Editorial: Emerging Nordic Food Approaches
This special issue consists of six articles discussing the ongoing changes of food production and consumption in the Nordic countries and in particular the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The transformation of food production and consumption systems and the social and corporate responses to the observed negative environmental, health and other side-effects of the mainstream, industrialized food production–consumption model have been studied extensively. Research debates have centred around whether and in which ways the emerging new food economy entails a genuine paradigmatic change towards ‘post-productivism’ (Goodman, Citation2003; Marsden, Citation2013; Roche & Argent, Citation2015) and a ‘re-territorialization’ of the food economy with new opportunities for endogenous sustainable rural development (van der Ploeg & Renting, Citation2004; Watts, Ilbery, & Maye, Citation2005; Winter, Citation2003). Such concerns have been summarized in the notion ‘the new rural development paradigm’ (Murdoch, Citation2000). Core conceptualizations of transformations of food systems have been and still are, as documented in the papers included in this special issue; ‘conventions of quality’ (Storper & Salais, Citation1997), ‘alternative food networks’ (Renting, Marsden, & Banks, Citation2003; Watts et al., Citation2005), ‘short food supply chains’ (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, Citation2000) and territorially embedded marketing and certification schemes (Ilbery, Morris, Buller, Maye, & Kneafsey, Citation2005; Parrott, Wilson, & Murdoch, Citation2002).
Literatures on the emerging new food economy have been dominated by reports from a limited number of countries, in particular the U.K., Holland, Italy and the U.S., while the ongoing changes in the Nordic countries are less comprehensively studied, although they are by no means un-explored (Amilien, Fort, & Ferras, Citation2007; Byrkjeflot, Pedersen, & Svejenova, Citation2013). As reported in this special issue, Scandinavian producers, consumers and policy-makers have come quite some way in transforming the approaches to the production and marketing of food. The main part of this transformation parallels with the rest of Europe, however other aspects are uniquely Nordic. From a position with no distinct gastronomic profile, a new internationally trendsetting gourmet restaurant sector has sprung up in since the early 2000s, attracting the attention of global media, gastronomic chefs and ‘foodies’. Commentators credit the key initiating and inspirational role for this development to a group of charismatic chefs and gastronomic entrepreneurs, who in 2004 formulated and launched the ‘New Nordic Cuisine’ (NNC) manifesto. The manifesto aimed for a new way of cooking based on ‘ingredients and produce whose characteristics are particularly excellent in our climates, landscapes and waters’. Purity, freshness and seasonality were other salute words in the manifesto. At present, the NNC is one of the most prestigious and internationally successful cooking trends, represented at Bocuse d’Or, the unofficial world championship in cooking, winning in 2009 (Geir Skeie, Norway), 2011 (Rasmus Kofoed, Denmark) and 2015 (Ørjan Johannessen, Norway). Moreover, 11 of the latest 15 winners of gold, silver and bronze medals at the five competitions since 2009 are from Scandinavia. The Copenhagen Restaurant, NoMa, the winner of the British Restaurant Magazine’s prize as the world’s best restaurant 2010–2012 and again 2014, has been one of the lighthouses of NNC in the shaping of a new Nordic, Scandinavian and Danish food identity and profile.
Notwithstanding the inspirational top-down effects of the NNC manifest and its founding protagonists, the changes of Nordic food markets started decades earlier in the form of pioneering and persistent bottom-up activities of business entrepreneurs and local communities throughout the Nordic countries. From a starting point in the 1980s when markets were utterly dominated by standardized, industrial food, a varied supply of specialized local culinary products has been developed and marketed. Local producer and distributor networks have been established, often as part of territorialized rural development strategies for economic diversification. The new culinary offerings and producer networks have become identity markers and components in place-branding activities of rural and urban tourism destinations and an inspirational basis for attempts at re-inventing regional ‘terroir’ qualities of food in Scandinavia.
