Product, Process and Place

Considerable academic interest now revolves around the recomposition of specific (or ‘alternative’) food chains based on notions of quality, territory and social embeddedness.A key to such recomposition is the marketing of ‘difference’ through a range of accreditation and labelling schemes. Using examples from Europe and North America, this paper examines how ‘difference’ is constructed by producers and other actors in the food supply chain by combining the attributes of ‘product, process and place’ (PPP) in a range of marketing and labelling schemes. Results indicate that it is possible to identify ‘critical’ and ‘territorial development’ rationales that influence the ways in which the three Ps are combined. An examination of the rationales and practices sustaining such labelling schemes provides insights into some of the opportunities and threats shaping the emergence of new geographies of food production and consumption in Europe and North America.