In a context in which school restaurants are developing local sourcing strategies, this research aimed at evaluating the economic impact of a project in which the central kitchen of a major town experimented with purchasing free-range chickens from a selection of local farms. As months went by this initial aim evolved as the actors involved discovered each other's working practices and the specific features of their management. They progressively discovered, cost wise, that they each had their own very different way of counting. Beyond this economic dimension, this experiment made them realize that compromises were needed in order to find compromises between local government authorities and local producers so as to develop local sourcing strategies. Based on the work of Thévenot et Boltanski (1991) the on the orders of worth, this article tells the story of the compromises which were found and the processes which enabled them to be found.
