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Purpose – European studies of alternative food networks have covered primarily rural or periurban initiatives that connect producers and consumers directly. For the most part, those studies overlook nonprofit urban community initiatives. This chapter begins to address the gap by presenting preliminary findings from a study that examines the development of community food initiatives that sell green produce in London.

Design/methodology/approach – The first part of the chapter draws on content analysis of literature produced by 15 initiatives and presents a brief overview. The second part presents case study analysis of the organizational, physical, and social context of two of the initiatives.

Findings – The findings indicate that many urban green produce initiatives have an explicit emphasis on the demand side of the producer–consumer connection. Those that emphasize sustainably produced food and fair trade may have difficulty drawing low-income customers, even if located in areas with high levels of deprivation. Initiatives oriented toward basic food access rather than sustainability are expanding their scope to include more “local” food.

Originality/value – Although this study does not represent urban green produce initiatives throughout England or beyond, it provides some examples of how such initiatives can develop and the extent to which they claim social justice and environmental considerations in their efforts. This study is a step toward empirical examination of nonprofit urban green produce initiatives, and contributes to a broader, more inclusive conceptualization of alternative food networks.

The environmental justice perspective represents a significant reframing of the traditional environmental discourse. Although few scholars in the environmental field pay attention to environmental framing, it is extremely important in the field. Environmental activists, policymakers, government, politicians, and business have long perceived, contextualized, and battled over environmental issues by establishing frames of reference. Framing refers to the process by which individuals and groups identify, interpret, and express social and political grievances. It is a scheme of interpretations that guides the way in which ideological meanings and beliefs are packaged by movement activists and presented to would-be supporters. Beliefs are important because they can be defined as ideas that might support or retard action in pursuit of desired values, goals, or outcomes. Social movement collective action frames are injustice frames because they are developed in opposition to already existing, established, widely accepted ideas, values, and beliefs. However, the social movement frames are intended to identify, highlight, and/or define unjust social conditions. Activists trying to develop new frames have to overcome the hurdle that many people (including would-be supporters) might accept the established or hegemonic frame as normal and/or tolerable. Collective action frames deny the immutability of undesirable conditions and promote the possibility of change through group action. Hence, social movement activists become potential social change agents in charge of their own destiny. They feel empowered to alter conditions (Goffman, 1974; Snow & Benford, 1992, 1988; Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986; Turner & Killian, 1987; Piven & Cloward, 1979, p. 12; McAdam, 1982; Gamson, 1992; Gamson & Meyer, 1996).