Milan, Italy

National Context

Historically, regional agriculture in Italy has dominated the agricultural industry, the national economy, and Italy’s rich food culture. Recently, Italy’s food supply chains have followed worldwide trends of globalization, and supermarkets are becoming increasingly popular through the county. Nevertheless, modern local food schemes, like Gruppi Acquisto Solidale (GAS), reflect Italians' continued commitment to local food networks. GAS are grassroots networks that collectively organize direct food purchasing. The first GAS emerged in the mid-1900s, when Italy’s economic crisis made their collective bulk-buying approach from trusted, local producers particularly appealing; at that time, an estimated 80 million euros was shifted away from large distribution.[1] Today, there are approximately 1,000 GAS throughout Italy. The largest concentration of GAS—approximately 400—is located in the Lombardy region and approximately 75 are located in Milan. In addition to GAS, another source of local and sustainably-produced food to urban residents are “biodynamic” (organic) food stores, which are becoming increasingly present in cities across Italy.

Furthermore, Milan is a global leader in urban food security initiatives. In July 2014, the Municipality of Milan signed a Memorandum of Understanding to implement a comprehensive strategy on food provision for Milan and launch an international pact on urban food policies, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP). In 2015, Milan also hosted the “Global Food Security Challenges”-themed Food Expo, where the MUFPP was developed by a consortium of city leaders. The objective of the MUFPP is to assist cities “develop sustainable food systems that are inclusive, resilient, safe, and diverse” (MUFPP).

Research Intent

In Milan, I interviewed GAS members to determine the relationship between LFS founded for social reasons and the city’s food security. Through interviews with researchers and creators of the MUFPP, I examined broader narratives of food security in Milan—and cities around the world—and how MUFPP practices manifest in Milan.

Gruppi Acquisto Solidale – Solidarity Purchasing Groups

An Overview of GAS

GAS were modeled off teikei, a similar social movement and system of direct consumer-producer purchasing that emerged in Japan in the 1970s. Like teikei purchasing groups, all GAS are founded upon the principle of “economic solidarity”; however, each GAS defines its own ideological priorities and functional structure. A GAS may have fifteen-to-200 members, who organize deliveries or pick-ups from their producers on a weekly or monthly basis. Members may meet semi-monthly, monthly, or seasonally to discuss the organizational goals and structure. Members are also required to complete their own duties each week—e.g. securing the orders and arranging with producers for one type of product, managing organization finances, or maintaining the website.

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I studied six specific GAS: GAS Martesana, Terra e Liberta’ GAS, GAS Vittoria, GAS Crescenzago, SeiGAS, GAS Feltre, and GAS Lola. These GAS spanned four Milanese neighborhoods, a broad range of age demographics, and ranged from fifteen to more than 200 members. During my week in Milan, I conducted individual interviews and attended GAS meetings, distribution events, and parties—becoming fully immersed in the vibrant social scene that is founded in Milan’s food distribution networks. I learned about the broad range of members’ perceived GAS ideals, along with their personal reasons for joining. The main perceived GAS ideals include the following:

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• to provide consumers with access to high quality, safe, and healthy food;

• to create demand for ethical and sustainable food within the Milanese region to ensure ethical and sustainable producers’ viability;

• and to ensure the transparency and sustainability of food systems by creating as direct a relationship between producers and consumers.

 Furthermore, common personal reasons for joining included the following:

• to teach children about the meaning and value of high quality food;

• to have access to high quality food at a lower price than is available in supermarkets or “bio stores”;

• to know where one’s food comes from;

• to be part of a social community;

• and to support the regeneration of local, ethical, environmentally sustainable, traditional agricultural practices in the area surrounding Milan.

A Visit to SeiGAS

My first day in Milan, I delved into my research with a visit to SeiGAS’s monthly meeting. SeiGAS is a small-to-mid-sized GAS, which a few current members—who knew each other because their children attended the same school—founded in response to a lack of GAS in their neighborhood. SeiGAS’s close-knit, community feel is crucial to the organization’s function and benefits. SeiGAS is one of the few GAS in Milan that do not have a single designated distribution location, where producers and members drop off and pick up. Instead, members pick up their purchased products–which include meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice, wine, oil, clothes, and cleaning supplies–from individuals’ houses on designated weekdays. During monthly meetings, SeiGAS members discuss logistics, such as where to supply certain products from, how pickup schedules will work, and the best dates to organize group visits to the local agricultural producers that supply to the GAS.

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Before the organization got too large, SeiGAS held its meetings in members’ homes. When I visited, 17 out of the 23 GAS members gathered in a community association building. The members sat around a table in a room lined with bookshelves containing political books written by members of the Italian Resistance Movement during WWII. I happened to attend a special meeting, which was dedicated to discussing and re-outlining the GAS’s fundamental values. For nearly three hours, members democratically reviewed a poster covered with sticky notes, which contained contributions from each GAS member on their organization’s strengths and weaknesses. While I did not hear the final determinations regarding SeiGAS’s updated values chart (I began interviewing members in the hallway halfway through the meeting), attending the SeiGAS meeting was a great step towards my understanding of the democratic nature of GAS (in a room with radical political books lining the walls).

Best Practices & Challenges

GAS have many positive impacts: they provide a social community; provide high quality food to members; promote social and environmental ideals; create demand for locally- and sustainably-produced food; and provide a learning space to teach children and new members about social, taste- and health-related, ethical, and environmental ideals. This broad range of impacts reflects GAS’ optimal use of LFS as a platform to support the development of more socially and environmentally just food systems. Furthermore, the foundational social element of GAS depicts a best-case practice of a local food network: GAS’ social cohesion contributes to GAS’ long-term viability, despite the members’ time-intensive commitments. However, it must also be noted that Italy’s historic and cultural context may support community-based, local food organizations more than other countries: social organizations—or “associations”—are very common in Italy, and food is fundamental to many Italians’ social lives. Nonetheless, GAS’ democratic structure exemplifies a functional form of LFS that does not pay organization leaders.

While the prominence of GAS throughout Italy suggests their significant contributions Italy’s local food system, GAS membership peaked in the 2000s. The recent decline in membership may be due to a number of factors. For example, younger generations may not desire or be able to spend the time or money to participate in a GAS. Alternatively, people who would join a GAS may be content with the increasing offering of local food from farmers markets, grocery stores, and “bio” stores. Furthermore, individual GAS I visited struggled to maintain dedicated members in leadership positions, and many members I interviewed cited their own struggles to keep up with their organization’s financial and time commitments.

A Note on GAS Members’ Interpretations of Food Security

To ensure the consistency of my research in different countries, I explained to each of my interviewees the FAO’s definition of food security, which I used for my research. To respect each interviewee’s own beliefs and experiences, I also asked them about their own conceptions of food security. From my prior experiences traveling to Italy, I knew I would have to take special precaution when discussing food security in Milan.

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In Italy, I found that the FAO’s definition of food security was not representative of how food security ideals manifested in GAS members’ lives. The FAO defines food security as “the situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (2001). My GAS members defined “food security” in the following ways:

• “Food security is about the method to produce food—what producers use to grow, where they grow, what they feed their animals…” It’s related to food quality and safety and to the methods [of production] and distribution practices. - Giuseppe

• “Food security… yes. I would use a different word, maybe not food security but food quality. Because industrial products… are causing in the long-term, many, many diseases. And nowadays, we are realizing that food maybe it’s not secure food for the people who are only relying on [those] kind of products… Security means that the quality of the food must be at a level where the ingredients—what is inside the food—are not unhealthy. As food—as that total food that you are eating because a component maybe is not unhealthy, but the way industrial food is produced, like some uh… I don’t know, an example… have you read about Nestlé? Yeah [laughs]. That is in my opinion, producing unhealthy food—unsecure food. In general terms, not that particular product, but the way the food is produced, and the way [producers] are trying to sell their food. Because the food is full of sugar…and people are appreciating the taste, but it’s not good for their health, in the long term.”- Paulo

• Food security means “to know personally how food is produced.” The concept of food security is related to “how food is produced, treated, and to the whole food production lifestyle. It, for example, includes principles to not use harmful chemicals, consuming food in the right season, and the ‘zero-kilometer principle’.” - Alessandro

• Food security in Italy is “more of a cultural thing. Eight out of ten of my friends have a decent, varied diet, so the focus is more to improve the quality rather than the variety [or sufficiency] of the diet.” - Sergio

Many of my interviewees highlighted the “nutritious” and “safe” components of my food security definition through a perspective novel to my own. While I never explicitly defined what “nutritious consumption practices” means for my own research, the most-used nutrition metric in food security studies is dietary diversity. Furthermore, I generally conceive of “safe” food as food that won’t make its consumer noticeably sick due to one or a few instances of consumption. In contrast, each GAS member whom I asked about GAS, nutrition, and food safety responded in a more abstract, ethically/politically/socially-motivated manner and through a longer-term perspective than I initially expected.

Rather than “food security”, “high quality” became my new research buzzword in Italy. To be high quality by Italian standards, my interviewees explained that a food must not only taste or look good, but it must check off several of the following standards regarding its production, distribution, and manifestation as a food to be consumed:

• Agricultural production:

  • Organic (or produced by organic methods, even if lacking the certification)

  • Non-GMO

• Social components of production:

  • Labor practices – fair wage, fair working hours, no violations of human rights laws, etc.

  • Doesn’t support the mafia economy

• Distribution:

  • Only transported a short distance; adhering to the “zero-kilometer principle”

  • Relationship to producer –if due to environmental/economics restrictions, a product is not produced nearby, then the socially just distribution system accommodates for the geographic distance

• The final realization of food to be consumed:

  • Freshness

  • Preparation – it was prepared on a stove/in an oven/by someone’s hands and not a microwave or behind closed doors

  • Taste

My Italian interviewees’ perceptions of food security and “high quality” food is critical to understanding the food security-related implications of their participation in GAS.

GAS & Food Security

Despite high poverty and hunger statistics in Milan, food security is not usually one of GAS organizations’ primary objectives. One interviewee, a researcher at Associazione Economia e Sostenibilità in Milan, a creator of Milan’s Food Policy and the MUFPP, and a member of a GAS himself, summed up the relationship between GAS and food security:

“There is a kind of cultural, political vision at the basis of the GAS movement. I cannot say that the activities of the groups—of a single group of GAS—are mainly oriented to create a different food security framework for the people. It’s not the main issue. Yet, I think that most people at the origin of the GAS movement were really committed to a different kind of development, in which justice and ethical issues are important. So, for sure, in the cultural grounds of the GAS movement, there are similar issues. The idea of improving a different development model through your lifestyles and through your food consumption to say okay, food justice is connected to the quality of job, the quality of the environment, which is not necessarily an issue connected to your personal food security, but the idea of a different development model of which food security is an important part. Not only for you and for your group, but for the whole world.”

Since one of GAS’ fundamental objectives is to pay producers a fair price, GAS-purchased food is more expensive than other options. GAS members are generally food secure, and my interviewees agreed that people don’t join GAS to save money—they join because they believe in the GAS ideology. Still, GAS members I interviewed agreed that purchasing through GAS is the least expensive way to purchase “high quality” food. GAS organizations’ elimination of the middle man and volunteer-based model makes their prices lower than prices of similar products at farmers markets or bio stores. However, GAS members’ required volunteer hours pose an additional barrier to joining a GAS, particularly for single, working individuals: each GAS member must dedicate hours of their personal time each week to communicate with producers, organize delivery and pickups, and pick up their own food at the appropriate time and location. Consequently, the GAS I visited were mainly comprised of families and retirees, for whom it’s easier to send a partner to send out to do the food pickups one week or who are able to collect deliveries at any time of day. 

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Recognizing GAS’ potential time and financial constraints, some GAS prioritize affordability for members alongside their environmental and social objectives. For example, members of GAS Crescenzago, which is located in a Milanese suburb, emphasized their price consciousness. They framed their GAS as “less wealthy” than GAS located in the city center, and so they thought that maintaining a low prices may be a greater priority for them than for other GAS. However, many other city center-located GAS members whom I spoke to explained that they carefully selected their type and amount of GAS purchases to accommodate their personal budgets. And at GAS meetings, I listened to members discuss how they could not bring on new producers or had to switch producers due to prohibitive costs for GAS members. Ultimately, the amount of food that members get from their GAS differs greatly. While the president of Terra e Liberta' GAS admitted that he could only afford to buy thirty percent of his groceries from his GAS, other GAS interviewees I spoke to proudly proclaimed the few times a year they visit the grocery store. One member of GAS Crescenzago estimated that 25 percent of its members purchase ten-to-twenty percent of their food from the GAS, fifty percent supply fifty percent, and 25 percent supply eighty-to-ninety percent of their food from GAS. The amount of food GAS members can afford to purchase from their GAS is important not only to understand GAS’ financial implications for individual members but also to understand the broader potential for GAS to remain a significant part of Italy’s food system.

In sum, most GAS do not directly address issues of food insecurity as I defined it for my own research: people lacking access to sufficient quantities affordable, healthy, safe food. Yet GAS do provide solutions for many Italians who suffer from food insecurity by their own definition: relying on food that is produced and distributed through undisclosed methods, which may cause social or environmental harm, and that is comprised of ingredients and processed in a manner that may be harmful to consumers. GAS members I interviewed lamented the increasing industrialization of Italy’s food supply. They pinpointed GAS as a means to teach their children and neighbors about the importance of wholesome, local food and ensure future generations’ continued access to that food.

Milan Food Policy

Milan’s pioneering urban food policy outlines four fundamental objectives to achieve a sustainable food system; however, the policy lacks key metrics and guidelines to determine its impact on urban food security.

The Milan Food Policy, implemented in 2014, aims to ensure healthy food and sufficient drinking water for all residents; to promote food system sustainability, to promote a culture related to consumer understanding of healthy, safe, culturally appropriate, and sustainable food; to fight against waste; and to support and promote scientific and agri-food research.[2] Furthermore, Milan has propagated its model food policy initiatives through political engagement with cities throughout the world.

The MUFPP emerged from a European Union program that advocated for the creation of local food councils in European cities, which would promote sustainable food dialogues in and between those cities. As the 2015 Expo in Milan approached, however, Milanese politicians and researchers recognized the opportunity to expand the project; they sought to create a framework for developing sustainable food policies in cities around the world. The creation of the MUFPP ultimately entailed extensive collaboration between mayors from over thirty cities. While the Food Expo itself was largely criticized, that did not inhibit the MUFPP’s success: today, 142 cities around the world have signed the MUFPP, and those cities, along with other social, political, and cultural institutions, have used it as a framework to establish their own food policies and programs.

I asked each of my Milanese interviewees about their perceived impacts of the MUFPP and Milan’s Food Policy. And none of them, neither GAS members or food policy researchers, could pinpoint exactly how the MUFPP or any facet of Milan Food Policy influenced their own lives or the city’s food security. Certainly, Milan’s Food Policy has provoked a dialogue about sustainable food systems and therefore affected people’s perceptions towards GAS. Yet the popularity of GAS in Milan, plus many other Milanese residents’ shared food values, also influenced the initial development and objectives of Milan’s Food Policy.

The inherent difficulty in distinguishing correlation and causation between food policy, food systems, and food culture in Milan is unsurprising: for centuries, Milanese individuals and social organizations have invested incredible amounts of personal and community resources towards developing their ideal food system. Despite the successful implementation of Milan’s Food Policy, further research must be undertaken to evaluate the policy’s effects; and currently, the Milan Food Policy lacks the necessary metrics and evaluation methods to determine its tangible impact, including its effect on urban food security. The question remains: what roles do policy, culture, and community-based organizations play in developing Milan’s LFS and ensuring its residents food security?

Summary & Key Takeaways

GAS—my research focus in Milan—embody Italians' commitment to local food networks in spite of international trends of food system industrialization and globalization; they represent social innovation and resistance processes while providing a practical means for urban consumers to buy local food. Furthermore, Milan has led international urban food policy initiatives; yet its own Food Policy has failed to make a discernible impact for the GAS members and food policy researchers whom I interviewed.

GAS are founded upon the principles of economic and ethical solidarity, and unlike local food consumers whom I interviewed other cities, Italian GAS members I interviewed quickly, precisely articulated their environmental, social, cultural, and health-related motives for buying local food. Some GAS members’ perceived benefits of local food are more tenuous than others (e.g. food transported longer distances is not necessarily more environmentally harmful), yet my interviewees’ overwhelming emphasis on local food’s superior quality reflects how the importance of high quality—local, socially just, and environmentally sustainable—food is ingrained into Milan’s food culture.  Furthermore, the demographics of Milanese GAS provides insight into the affordability and accessibility of local food purchased through consumer cooperatives.

Despite their enduring challenges, GAS exemplify how conscious consumerism can contribute to LFS development and sustainability over time. I heard numerous anecdotes about how specific GAS prevented local farmers from going out of business, helped small producers thrive and expand, and incentivized farmers to use more environmentally-friendly production methods. Indeed, local and organic food in Milan is now being integrated into the grocery store model, which reflects GAS’ success in supporting sustainable food systems’ development; however, sustainable food in grocery stores may be too expensive for most consumers. Whether or not GAS will persist overtime, GAS have established influential alternative food networks that provide conscious consumers with high quality, local food, as well as economic and environmental benefits they demanded.

[1] Grasseni, C. (2014). Seeds of Trust. Italy’ s Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (Solidarity Purchase Groups). Journal of Political Ecology, 21, 178–192.

[2] Milan City Council. (2015). 2015-2020 Food Policy Guidelines.

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