Imagining humanitarian social science and container shipping joining in common cause in the Med
 MMajor dietary upheavals are now taking place in developing countries, and more specifically in the southern Mediterranean region, say social scientists. Mediterranean food, they say, is being consumed less and less in the region and more and more in other parts of the world.
While this might be good thing for those who see it as poverty reduction and an increase in consumer spending - always good news to container shipping - it distresses European social scientists writing in Cairn.info, a Belgium-based co-operative portal of French-language academic publishers.
From a shipping perspective, this is bad news. That's because apart from olive oil, there isn't much export potential to be derived from the Mediterranean Diet because most ingredients can be harvested in those parts of the world where it is popular.
But that is only one way of looking at it.
What concerns the social scientists, as a result of numerous socioeconomic factors (higher purchasing power, urbanisation, employment of women, access to western media and the desire to adopt a western lifestyle), city dwellers' food consumption is departing from the Mediterranean Diet in favour of processed foods of less nutritional value.
What social scientists want is to revitalise local production through co-ops to penetrate regional markets in direct competition with supermarkets by selling authentic ingredients with all the bells and whistles.
While those writing in Cairn.info are not displeased that the Mediterranean Diet has spread to a rapidly increasing, and increasingly health-conscious public worldwide, they do deplore the abandonment by Mediterranean peoples of their own traditional fare for the choices available in foreign supermarkets.
"This alarming fact," says social scientist academic Fatiha Fort, "has been observed by many researchers and illustrates the challenges of restoring the Mediterranean Diet to its region of origin."
The Mediterranean Diet is a diet inspired by the eating habits of Greece, Italy and Spain in the 1940s and 1950s. It includes high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruit and vegetables, fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), wine, but low consumption of non-fish meat products.
Ms Fort puts the blame on globalisation which, she says, has led people astray into a high-calorie, high-fat agri-industrial products that are potentially very costly in human, social and economic terms.
"In the Mediterranean countries in particular, we are faced with an alarming paradox, since the Mediterranean Diet, which used to be the fundamental food pattern and which the World Health Organisation (WHO) regards as a nutritional standard is gradually disappearing to the advantage of western dietary pattern due to major socio-economic changes - growing urbanisation, decreasing household size, a growing number of working women, and so on," she said.
So the problem, as the francophone social scientists see it, is how to ween the Mediterranean peoples, which include the Arab states of North Africa away from the over-choice provided by the supermarkets and back to the old ways, to the souk markets from Egypt to Morocco.
Two major difficulties arise in the marketing of traditional products, according to Ms Fort. On the one hand there are the consumers, who perceive these products as being outside the commercial sphere and non-marketed, and on the other hand there are the producers - often small businesses - who are convinced of the quality of their products and consider that marketing is not their problem.
Marketing involves identifying needs and trying to meet them. However, in societies where basic needs are satisfied, it is a question of satisfying psychological needs, ie, generating symbols and trademarks, which only have meaning in the social system of which they are an integral part.
Trademarks are a means of communicating a value or affiliation but also differentiation, which make the individual a unique human being in the social system. The theme of the genuine product or local/regional specialty is thus a series of marks with which symbolic differences can be made and differential aspirations can be satisfied.
Consumers generally consider so-called "regional" or "local" food products to be "better quality", more "natural", "traditional" and "genuine", even if in some cases the fact that manufacturers have exploited local areas means that they are not actually the genuine articles they are supposed to be.
Given the huge choice of food products available, the need for information is felt when items are being selected from the shelf in a store or on a vendor's stall. The consumer seeks guidance that will minimise his cognitive effort. The brand name, quality mark or label can play this role of summarising information, which facilitates consumer choice.
Thus, the social scientists' idea is to revitalise local production through co-ops to penetrate regional markets in direct competition with supermarkets by selling authentic ingredients with all the expected accoutrements.
They point out that consumers who buy traditional products seek the authenticity, tradition and typicality that are perceived in products specific to particular regions or areas. In France, these products are strongly linked to the traditional "farmers' market" channel, where producers sell their produce directly to consumers.
The fact that products are rooted in tradition and culture must therefore be highlighted on supermarket shelves even more than elsewhere through marks (brand names, labels, designations, etc) but also by means of other extrinsic attributes.
The action to develop traditional products in the emerging countries is generally aimed at export markets, since it is considered that only foreign markets offer an opportunity to develop this type of product and that in the mass production field the emerging countries are not competitive in terms of price.
Consumers who buy traditional products seek the authenticity, tradition and typicality that are perceived in products specific to particular regions or areas. In France these products are strongly linked to the traditional "farmers' market" type of distribution channel, where producers sell their produce directly to consumers.
But if the aim were to induce Mediterranean people to eat more of their own food, then perhaps the us-versus-them relationship with supermarkets is counterproductive. One suggests that the social scientists may have overlooked other possibilities that do not appear to interfere with either their plans nor desired outcomes.
Such an approach would make the supermarket less of a rival and more of a partner, helping to sell "authentic" Mediterranean Diet ingredients worldwide. The success of such an effort would make locals proud of their produce, which could only encourage local consumption, thus meeting the concern of the social scientists.
Highlighting the specific quality of products is one means of building up competitive advantage. The branding of traditional products would emphasise their specificity (origin, tradition, label, recipes, know-how, etc.). It can be done in various ways - through the brand, the official quality mark or the staging of the packaging. For packaging is the primary vector of communication in the self-service environment.
As far as traditional products are concerned, in addition to serving the usual functions of protecting and communicating, packaging would also provide a means of maintaining the traditional regional nature of the product.
If the Mediterranean Diet is to be rehabilitated in these countries, action is imperative to promote traditional products by developing organised distribution so that it will increase its market share every year and hold its own with the traditional retail trade.
But one might ask whether the social scientists have set their sights too low. Perhaps one might consider possibilities arising from current reefer plug boom in container shipping occasioned by the same growing public affluence complained of by the social scientists.
More people, as world poverty rates plunge well beyond projections of the United Nations even in the most unlikely places, are becoming rich enough to buy imports, partly because container shipping has become so efficient that retail prices have become so low that most every domestic product that a poor local can buy in a poor country is within financial reach of a poor local in a rich country. Which means authentic Med foodstuffs can be shipped and bought by multitudes almost everywhere if all is done to make it happen.
So rather than pulling against globalisation, it might be wiser to join it and make the Med folk proud of what they produce and become more likely to eat it and recommend others do the same. |
