Evaluating the urban consumer with regard to sourcing local food: a Heart of England study

This paper critically explores consumer perceptions and trends regarding purchasing locally produced food. Until recently, much of the research in this area largely focused on regional consumers where rural consumers had reasonable access to locally produced food and were usually in close proximity to the producers within, or close to, their immediate community. Here, the objectives of the primary research focused instead on urban attitudes and perceptions of local food within the Greater Birmingham conurbation in the West Midlands region of the UK. Birmingham is by far the most highly populated urban area of the region, and with ample opportunities to promote local food. Consumers, based mainly in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, were questioned on their locally produced food‐buying habits and attitudes in order to determine any differences in urban perceptions and buying attitudes compared with rural counterparts, and also to identify any new and potential opportunities for local food producers. Originally, 1000 questionnaires were obtained from across Greater Birmingham and Wolverhampton. However, for the purposes of this paper, it was decided to focus on two urban city centres – Birmingham and Wolverhampton, with 148 questionnaires. The results indicate that urban consumers are generally confused about what the term ‘local’ food means. The reasons for purchasing local food, while generally consistent with national patterns, differed in that supporting the local producers was not regarded as important. Barriers to purchase were largely unsurprising for an urban area, as the top choices were ‘too expensive’ followed by ‘not readily available’ and ‘no time to find it’. Understanding, information, availability and access to local food emerge as the biggest challenges to urban consumers in buying local food.