Restaurants Challenging the Global Food System in Bogota-Colombia

This paper discusses and analyses alternative markets of food as spaces for Social Entrepreneurship in which businesses pursuing social goals could be successful and sustainable in the long term. Alternative markets of food is one of the different ways in which public and private sectors are attempting to address the gap between the countryside and the cities. They are born as a local strategy to counter the negative outcomes and values of globalization through direct relations of producers and consumers. Even though there are good results of some samples of local food systems, experience also question the idealistic view of such developments. Notwithstanding this, there has been less said about how the enterprises that manage to be successful in these alternative markets of food deal with the challenges of compete within the market, while they keep faithful to their social goal. Drawing on data from restaurants in the region of Bogota-Colombia, it was found that alternative markets of food can give a space for action of Social Entrepreneurs, thus generating social impacts and synergies that involve different stakeholders. The individual motivations and practices of cooks (micro-level) and the networks (meso-level) of this alternative market seem to put before the social value over the economic profit. Following theory on Social Entrepreneurship, these cases of restaurants that rely on alternative markets of food in Bogota are an example of successful entrepreneurial practices with social objectives.