Abstract

There is an extended opinion that Food Supply Chains (FSCs) create economic value; usually by aligning different actors along the chain. However, for food microproducers, economic value is not necessarily the main driver to engage with FSCs. This opens up the discussion towards how to build FSCs with potential members that do not always recognise practical advantages in working with others. We propose explore previous research done in the area of Community Operational Research (COR) by looking microproducers not as links constituting a chain, where the weakest is removed for the benefit of the rest. We explore if there are benefits from being members from a community (Food Supply Communities, FSComs), where they identify which individual actions contribute to the collective self-construction, and vice versa. To contextualise the discussion, we use the case of a typical UK regional, county-based food marketing group which provides umbrella marketing support for specialist SMEs.