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Mihai Varga (2019)Valuation Studies 6(1), pp. 63-86Abstract. This article explores the “quality battlefield” in the food economy – the dispute over value conventions between mainstream business actors and alternative food networks. It shows how actors in one particular alternative network – the solidarity economy – shift such notions from product qualities to the qualities of relations in production. Opposing the standardized criteria characterizing private certification schemes and organic certification, they struggle to establish the value of their products by creating and circulating verifiable stories proving their involvement in the solidarity economy. These stories further emphasize the distance to standard business motivations, for instance by accentuating the cooperative rather than competitive relations with other producers. The article illustrates the features and tensions of value conventions in alternative food networks by contrasting actors in mainstream agriculture with an expanding organization of agricultural producers adhering to solidarity economy and operating in the grocery sector in Sicily, Italy.Key words: alternative food networks; solidarity economy; value conventions; organic certification; citrus; SicilyExcerpt. "The change in value conventions ‒ from the “quality” of products to the nature of “relations” involved in production – is anything but seamless; such conventions hardly ever completely abolish each other, and to the extent they coexist, they might provoke tensions among the actors involved. The change in value conventions together with the tensions occasionally surrounding them speak to the literature on valuation and to its preoccupation with exploring the practical struggles of accommodating different value registers or conventions (Helgesson and Kjellberg 2013). It invites questions about how – in the absence of the certification schemes and standardization underpinning notions of “quality” ‒ such distinct notions of value can work in practice; how producers can actually demonstrate to consumers the “civic” value of their products; and whether and how the emphasis on “relations” can do without conventions regarding prices, enterprise growth, and profit." (p. 81)Link to the review (Open access)