Executive Summary

Intro: This report is a collaboration between The Vancouver Food Strategy and UBC’s LFS 350 class in investigating a community food security issue. While research indicates that food retailing power is mainly controlled by a few multinational corporations, small locally owned food markets may be more likely to benefit local communities, especially local food producers and the local economy.

Inquiry question: Our project is based on the Asset Based Community Development concept, which utilizes existing community strengths to achieve a goal. This project investigates community stakeholder opinions on the value of locally owned food markets.

Methods: We prepared a set of questionnaire to interview owners at 11 food markets in Richmond regarding their opinions on local food produce and local food retail ownership.

We introduced our project objectives to the store owners and  informed them on the general lack of support for locally owned food retailers in Metro Vancouver. We then presented them our consent form in order to incorporate their information into our final report.

Results: In total, we visited 11 locally owned markets, in which 6 of them agreed to complete interviews with us. The owners who disclosed information all live in the Metro Vancouver area. One owner questioned the precise meaning of “local food system” while the rest were supportive of how locally owned food markets benefit the community. All six owners had business connections with local producers. In general, locally owned food markets provide more support for local producers. Three market owners acknowledge the importance of providing local food in their markets, while two other market owners are indifferent about the subject.

Recommendations: There are efforts of supporting the growth/development of a stronger/more secure local food system. However, there is no consensus on the definition of “local”. It will be helpful if the community could gain a better understanding of “local” and be able to acquire more knowledge on local food systems and foster asset-based community development.

Conclusion: A major finding in our research is that there has been an increase in attention towards purchasing and supporting local produce. However, more attention needs to be brought to the importance of local ownership rather than local production.  

What:

The moment of significance that occurred in this course is the conversation we had with our course instructor which lead to reconstructing our original project plans and change of scope on the project objectives. Our initial goal in the CBEL project is to investigate and identify places where local residents are able to access locally produced foods in their respective neighbourhoods. In order to tackle and reach this goal, the group has decided to do online research on local grocery stores that support local producers. In addition, to raise awareness of the existence of these businesses, our group had decided to establish an online database that is open for public access.

The scope change:

After the conversation with our course instructor, we were highly encouraged to change the scope of the project. Our instructor stated that local food production has very limited power in food systems. Whereas, the majority of the influence comes from the question of, “who owns this food business?” With our new scope in mind, we decided to shift the focus from something static— final consumer product, to something more labile— stakeholders’ opinions and values. In addition, we are trying to comprehend how the action of store owners can influence the development of the community. Therefore, it is an important moment of significance of our project.

The arising problems:

During the interviews the group came across a number of unexpected challenges. For example, there were language barrier issues in which caused certain stakeholders to be uncomfortable and unwilling to participate in the interview. In another case, the interview was conducted in Cantonese. However, the premise of our project is relatively discipline-specific. That said, there are many academic and/or field-specific terminologies that could not be translated with 100% precision. Language barrier issues were also the cause of unwillingness to sign the consent forms provided by the course instructors.

Furthermore, we came across stakeholders who were willing to sign an electronic version of our consent form through email, but unfortunately became unresponsive and failed to follow through with their promises. A similar problem was encountered when the group tried to reach out to local producers. Again, an electronic version of our consent form was issued to these stakeholders, but the response rate was null.

Other cases included undiplomatic stakeholders who belittled our project intentions. Although we were respectful of their opinions and wanted to maintain a professional attitude, it was easier said than done without displaying any slight reactions of awkwardness.

So What:

This scope changed helped us comprehend and critically reflect on the roots of the issues in the food system. By investigating the opinions and values of local store owners, we come to a better understanding of the market power that exists in the food system. Local food provides limited social and economic benefit to the community, on the other hand, local businesses are the key to increase social proximity and economic benefits of the community. We utilized the concept of ABCD to devise our project. The opinion and values of the owners are part of the assets of the community. It is our interest to discover the potential and assist the community to achieve the project objectives. The significance also taught us the ups and downs of teamwork in a group project. It is inevitable that there will be challenges; however, the attitude and action we take are what matter. Group projects do not always unfold according to original plans and the responsibility of finding an alternative provides new learning opportunities. The scope change served as a milestone in our project, without the input from third person, we could not see the superficiality of our intention.

With the problems that we encountered while delivering and executing the project, we learned that there is a vast fluctuation in opinions of stakeholders. The overall inconsistency of values hinders the food system from moving forward in addressing socioeconomic issues. We see that many store owners (and managers) follow traditional business models with pure profit orientation in which financial value is the main drive/purpose of entrepreneurship. At first we were rather surprised at how little attention was paid into addressing the problematic implications of a food system, but in hindsight, we are well aware that food markets are businesses and the industry is competitive. Furthermore, the blatant existence of these problems are what drives our project, giving it direction/a goal. Therefore, experiencing the situation first hand affirms the significance and purpose of our project.

Moreover, it would be unethical and ignorant to assume that stakeholders who are unfamiliar with the English language are less concerned with social welfare aspect in food systems. However, we should consider and reflect upon ourselves, “can language barrier hinder these stakeholders from becoming more connected with an English-speaking society/community?” Cultural estrangement could potentially cause individuals to become detached from the community, making it difficult for the affected individuals to fully submerge into making positive impact in the local food system. In a system that heavily involves community engagement and connection, cultural isolation is an issue that should not be overlooked.

Now what:

To maximize efficiency of our CBEL project, LFS 350 course could consider establishing connections with stakeholders in advance, in order to minimize logistical difficulties. With the short amount of time allotted to complete the task, instead of allocating time trying to convince stakeholders of our legitimacy, it would be beneficial to spend more time on in-situ research and collecting more data to increase sample size and reduce bias/anecdotal evidence.

Since we did not have a distinct community partner to collaborate with, it created more barriers for project. We feel that there is great potential to investigate the ownership in the local food market system. However, it is very time consuming to justify ourselves and our intentions within timely fashion as most of these stakeholders run and manage their own businesses and do not have the luxury of time to sit down and carry on an open-ended conversation regarding community incentive to improve food systems.

To move forward from the difficulties the group faced, the group must take into account and be more considerate of the views and situation of stakeholders. For example, as students in LFS 350, our interest is to implement/introduce positive change in food systems by valuing specific aspects such as local food production and local market ownership as a means of serving socio-economic good. Although we tried to stay unbiased, there were times when our group inevitably “forced” our opinions onto the interviewees, potentially making the data less candid than it could have been. Therefore, professionalism needs improvement in order to render the project more successful. Furthermore, in a multicultural society like Metro Vancouver, it may have been slightly insensitive to only provide English versions of the consent form, putting stakeholders illiterate in English into awkward and embarrassing situations. Therefore, the LFS 350 course may consider providing consent forms in different common languages spoken in the local area as a means of being more culturally inclusive.

We hope we can inspire future LFS 350 students’ interests to continue to explore and investigate the market/store ownership aspect of the local food system. There are still many issues that need to be discovered and addressed. Even though it may be a challenge to collaborate with not only the community, but also with group members, the hands-on experience and development of professional skills are irreplaceable.

Weekly Objectives:

Compile all information obtained from interviews onto database

Contact farmers requesting input on values of locally-owned food retail

Achievements:

Set up the database

Reached out to farmers

Moment of Significant Change:

The moment of significant change workshop in last week’s lecture provided an opportunity for us to gain some perspective on where we stand with the course of our project. In this lecture the TAs shared examples of academic endeavours in which they had had to change their scope.

In the scope change workshop we individually drew graphs and identified key moments that had occurred during our project. Then, collectively we drew a graph to identify milestones that our group recognized as being significant. This helped symbolize the evolution of our project and enabled us to share our individual perspectives and experiences.

As the graph below illustrates, our project has not been a linear process. Our experiences have fluctuated depending on the feedback we have received and our experiences conducting research in the community. The decline in our graph shows the periods when we encountered challenges, new perspectives, and ideas that were learned and synthesized. Our scope changed after comprehending new ideas – for instance, when Will suggested to alter the objectives and procedures of our project. The graph also reflects how our new ideas and changes in scope helps us overcome the challenges and allows us to work towards the successful completion of our project.

Strategies for a graceful dismount:

In order to conclude our project in a timely process, we have identified remaining components that we will address over the coming weeks.

• We will contact farmers with questions pertaining to their opinions on locally-owned food retail.
• Compare responses from farmers with the responses from the local store owners and relate to the portrayal of locally-owned food markets from media and other statistical report.
• Assimilate information and synthesize themes from this term’s readings and assignments to contribute to the final report
• Reflect on key moments of the project to inform future LFS 350 groups

We recognize with only a few weeks left in the semester we may not get responses from many farmers. One of the aims of our project is to begin a dialogue between stakeholders within the food system rather than to find concrete answers.

Works Cited

Finlay, Ron. (2013, February). A guerilla gardener in South Central LA. Ted Talk. Video. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la?language=en

Stuart, Tristram. (2012, May). The global food waste scandal. Ted Talk. Video. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal?language=en

Week 7 Objectives:

-Reach out to main office of local food retail franchises (Kin’s Farm Market)

-Return to food markets that requested to be met at a different time

-Begin to set up database of food markets

Achievements:

-Collected all the necessary data from interviews

-Conducted follow up interviews at food markets where we were unable to speak to an owner or manager the previous week (including speaking to a HR representative Kin’s Farm Market, whom we sent a consent form and question to)

Upcoming objectives and strategies:

-On the week of Oct. 26th, analyze data from interviews that will contribute to the success measures of our project

-On the week of Oct. 26th, start to build the online database. Look into different platforms, including UBC blogs, WordPress, etc.

-Begin research on contacting farmers to interview once database is established

We will analyze our data by comparing the number of markets we visited that were locally owned with the total number visited. We will also compare the answers to our interview questions to extract common themes or variations. From this information we will formulate an online database to promote the existence of locally-owned food markets and to encourage consumer and producer access.

Once the data has been analyzed we can begin researching the appropriate method for setting up a database based on the number of responses and completed consent forms we have received. Throughout our work, it will be imperative to consider that since the public can access this database, we want to utilize the information from our interviews in a manner that is respectful of the interviewees and in accordance with their preferences.

Finally, our last objective for the upcoming week will be to contact local farms to interview (ask them the same questions we asked the local store owners). However, before this can happen, we must have the database completed for us to send to the farm owners should they be interested. The opinions/values of these stakeholders will contribute to the analysis of our data for this project.

What:

This week, two of our group members independently came across the article ‘Small business connects with you’ in The Vancouver Sun, that represents our moment of significance (Jones 2015). In the article, author Laura Jones discusses a wedding catering service a customer received from a small local company. On the wedding day there was a big windstorm and a blackout that affected most of the city. However, despite the extreme weather and traffic conditions, the caterer still managed to work and pulled off an amazing meal for all of their guests.

Local businesses are mostly small businesses. Small local business touches people in our community because they are not just profit-orientated. They give a great amount of attention to the human side of business. This article highlights the existence of small, locally-owned businesses, as they can often incur more stress and undergo more hardships to contribute to our community. They also interact with lots of different people in the community, which helps to form a close network. People with a strong sense of community are often more willing to assist each other during a crisis. Reflecting on the progress we have made, we realized that we were only focused on the economic and environmental benefits that locally-owned businesses can bring to the community. Although prosperity and sustainability are essential topics to discuss, we neglected to consider the human connection and personal aspects of the local food community. This article provides new perspectives and ideas to our existing objectives and success factors.

So What:

During the previous weeks of our project, our focus on the importance of locally-owned food markets was primarily concerning economic benefits. The article in the Vancouver Sun reminded us of a value that we had overlooked. When asked the question during interviews of why we were interested in promoting local food ownership, we cited off facts that considered environmental benefits such as a decrease in fossil fuel emissions from transportation, and economic ones such as fair wages and recirculation of money in the community. Another aspect of local businesses that is equally if not more important is the human connection that is formed when engaging with a small business.

There is an immensely different experience when shopping or eating at a large, corporately run business than when doing so at a small business. While there may be higher prices and less selection with the latter, this discrepancy is made up for with a genuine interest and gratitude of the customer base. That is not to say that corporations are not interested in the demands of their customers, rather that a small business can foster a sense of community and human interaction more easily, as the owners are already engaged in their community rather than in a distant office.

All businesses are profit driven to an extent, but the article provides an example of a business that was willing to go the extra step because of its commitment to its community. Another example that illustrates how small businesses can contribute to their food system in a just, sustainable way is the podcast “Latin Liver” by Dan Barber (2011). In this podcast, Barber discusses his experience interviewing an ethical foie gras producer named Eduardo Sousa. Sousa raises his geese in a wild environment that mimics their natural habitat, allowing the geese to be more comfortable. As a result, come winter the geese gorge themselves on food which enlarges their livers; rendering them perfect for foie gras. Traditionally foie gras is made by force feeding the geese by an arguably cruel method called “gavage”. Sousa demonstrates that it is possible to produce foie gras in a more ethical manner through his three year commitment comprising of many failed attempts. Like the owner of the catering company in Jones’ article, Sousa ensures a high quality product through hard work, commitment, and pride.

Now What:

What we can see behind the catering story in Jones’s article, is the sense of community involvement of those small local businesses, and the responsibility they take as community role players. This real story happened around us shows that being a part of our community, local businesses are generally more willing to provide extra support to other members in the community who they are connected to. Instead of putting large emphasis on profits, local business places a high value on the human side of the business. Indeed, small businesses are usually the ones who give back to local schools and community events. This form of community responsibility is also demonstrated by the foie gras producer in the podcast. In contrast to other business owners who aim for profit maximization by means of animal cruelty, Sousa constantly strives to establish a humane and ethical geese feeding system within the community. Reflecting on both the catering story and the podcast, the aspect of human kindness within the local business market demonstrated is driven by local owners’ sense of community, or their perception of interconnection and interdependence within the community. After learning about both of the stories, our scope for the project has changed. In the past few weeks, we only focused on the economic and profit-driven aspect of the local food market, but neglect the human side and social responsibility side of the local business. The new scope from the story and podcast this week taught us to be open-minded when considering and evaluating the benefits of local market ownership. While economic prosperity and environmental sustainability are important indicators for a successful local food system, community responsibility and the human side of the business are equally critical. For the further improvement of our project, it may be a good idea to have a brief background information section on our database to provide people with more knowledge about the relationship between local business and a strengthened sense of community. We feel that it is essential to raise the public awareness about the local involvement of the small private owned business, as well as their contribution to building a tightly bounded responsible local community.

Works Cited

Barber, Dan. (2011, December 12). Latin Liver. This American Life. Retrieved from http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/452/poultry-slam-2011?act=3.
Jones, Laura. (2015, October 20). Small business connects with you. The Vancouver Sun, p.B8.

Week 6 objectives and achievements:

Objectives

1. Conduct interviews with local food market owners and managers in Richmond
2. Collect data and information from the interviews with the locally-owned food markets.
3. Organize and summarize data such that it is ready to be entered into the online database.

Achievements

1. Visited eight food markets in Richmond, seven which were locally-owned (one did not disclose this information) and recorded appropriate data as outlined in our project report
2. Received permission from two of the owners to add their businesses to the database (completed consent form)

Upcoming objectives and strategies to achieve them:

1. Return to locally-owned grocery stores next Wednesday (Oct. 21st) that requested to be met at a future time

Strategy: Visit at a convenient time for the owners, in accordance to the store employee recommendations.

2. Development of database

Strategy: After the completion of our follow-up visits to the remaining food markets we will have completed our interviews with local owners. We will then organize our collected data and publish the locations of the identified locally owned food markets onto a database we will create using an online blog platform. With the initiation of this database, we hope it may be used as a tool to foster connections between food market owners, local food producers, and consumers. Furthermore, we plan on using this database as an asset to initiate contact with the City of Vancouver and City of Richmond. We hope our efforts will demonstrate interest in locally-owned food markets and will encourage further promotion and development by other community stakeholders.

3. Contact farmers with the intention of conducting future interviews to learn about their perspectives and values on local food retail. Email the farmers the questions we have for them (for example their opinions and thoughts towards locally owned markets and their interest in conducting business).

Strategy: Start immediately after the database has been made active. This way, we can provide the database as a resource for farm owners, if they express interest, to connect with local food markets.

4. Analyze the data we have collected as a group and compare the results with the literary research we have conducted.

Strategy: Compare the number of locally-owned produce markets to the total number we visited as well as compare owners’ answers to our interview questions. This allows us to analyze the interest that stakeholders have regarding the importance of locally-owned food markets. The sample of interviews of local food market owners can illustrate relationships between local stakeholders (producers, retailers, and consumers) that we can analyze in relation to our preliminary research.

Reflection on a moment of significance that occurred in the course:

What?

A true moment of significance was presented to our group during an in-depth interview with an owner of a successful local food market. As students of LFS 350, we are privileged to be surrounded with many like-minded individuals who we are able to access and engage in meaningful conversation with. However, a limitation of these conversations is that they largely occur between individuals or groups who share a similar background and education experience. The saying “You’re preaching to the choir” is a good representation of the significance of the point here. We have noticed that many LFS discussions often end in agreement or consensus, which one may expect when discussions only involve university students from one faculty. As pointed out in previously during discussion in class, researcher focused projects often result in failure as a fault of not considering local values and assets.

During our interviews, we became exposed to people of different upbringings, values, and personalities. One particular interview stood out to us – from a well-educated store owner who showed little priority for community independence and local stewardship in comparison to his concern for financial success. For instance, his only desire to form connections with local farms was that they could offer cheaper prices for their produce during the summer months. When we inquired about the importance on supporting local businesses to keep your dollar within the community, he dismissed this idea simply to state that his customers do not care about that – they only care about cheap prices. Further, he imposed his disappointment in the education system on us, as he found it amusing that organizers of our class believed that students can “take on the world” and actually make a positive difference, when a man such as him has been at the mercy of the consumer dollar for twenty years. When we expressed concern for the lack of sustainability of the current food system, he argued that the current food system has allowed greater customer happiness and utility at a lower price, and until that becomes an issue, nothing will be done about it.

Our experience interviewing him has signified the importance to engage all stakeholders because our actions, as both students and people who may one day find ourselves in a decision-making position, can contribute to a more just, sustainable food system. Meanwhile, it is crucial for us to compare our definition of “just” and “sustainable” to everyone else’s.

It is important to keep in mind that it is unethical to assert our values onto others. Variation in values and opinions can stimulate new ideas within the community and possibly form new solutions. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion and the individual inputs can spark new initiative. We can learn from the diversity of the community and tailor our project to assist working toward the same goals, as it adds new opportunities and challenges to completing our project.

So what?

The theme of the “Fish bank” podcast illustrates the process of a community-based project that, although starting from a lack of knowledge and infrastructure to tackle the existing issues in the community, led to successful execution and outcomes. Jensi Sartin proposed the idea of creating a fish bank, which instilled a positive response of leadership within a rural fishing village in Indonesia to restore the fish population in their fishing ground.

Engaging members within a food system is an initial step in addressing the issues at hand. Sartin’s vision is similar to ours, as we too are trying to take initiative in the community; we hope to promote sustainable food production, not only environmentally, but also for the socio-economical benefit of the food producers. There exists a parallelism in which both our group and Sartin identified a problem, had an idea, but lacked knowledge of how to execute the procedures in order to reach the goal successfully.

In Sartin’s case, most of the team members had a very rudimentary level of education, which suggested that creating a fish bank could be a challenging task. Similarly, our group faced a challenge when considering our lack of experience conducting research and applying academic knowledge outside of the classroom. Therefore, we went through frustrating moments trying to tackle the task diplomatically and efficiently. Sartin decided to deliver practical skills to the villagers, such as scuba diving, which enabled the team members to accomplish the tasks collectively. Similarly, we used some of our basic skills in order to initiate the execution of our project. We decided to ask the stakeholders in question for our project, food market owners, their opinions and values concerning locally-owned businesses.

Some of the interviewed individuals seemed more concerned about the marketability of the produce, rather than supporting the local economy or minimizing environmental impacts within a food system as we had anticipated. This demonstrates that local can be utilized as a marketable term and that profit is often prioritized above other factors. However, in Sartin’s case, he was talking to a food producer, who was directly impacted by the lack of quality in fish, which caused him to struggle for a living. It would make sense that the stakeholders in those sectors may show much stronger enthusiasm and drive for creating a more socio-economically just community through local food production. With this in mind, we could explore the possibility of becoming connected with some local food producers on what their opinions are on locally-owned food businesses as well as store owners.

The variation in opinions concerning key values of local food market ownership that we witnessed in our interviews this week allowed us to acknowledge aspects of our project that could use improvement. There is a need for more comprehensive research and thoughtfulness when considering the execution of our project, particularly when conducting research in the community. Although we are aware of the significance of an independent local food economy, and are confident in delivering our perspectives, we have neglected some aspects of the problem to make ourselves convincing . This is similar to the problem in “Grandma Mahembe’s garden” that Lindiwe Majele Sibanda encountered. While Majele Sibanda was enthusiastic in articulating her point in public and finding the solution to increase the productivity of the local African food system, she neglected the fact that she, as a representative of her country, was suffering from obesity. For this reason, her speech failed to convey her point due to the contradictory image between her and the underdeveloped African agriculture she described.

Looking back to our project, we undermined the relevance of the profit-driven aspect of the local market. Learning from this experience, we should improve our strategy when contacting the local food producers next week. It would be a good idea to have some basic knowledge about the perspectives of the local farmers before sending out the email. To avoid low response from farmers, it may be necessary to consult previous interviews or farmers’ websites to gain a general idea of their existing knowledge surrounding local food economy.

Now what?

We can improve our research techniques to carry out our project successfully by recognizing themes from “The Pragmatic Idealistic” podcast. Sisonke Msimang emphasizes how empathy can relate to discovering different perspectives on a subject. With the implementation of empathy in our project, we can relate and understand the values and opinions of the members in the community. Msimang describes how she understood the societal conflicts that the community of HIV patients faced at the beginning of her career. However, she neglected the importance of empathizing and immersing herself into their perspectives. Similarly, we ought to critically reflect on the differences in opinions that each individual may have. We now understand that many locally-owned stores are primarily profit-driven, which is contrary to the goal of promoting socially and environmentally friendly local food networks.

It is our task to empathize and search for the different possibilities to find compromise among the opinions between food market owners and producers. In addition, we need to consider how our knowledge can relate to their opinions in order to promote a just, sustainable food system in our community-based project. Msimang states, “If I want to make an impact, I need to listen to the words. Not just the words, more importantly, the silence.” Similarly, if we want to contribute a tangible impact to the community, we need to deeply reflect and comprehend the context behind the words of the stakeholders. Often, the intention and desire of one’s true viewpoint is hidden in between words. Considering this, we need to carefully analyze the interviews we have conducted in order to be successful at our project. Our project should clearly represent the values and opinions of local food market owners and producers.

Works Cited

Msimang, S. (2014). A Pragmatic Idealist [Recorded by The Moth]. Retrieved from http://themoth.org/posts/stories/a-pragmatic-idealist

Sartin, J. (2014). Fish Bank [Recorded by The Moth]. Retrieved from http://themoth.org/posts/stories/the-fish-bank

Sibanda, L. M. (2014). Grandma Mahembe’s Farm [Recorded by The Moth]. Retrieved from http://themoth.org/posts/stories/grandma-mahembes-farm