‘Local foods’ as trustworthy food: geographical proximity, social areas and interpersonal relationships

This article seeks to explore consumption of neo-traditional sourdough bread in France in a context of food concerns and growing interest in local foods. Focusing on social representations, we investigate how local foods are used by consumers to re-appropriate food and restore trust. The data presented here are based on 27 in-depth interviews with French customers of bakers and farmer-bakers (paysans-boulangers). The interviews were fully transcribed and coded using Hyperresearch software and subjected to a thematic analysis. These results rely on a broader research also including focus groups, observation and interviews with 41 bakers and farmer-bakers. We show that proximity, a rather polysemic notion, mostly stems from the added value of the baker as a known individual, anchored in a common socio-geographical space. Interpersonal relationships between consumer and baker establish trust, which is able to blunt the need or desire for information reducing uncertainty associated with processed food. Here, ‘local’ does not refer to geographical distance but to a relational, inter-individual, subjective proximity. We suggest a particular type of consumer involvement in alternative food-sourcing systems, based on the trust placed in an individual described as close. While this study adds to the current understanding of the mechanisms of trust in food, bread plays a special role in French food culture. Further research on less symbolically charged foods could clarify these initial results.