Abstract:

Rural women’s small businesses engaged in the production of local agri‐food products have been flourishing in the Greek countryside the last years responding to an emerging consumer demand for food of “specific quality”. Such successful initiatives have been particularly developed with co‐operative form, scattered throughout the country, both in the hinterland and in the islands. In this paper we examine the motives of consumers in buying local traditional food from rural women’s cooperatives and their perceptions for “specific quality” of women’s foods with connotations of ‘a homemade’ and so traditional, pure and healthy foodstuff. We explore to what extent visitors to women’s co‐operatives are influenced in their shopping by the fact that products are prepared by women. The analysis is based on first findings of an empirical research carried out in five women’s food‐ producing cooperatives of rural Greece.