Feeding the global city: urban transformation and urban food supply chain in 21st-century Istanbul

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the effects of urban transformation on the urban food supply chain in 21st century Istanbul. The article begins with a discussion on the particularities of the urban transformation that has shaped the city since the 1980s, emphasizing tendencies that are relevant to food consumption and supply patterns and practices. Next, 6 categories of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFVs), provisioning agents (mixed/foreign-capital supermarkets, domestic-capital supermarkets, bazaars, local suppliers, and urban and semi-urban/peripheral farmers, internet or store-based alternative food networks) are analyzed in terms of their perception of urban transformation and various challenges it poses. The article concludes with an assessment of the changes in the city’s food supply chain in light of provisioning agents’ responses to the urban transformation as a force that either enables them compete more successfully and expand their operations or pushes them to contract or even leave the provisioning sector completely.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban transformation
• urban food supply chain
• Istanbul
• fresh fruits and vegetables
• urban provisioning

Glossary of Terms

AFN – alternative food network

Ayran – salty, yoghurt-based cold drink

Bağ – usually a vineyard; could also be an orchard

Bahçe – garden

Bakkal - deli

Bostan - a usually a vegetable or a fruit field or garden. Traditionally, bostans were located at the outskirts of neighborhoods, and they supplied the neighborhood’s residents with FFVs.

Bostancı – someone who takes care of the bostan; gardener.

FFVs – fresh fruits and vegetables

Gecekondu – shantytown; squatter settlement

Gıda Perakendeciler Derneği - Food Retailers’ Association

Manav – green grocer

Meyhane – tavern

Pazarcılar ve Seyyar Esnaf Odası – Bazaar and Mobile Vendors Association (BVMVA)

Pazarcılar Odası - Bazaar Vendors Association (BVA)

PERDER (Perakendeciler Derneği) – Grocery Retailers’ Association

Seyyar satıcı - mobile vendor

Tarhana – dried, powder, vegetable soup base

Tarla – field

TOKİ (Toplu Konut İdaresi) – Mass Housing Authority (MHA)

Türkiye Perakendeciler Federasyonu - Grocery Retailer’s Federation of Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For a list of Turkish terms used, please see the glossary.

2. For a broader discussion and examples, see: (Kuyucu & Ünsal, 2010) (Gülöksüz, 2002) (Öktem Ünsal, 2015) (Uysal, 2012) (Eraydin & Tasan-Kok, 2014) (Lovering & Turkmen, 2011).

3. “These areas used to be mulberry orchards; now, they are supermarkets” .

4. For example, Türkiye Perakendeciler Federasyonu ([Grocery] Retailer’s Federation of Turkey). Note that only domestic-capital supermarkets are members of this association. According to the president of the Federation’s Istanbul branch, mixed/foreign capital supermarkets have not subscribed to the Federation out of their own choosing; the Federation itself is not exclusive (TPF Istanbul Director 2015).

5. I should point out that this “tactic” is also one of the ways provisioning actors in this category can achieve high growth rates in the sector.

6. Though further analysis that explores the relationship of the associations to the government is necessary to better understand these dynamics, it is beyond the scope of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Candan Turkkan

Candan Turkkan is a PhD candidate at University of Massachusetts Amherst, department of Political Science. She specializes in political theory (Sovereignty, Biopolitics; neoliberal governmentality; risk and precarity) and food studies. Her doctoral work maps how cities are fed, and in conjunction with that, interrogates the relationship between economy and sovereignty. Through a case study of how Istanbul’s food supply chain has changed since the late Ottoman period (19th century), her dissertation unravels the ways in which food, bodies, and biological processes have become objects of intervention for the modern nation-state. (For more information on the author, please visit: candanturkkan.com)