Exploring the ways in which food companies contribute to common-good-driven agri-food systems

Agri-food systems are characterized by a structure in which primary producers (thousands of farmers) are separated from end consumers (millions of households) by concentrated food-processing and retail corporations. Here, a few large actors occupy a powerful intermediary position between primary production and final consumption. Alongside these powerful corporations there are novel companies that play an alternative intermediary role that challenges the current growth-driven intermediation relations by promoting alternative relations centered on collective wellbeing. An epistemic analysis of the ways companies organize contributes to exploring alternative configurations that challenge a capitalist economy at the center of social life. Using game-based research methods, we have collected data from 30 food companies in Colombia. Our empirical work brings evidence of novel images of organization. Our research uncovers the ways in which alternative companies play a role of intermediation for the common good, promoting managerial practices that do not aim at economic growth, but at caring for life, both human and non-human. An epistemic analysis of these organizations has shed light on purpose-driven corporate strategies that may enable other futures in which care and collective wellbeing are at the center of managerial practices.