From Food Value Chains to Value Webs

1st Aug 2025

Dr. Leyla Sayin
Deputy Director, Centre for Sustainable Cooling.
Centre for Sustainable Cooling,
University of Birmingham
full-orange-to-juice
©Chris De Bode/CCN: From Orange To Juice

For decades, the journey from farm to fork has been described as a "food value chain" - a linear sequence of activities, from production to consumption. The very term "chain" evokes a series of discrete links whereby goods move sequentially from one value-adder to the next until reaching the end consumer. This linear concept however inadequately captures the true dynamics of food systems, assuming value and information primarily flow in a single direction along the chain. 

Rethinking the Food System: The Value Web

Smallholder farmers, in particular, often find themselves constrained within these linear value chains, unable to fully realise the benefits of the value they help create. At the CCN, we believe it’s time to embrace a new perspective: food systems behave less like a straight line and more like a complex network or "value web" - a system of interlinked value chains supporting joint production, processing, and exchange of products for multiple purposes. This conceptual shift, developed by Professors Ian Thomson and Toby Peters, and Dr Leyla Sayin, acknowledges complexity, interdependence, and the diverse relationships that shape our global food systems, offering a more accurate reflection of reality and enabling more equitable and resilient outcomes for all stakeholders. 

Unlike a single chain, a value web involves multi-directional relationships among all participants. It is characterised by complex, connected, and interdependent interactions, where knowledge sharing, learning, and collaboration are as essential as the flow of goods. In a value web, farmers, processors, distributors, retailers, and consumers engage with each other in various ways, exchanging information, co-innovating, and even returning resources (e.g., feedback, waste reuse, or investment) upstream. This interwoven structure is dynamic and resilient, reflecting the real give-and-take of food systems.  

Key Features Of A Food Value Web 

  • Multi-directional flows: Products, money, and information move in many directions rather than a single line. For example, a farmer might sell produce to a local processor and directly to consumers at a market, while consumer feedback loops back to influence what the farmer grows next season. These many-to-many links make the network more dynamic and responsive than a simple chain. 
  • Integrated activities and resource loops: A value web links multiple supply chains and finds synergies between them. One crop can generate diverse outputs and by-products that feed into various processes. For instance, fruit pulp or vegetable peels left over from a juicing can return to nearby farms as animal feed or organic compost instead of becoming waste. Such cascading use and recycling of by-products merge chains into an interwoven web, capturing more value locally. 
  • Collaborative, equitable and synergistic relationships: Rather than a strict hierarchy, a value web is built on collaboration, trust, and shared benefits. Actors work together and co-innovate to create and share value for mutual gain. This fosters a more equitable distribution of risks, responsibilities, and rewards among farmers, processors, and other food system players, whereas linear chains often leave smallholder farmers at the bottom. In a value web, value creation is a collective effort within the community – not dominated by a few big intermediaries. 
orange-and-bits
©Chris De Bode/CCN: Orange Pulp

Enhancing The Value Web Mindset

Thinking in terms of a web reveals critical intersections between value chains, highlighting critical points for strategic interventions that can simultaneously influence multiple chains. Moreover, a value web facilitates the recognition of situations where achieving specific social outcomes necessitates alignment and integration across different value chains. For instance, addressing child stunting through improved dietary diversity requires coordinated action among numerous food value chains within a given community or market.  

This conceptual shift from chain to web is more than just semantics. It has real implications for how we design solutions - and new business models - in agriculture and rural development. It encourages us to look at farming communities holistically, to spot connections between sectors and needs, and to build interventions that reinforce each other. Unlike traditional linear value chains, value webs facilitate shared resources, feedback loops, and collaborative innovation, enhancing community resilience and equitable value distribution. 

This principal underpins our Community Cooling Hub (CCH) concept. CCHs break down silos by aggregating multiple services within a shared business model, acting as multi-energy multi-service hubs where numerous threads of the value web converge. For example, diverse products like fruits, vegetables, and dairy can be processed collectively at the hub, maximising efficiency and resource use. By-products from one process - such as fruit pulp from juicing - can become valuable inputs for another, serving as animal feed or compost. Shared infrastructure, such as a pre-cooler, cold storage, processing equipment, serves multiple value chains simultaneously, transforming facilities into versatile community assets. This integration enables farmers to strategically coordinate production based on local market demand. It also facilitates targeted interventions - for example, enhancing nutritional outcomes by strategically developing a diverse range of products that improve local dietary diversity. 

orange-and-juice
©Chris De Bode/CCN: Orange Juice

Circular practices further enhance sustainability, with surplus produce from one chain being repurposed into another product line, reducing waste and creating additional revenue streams. Regular feedback and collaboration among farmers, processors, and retailers further strengthen these connections, fostering innovation and responsiveness across the entire system. Ultimately, by integrating these multiple value chains, communities create mutually reinforcing, resilient, and sustainable local food systems - exactly what a value web aims to achieve. 

Shifting from the “chain” mindset to a “web” approach is a conceptual change, but one that carries practical power. It encourages us to see the bigger picture – to recognise interdependence in food systems and design joined-up solutions. Furthermore, this approach also strives for greater equity. In a linear value chain, the small farmer at the start is often the weakest link, capturing the least value and bearing disproportionate risk. In a value web model, those same farmers become co-creators of value. The relationships in the web are more balanced, and trust and mutual benefit hold the web together, instead of one player simply extracting value from others. By restructuring interactions to be more horizontal and collaborative, a value web can help level the playing field for smallholder farmers and their communities. 

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