Rural Identity In Organic Food Processing - A Sensemaking Perspective

The main focus in this paper is to analyze identified different relations and interpretations of ‘the rural’ in three organic processing companies situated in rural areas in Denmark. In order to look at the differences, Weick’s (1995) sensemaking perspectives are introduced. The main results show that the three companies, which are all organic and situated in rural areas are enacting their rural identity in slightly different ways. In recent years, a dairy company in one of the outskirt areas of Denmark has gradually changed its way of making sense of the local attachment to also include local areas in other parts of the world. This is termed as a sort of ‘glocalism’. A butcher has a much more international and ‘disembedded’ way of making sense of its products, while the company is seen as an important workplace serving as ‘glue’ in a small community. The third company is a mill situated in a rural area on a peninsula. Here the local identity is bound to the farm and the land in a ‘small-box’ identity. Besides the differences, similar aspects in the three companies’ markets are identified. All three companies are mainly dependent on urban markets. They all use branding strategies oriented towards urban consumers. The strategy of the dairy is selling authentic local (glocal) products where we ‘know’ the producers. The butcher sells superior international quality products, and the mill sells a product tracked from ‘field to fork’ with reduced food miles and a clear farm profile. It is concluded that the rural identity can have many expressions and that the companies are not comparable with the organic rural farming identities in all aspects. The future focus of developing values in organic companies might need a more independent focus.