Food access for all: Empowering innovative local infrastructure

In underserved communities throughout affluent countries, people lack access to affordable, nutritious food. To remedy this, Social Entrepreneurial Organizations (SEOs) are creating local, community-based food distribution infrastructure that provides sustainable access to healthy and affordable food. Our paper develops an integrative framework focused on identifying the key marketing practices that enhance the success of local, community-based SEOs securing affordable access to healthy foods. We adopt a relational engagement approach and bring an inductive case study method to our collaborative research partnerships with SEOs innovating community-based solutions to improve food access. Our research-based framework suggests opportunities for academic research on food access with conceptual and societal benefit. Finally, we call for more academic research to advance local, community-based social entrepreneurship focused on attaining healthy food access for all.

Keywords:

case method (teaching)  food access  food insecurity  hunger  public policy  seasoned equity offerings  social entrepreneurship  transformative consumer research 

Citation:

Melissa G. Bublitz, Laura A. Peracchio, Charlene A. Dadzie, Jennifer Edson Escalas, Jonathan Hansen, Martina Hutton, Gia Nardini, Carrie Absher, and Andrea Heintz Tangari (2019). Food access for all: Empowering innovative local infrastructure. Journal of Business Research, 100, Pages 354-365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.027