Speakers
Description
Keywords
Community resilience, food sharing, social impact
Introduction
Food retail corporations are the vital global actors of the food distribution and consumption landscape. The future of Sustainable Food Systems and the Sustainable Food Value Chains transformation heavily depends on their ability to align key business performance indicators and sustainable development goals. This intention is formally managed through implementation of the corporate ESG Policy and Strategy imposing measurable commitments and timelines for reducing negative impact on Environment and Society.
However, disregard some positive examples and best practices demonstrated by the industry leaders, the velocity of change does not match the urgency. Besides, the traditional corporate top-down management style lacks the focus on the true values of sustainable development aimed at local community resilience. The paper presents the practical results and observations derived from the alternative approach utilized by the food retail company whereby the local people became the drivers and immediate beneficiaries of the sustainability agenda put into real action.
Objective
The purpose of the research is to explore, test and improve a feasibility of the idea that an ordinary neighborhood grocery store operated by the food retail corporation can be turned into a highly demanded social center for local community care, support and sharing. It questions the effectiveness of the large-scale corporate philanthropy programmes and financial aid as opposed to the local self-sustained community driven initiatives supported by the store employees and resources.
Method
Authors used a product development methodology which consists of iterative MVP piloting, testing, improving and scaling based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of surveys, key informant interviews, employee feedback; social, media and business metrics corresponding to each roll-out phase.
Findings
The community food store initiative was proved successful in empowering local people to practice mutual care, support and sharing. It provided the required inspiration, tools, resources and techniques to the community leaders living in the grocery store neighborhood, including store employees, as the most effective, interested and genuine social change agents. As a result, a current number of the total participation exceeds 7 million people per year with a continuously growing network of more than 1,350 stores to date. The community food store initiative became the most profound and popular social impact programme in the company's history.
Conclusion
Local community involvement is vital for promoting and implementing sustainable development goals which is possible only when local people own the initiative and continuously demonstrate engagement in such activities. The corporate social responsibility resources of the large food retail company shared with local communities ignite the self-driven and self-sustained culture of mutual care, support and sharing. The community food store initiative makes communities prepared and equipped for resolving local social issues in a proactive, relevant and personal sense. It proves to be more effective and socially involving than any of the well-established and budgeted large-scale corporate philanthropy and food sharing programmes managed and executed from the top down the company hierarchy.
The conceptual idea and implementation guidelines of the community food store initiative have a high potential to become an innovative contribution to the Sustainable Food Systems and the Sustainable Food Value Chains global toolkit.
