Sustainability performance of local and global supply chains: a comparative assessment on bread

There is a growing recognition among consumers that what you chose to buy and where from can have different impacts in relation to different dimensions and scales. In parallel there is a growing interest in short(er) food supply chains as a valid response to the unsustainable practices of global/industrial food supply chains. The dichotomy between alternative and conventional food systems and the actual sustainability of local food chains has been questioned. How is sustainability performance connected, and to what extent, to the level of localness or globalness of food supply chains? The present work develops a comparative case study among three supply chains in the bread sector in Italy representing a local, regional, and global bread chain. We compare and discuss the relevance of a set of attributes related to different sustainability dimensions in order to identify critical aspects and provide a preliminary assessment.