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An enormous Passion!
Motivations and characteristics of urban store
owners in selling rural provenance food
products
Teresa Forte, DCSPT –UA, teresaforte@ua.pt
Elisabete Figueiredo, DCSPT –UA, elisa@ua.pt
STRINGS - Selling The Rural IN (urban) Gourmet Stores –establishing new liaisons between
town and country through the sale and consumption of rural products (PTDC/GES-
OUT/29281/2017/ POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029281)
Introduction
➢Rural-urban connections and linkages emphasize the interdependency of
these geographical contexts with fluxes of people, products, capital and
knowledge (Mayer, Habersetzer & Meili, 2016).
➢Entrepreneurial initiatives are important enablers of these synergies
➢While for rural-based entrepreneurs the links to the urban are mainly in search
for market trends, niches and import of specific innovative processes, for
urban entrepreneurs the connection to the rural is more about recovering
and preserving.
Introduction
➢Urban specialty stores may be considered as examples and proxies of an
entrepreneurship that brings the rural to the cities through:
▪Providing a venue to sell rural provenance products
▪Acting as showcases of the territories of origin, ways of production and symbolic
dimensions of local, regional and cultural identities (Figueiredo, 2021).
▪Promoting a distinct and more connected approach to consumption vis-à-vis
mass agri-industrial choices (Figueiredo, 2021; Silva et al., 2021)
Objectives
➢Identify the main features of the entrepeneurial activity of urban specialty
stores (type of company, business financial volume, foundation, services,
type of products sold and regions selected)
➢Explore urban specialty store owners’ viewpoints regarding:
1) Distinctiveness and specificities of their business enterprises
2) Motivations and challenges faced
3) Impact on the promotion of rural provenace products and rural
development
Methods: Sample
The study follows a mixed methods sequential explanatory design in two
phases:
➢1st phase –Empirical evidence from a survey to the specialty food shops
(n=113). A hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted segmenting the
stores according to the most sold rural provenance Portuguese products.
➢Three clusters were identified:
1)Wine Focused (n=4)
2) The Rural Provenance Focused (n=13)
3) The Generalist (n=13)
Methods: Sample
2nd phase –a semi-structured interview to a sub-sample of these
shops (n=30) in Aveiro (n=5), Lisbon (n=12) and Porto (n=13).
The interviews were conducted aiming at exploring more in
depth some of the dimensions of the questionnaire and new
aspects, namely the motivations to open the store and sell these
types of products; the perceived impacts of the
commercialization on rural development and the strategies of
commercialization and promotion.
Business enterprise features:type of
company, management and income
Type
of company N %
Limited
liability 43 36.1
Individual
company 32 26.9
Sole
shareholder company 25 21
Management: most are managed by owners with one or two employees. Only 24 (20.2%)
report any change in management, 9 of them starting before 2000, suggesting a relative
stability when combined with the recent character of the stores.
Income, up to 20000 (62.9%) and a very few report earnings higher than 1000000, the majority
earns up to 200000 euros, which stresses, again, the stores’ small dimension
Single member companies are slightier more
common (47.9%). 69.7% are part of a family
company opposed to chained or franchise
Business enterprise features: services
Services N %
Food tasting 67 56.3
Wine or beer tasting 67 56.3
Food gift baskets 48 40.3
Mail shopping delivery 42 35.3
Shopping delivery 33 27.7
online shopping 32 26.9
Restaurant supplying 29 24.4
Cafeteria 28 23.5
Own brand of food products 23 19.3
Workshops/cooking lessons 16 13.4
Restaurant 13 10.9
Meal Take away 12 10.1
Gift card 12 10.1
Event catering 11 9.2
Meal Delivery 6 5
Bookshop 5 4.2
App sales 4 3.4
The stores, besides selling
rural provenance food
products , tend to offer
other type of services,
Enterprise features: products and
regions
Mulitple regions
79.8% choose products from multiple regions. in
opposition to 18.5% specialized on a single region. In
both cases, Trás-os-Montes, Serra da Estrela and Azores
are the main regions of provenance of a wide array of
products, being also among the multiple regions
Single region
Categories
N
%
Cheese and other milk derivatives
49 41.2%
Wine and
other beverages 48 40.3%
Vegetables
and derivatives 47 39.5%
Handicraft
33 27.7%
Hygiene
33 27.7%
Honey, Jams and preserves
24 20.2%
Olive oil
18 15.1%
Meat
13 10.9%
Stores foundation and motivations
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Graphic 1: Decade of Foundation
Motivations to work in urban specialty food
shops:
•To carry on a family business: specially by
older enterprises ‘My father is in this
business for more than 50 years’ (P3.3)
•Self-employment:more common in recent
stores (either because they were
unemployed or working on something that
did not suit their needs)
•Making use of a prior educational
background (e.g. in the tourism industry;
design; agribusiness; enology)
•Enormous passion for rural provenance
products
Financial support
In the midst of the unemployment rise after Euro financial crisis,
this type of enterprise (driven by an awareness of the products’
appeal) was considered a profitable venue to generate
employment and income, also exploring the increasing tourist
influx;
Among the most recent ones, 5 stores (in the three clusters)
benefited from financial support either:
➢directly aimed at fostering entrepreneurial activity (e.g.
Women’ business initiative; PRORURAL)
➢following general/national policies to foster employment.
Perceived distinctive elements
1) Engagement with consumers with a knowledgeable and personalized
customer service
‘I am a sommelier and passionate for wine’ (L1.1);
‘All the clients tell me that that we taught them how to eat cheese’ (L2.3)
2) Level of involvement and proximity with the producers –customized
recommendations and suggestions to what contributed retailer’s
connection with the products and region of origin
‘We choose the products based on their roots, their typical
provenance’(A2.3)
‘I have products 100% from Trás-os-Montes. From the bottom of my heart, I
love to sell these products, the 100% regional products’ (A2.2.).
Distinctive elements
3) Appeal of traditional commerce–either because they are originally
antique and preserved this character or they are emulating this more
traditional and typical ambience.
4) Services Provided –wide variety of services provision, some of them
perceived as innovative (at least within the context they are settled).
These include blindfolded tasting; food tours; sommelier à la maison
(particularly common in cluster 1 and in olive oil stores from cluster 3)
and workshops with producers and general tastings (common to all
clusters).
Challenges
1) Difficulties in competing with larger commercial surfaces
2) Lack of government support to traditional commerce
3) Need to disseminate traditional commerce perks among consumers
4) Inflation in renting costs, perceived as unregulated and
disproportionate, especially in cities’ historical centres where traditional
commerce has more chances to be visited
‘Cities are only interesting as long as there are people,
businesses, things happening’ (P2.3)
Challenges
5) Need to provide diferente and competitive services–window of
opportunity perceived by recent stores vis-á-vis critical viewpoint from
the older/more traditional:
‘Those who open these stores know that there is a profit there and that is
the problem, they are only thinking about profit, don’t really know the line of
business (…) hold it for some time and then close doors’ (P2.1).
6) Limitations in the transport and distribution networks, jeopardizing the
preservation of the products’ quality; the establishment of viable
partnerships with small producers located in more distant regions as well
as a more regular supply:
‘I have a lot of specific products that are complicated to arrive here.
Many producers are connected to the villages, have everything they want and,
sometimes, don’t desire to grow’(A2.3).
Impacts of the promotion of rural provenance
products and rural development
1) Support of small producers –cumulatively with other similar initiatives
and accepting the inherent shortcomings of working with small
producers:
’The challenge for them is to produce with quality and keep the olive grove
alive’(L3.2)
‘Sometimes the product runs out or they cannot hire any more people to
expand the production’(A2.3).
2) Contribute to the development of Agriculture and Rural Areas –by
making the products available to different publics and divulging
them, their origins and rural ethos of production
‘We go looking for small producers not yet represented in the city’ (L1.2)
‘Not only sell, but also explain how it is produced, valuing the work and
know-how of our small producers’ (L3.4).´
Conclusions
➢The increase of specialty shops selling rural provenance food products is
changing the urban commercial landscapes in a rapid manner, following
the growing in tourism influxes and having the potential to foster new rural-
urban relations.
➢Many of these shops are quite recent, of small dimension and family-
based enterprises.
➢These shops are also characterized by selling a diversity of products from a
variety of Portuguese regions and offering complementary services to their
customers
Conclusions
➢Despite the challenges many of the stores analysed here are facing,
for many shop owners this is a labour of passion:
➢Passion for the Portuguese, regional and local products
➢passion for their regions of provenance and passion for the customers.
➢This passion
➢crosses all the shops, disregarding its location and cluster
➢and, is at the basis of the closer connections the shops promote and
maintain with the products, the producers, the territories of origin and
the customers
➢bringing the countryside flavours, smells, biophysical elements and
cultural ways of doing into the city, while contributing to promote rural
attractiveness and to reduce the long-lasting rural-urban gap.