Sustainability as 'quality of qualities'

In food, there is a lot of discussion about the meaning of sustainability. Is it organic? Fair-trade? Climate friendly? Locally produced and consumed? GMO-free? Do health issues, or labor conditions count as well? And what about animal welfare: is the wellbeing (and well-dying) of the pig or cow a matter of sustainability?

Throughout the food-transition book, a series of authors discuss what they think to be the key elements of 'sustainability transitions' in the food sector. From their contributions it can be concluded that defining sustainability in one or two or three dimensions is not the best way to approach this complex issue. Instead of providing 'sustainability definitions' this book offers a different approach to the issue, inspired by historical trends. It is shown that throughout time different layers of consumer-concerns-for-food have been developed by actors in civil society in Europe in particular. With each new layer of concern developing into a dominant item, we see the existing set of concerns being integrated and redefined into a this new framework. As a result, sustainability is regarded as a broad, flexible and multidimensional concept referring to the concerns about food as developed by citizens, consumers and their (non governmental) organizations ever since the start of the industrialization process. Sustainability as 'quality of qualities' turns out to be an important driver of change in the food sector.