What is local food?

People value local food for various reasons, ranging from environmental sustainability to quality and taste. As a result, it is unclear whether members of the local food movement talk about and value the same thing. And, relatedly, the scope of prominent criticisms of the local food movement is unclear: do such criticisms apply to all senses of local food, or just some? We take this unclarity as an invitation to clarify what local food is, which values are associated with local food, and how consuming local food supports these values. To this end, we distinguish between six concepts of local food that are implicit in the extant umbrella term ‘local food’, each of which is associated with different values. Our non-partisan aim is to bring new clarity to debates about the value of local food. We remain neutral about whether the added clarity will ultimately help or hinder the aims of the local food movement. We also show that engineering the concept of local food has broader theoretical value, since it helps to diffuse Strawson’s challenge to the value of conceptual engineering in a novel way.