Rhetoric of ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns: speaking to consumer values to valorise the ‘local’ and exclude ‘others’?

Abstract

Drives to (re-)localise the system of food provisioning have arisen and proliferated in recent times, chiefly in response to the negative consequences of the prevailing global food system. Due to this, but also since Ireland has begun to experience economic difficulties, many ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns have emerged and although not a new phenomenon, their recent (re-)emergence and abundance are notable. Drawing on discourses of sustainability, sustainable consumption and geographical scales, this paper aims to critically analyse the nature of these campaigns and the persuasive arguments upon which these promotions are based. Following a review of the literature on values of consumers in Ireland towards Irish and local food, a thematic analysis is employed to determine the key rhetorical discourses which are common to three case study ‘Buy Irish Food’ campaigns. The research revealed instances of conflating ‘Irish’ and ‘local’ by consumers and more commonly by those involved in the promotion of Irish food, in addition to a reliance on local food rhetoric and spatial valorisation to the detriment of ‘others’. Drawing on these findings, the paper concludes by proffering a future research agenda, which highlights the need to investigate the effects of such exclusions as well as a need for comparative research to potentially consider the Irish case study in the context of patriotic purchasing rhetoric from places considered to be geographically similar to Ireland.

Keywords:

• Ireland
• local food rhetoric
• spatial valorisation
• sustainability
• patriotic purchasing

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Frances Fahy in the School of Geography and Archaeology at the National University of Ireland, Galway for reviewing and providing helpful comments at all stages of preparation of this paper. Thanks to Dr Mary Cawley for comments on an earlier draft. Thanks also to the Economic and Social Research Institute, Love Irish Food, Truly Irish Country Foods and the National Dairy Council for kindly permitting the reproduction of their copyrighted images. Finally I wish to acknowledge funding from the National University of Ireland, Galway's Millennium Fund, without which this research could not have been conducted.