Market Shaping and the Paradoxes of Food Provisioning in Future Food Technologies

Abstract

Future food technologies (FFTs) are reconfiguring food provisioning by introducing new product choices, increasing efficiency, and promoting sustainability. However, as FFTs become more agentic, they also surface paradoxical tensions between consumers, producers, and technological infrastructures. This study examines what these paradoxes do: how tensions enacted in consumer discourse constitute the ongoing shaping of FFT-mediated food provisioning markets. Drawing on qualitative data from 24 focus groups (n = 117) in Aotearoa New Zealand, we show how paradoxical tensions constitute market shaping across three areas: (1) algorithmic governance of market choices, (2) corporate dominance in market access, and (3) legitimizing frameworks for market evolution. While FFTs promise optimized, “perfect” food experiences and new forms of market access, they simultaneously constitute predefined autonomy, imbalanced participation, and constrained agency through algorithmic standardization, corporate consolidation, and exclusionary market practices. Applying paradox theory, we show how participants’ discursive practices perform institutional work that keeps FFT markets under continuous negotiation. These tensions are therefore generative rather than merely disruptive, constituting the ongoing configuration of technology-mediated food provisioning systems. This research contributes to macromarketing by showing how paradoxical tensions do not simply accompany FFT market evolution but organize the discursive and institutional work through which food provisioning systems are assembled, contested, and reconfigured. The findings offer insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and scholars examining the evolution of food systems in technology-mediated markets.