Logistics of food distribution. Re-territorializing the distribution system of Mass Market Retailers.

Keywords: Infrastructure, food logistics, food distributions networks
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 26

Abstract

Since the last twenty years, the Italian food supply chain has undergone a radical transformation to increase performativity in both logistical and economical terms. This mainly concern the distribution system of the Mass Market Retailers (MMR) whose restructuring is driven by new technologies, automation, and AI. Since most of these changes are of a purely technical nature, they have reinforced the reading of food distribution systems (as all the other logistics platforms) as black boxes: networks made of highly technical, de-contextualized spaces secluded from any form of urbanity. Thus, they are regarded as mere enclaves carved out by global supply chains at most.

While this approach has helped to understand how food distribution systems act at the large scale, this contribution emphasis the need to add another level of interpretations by re-territorializing and re-materializing such an infrastructural system. Indeed, in carefully investigating how the space of food logistics are rooted into specific contexts, it is possible to rediscuss the extra-territorial nature of these sites and envisioning them as a contested infrastructural space open to exogenous stimuli. This way, in turn, they can be considered part integrated within the everyday living environment.