As a central and essential component of existence, food permeates our daily lives through our relationships with each other and our environments. Throughout the history of mankind, the acquisition, preparation, and eating of food has fostered patterns of work, cultural, and social organization. Over the course of several centuries, the conventional Western food system developed from a rather simplistic structure, of local small-scale production, to one of an increasingly diverse and fragmented character. As any trip to a supermarket will reveal, the dominant contemporary food system, functioning in the context of a globalised, mass-producing market, involves an incredibly complex set of participants and linkages to provide the almost unlimited variety of intensively processed, packaged, and fresh foods from every corner of the earth. For many years, the evolution, structure, and complexity of relationships in the conventional Western food systems has remained a subject of continuous research and debate (Beardsworth, 1997).

While decentralisation and localisation of food systems to suit a particular community or ecosystem offers several advantages over the globalised conventional food system, western constructs thoroughly support and perpetuate the conceptualisation of agriculture and food as exclusively or primarily rural activities and issues and works against the idea of food systems in the metropolitan area. Exacerbating this dilemma, food-related programme and policy development for cities conventionally ignores food systems theory, employing a disconnected and disengaged approach in which various government departments and industry sectors create separate, potentially conflicting policy. To mediate the problems associated with this fragmentation of food policy, several local and regional government departments have created cross-sectoral councils to generate comprehensive, allied solutions to food issues within and surrounding urban areas. This systems approach facilitates the development of coordinated policy and programs such as local food guides, farm-to-school, and institutional purchasing, providing a unique and successful alternative to traditional, fragmented policy management while encouraging support for a more sustainable, localised food system.