Open Source Food Distribution: Delivering Distributed Food Manufacture to Enhance Resilience

From the 1970s, food manufacturing followed the example of the chemical industry and centralised much of its production. This proved to be an economically lucrative solution in the past, but this model is now questionable for a number of reasons. Firstly, centralised manufacturing results in unaffordable energy consumption at a time of rising fuel prices and increasing environmental concern; secondly, processes of globalisation and centralisation reduce the resilience of the food production and manufacture system and expose it to risk. This was demonstrated in 2001 by a concerted blockade of fuel distribution depots by a small number of lorry drivers in the UK. The resulting chaos and breakdown in food logistics was inevitable and swift and highlighted the need for a more variegated system incorporating a higher level of redundancy (adaptive capacity) to be utilised in times of crisis; finally, the erosion of food ‘knowledge’, ‘craft’, entrepreneurialism and authenticity within communities, highlights the degree of exposure of households and communities in times of crisis due to an over-reliance on manufactured, globally sourced foods.
Food is central to everyday living and yet food manufacture and production is largely absent from every day social practices of the majority of people. Deprived deindustrialised neighbourhoods are generally disconnected from food production and manufacture processes whilst highly dependent on the importation of processed foods.
The resilience of the city can be expressed through both food consumption and production and food can play a part in both mitigation and adaptation strategies of the city to cope with anthropogenic and natural shocks. The research would enquire how diversification of food pathways (redundancy) can safeguard food security and develop community resilience. In the past, public policies that have emphasised spatial targeting have proved less effective than more bottom-up approaches. However, the path dependency of food pathways (supply chains, mindsets and agents) means that governance issues are more difficult to address than technical or technological issues. Discovering the potential for rescaling and the path dependencies to unlock the potential of open source methods of production where by production and consumption roles are shared could enhance food knowledge, skills and resilience. The precise nature of the project could encompass several themes that were explored in an inter-disciplinary workshop held in May 2012 including:
• Niche markets and ‘characterisation’ v authenticity
• Ethics of food production and consumption
• Crossover production
• Externalities and costs
• Invisibility of production - trust, confidence and food knowledge

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