concept of inverted quarantine.

Citation

Liu, S. (2018), "Developing sustainable food consumption: a case study of localized food supply in Beijing", Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 29-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/STICS-01-2018-0002