Global trends in food production and management, together with new rural development strategies in Vietnam, have led to new initiatives to enhance local food chains and facilitate new producer-consumer relationships, with a system of alternative food networks reconnecting producers and consumers with sustainable food production, distribution, and consumption. This study explores the larger context of the changing agricultural sector in Vietnam to see how alternative food networks in Hoi An have formed and how they reach potential customers. This analysis takes account of the political economy of the food system — how new rural development strategies and alternative agriculture initiatives are facilitated by the government and by non-government organizations. It explores different types of short food supply chains in alternative food networks and how they facilitate the connection between organic producers and local consumers. Ultimately, it is hoped that this study will help address the underlying factors behind the successful development of organic farming under the conditions of ‘free market’ on the one hand, and socialist-oriented policy on the other.