Goodness Groceries! A mobile sustainable food shopping app advocating for food literacy and ethical choices. Entailments for suppliers, consumers and researchers.

Scientific Conference (2022, August)

Within the currently rising concerns around sustainability of food systems, in the related economic areas of regenerative production modes, responsible supply chains and informed consumption, there often ... [more ▼]

Within the currently rising concerns around sustainability of food systems, in the related economic areas of regenerative production modes, responsible supply chains and informed consumption, there often remains a practice gap between what people know they should do and what they actually do. This is preceded by a knowledge gap: the knowledge of what a sustainable product specifically is tends not to be entirely consensual, blurred with potentially contradicting injunctions between different claims of sustainability. Instead of trying to solve this puzzle with metrics, we propose an App that makes various components of sustainability transparent, thus qualifying sustainability complexity. Our aim is not to hierarchically determine ‘the best’ sustainable choice, but rather to relationally empower consumers to choose the product with the sustainability criteria that most fit their values and priorities. Goodness Groceries is a University of Luxembourg consumer study piloting a mobile sustainable food shopping app in partnership with a supermarket chain. The App acts as a virtual shopping companion providing eco-responsible and ethical product information of selected staple food products, each time for up to four types: local organic, local conventional, imported organic and imported conventional. The information provided is based on self-assessments made by product suppliers. Each food item is granted criteria in the four main areas of Environment, Social Well-being, Economic Well-being and Good Governance, subdivided into relevant indicators (cf. SAFA guidelines, FAO 2014) – marked with easy-to-recognise icons. The user-friendly App is designed to scan alternatives of the same product via a QR code whilst shopping, to analyse if this helps consumers make an informed choice – or not, and why. Starting in Spring 2022, entailments of the (ongoing) study and App in terms of structural obstacles for researchers, necessary supply chain adaptations for suppliers and analysis of consumers’ shopping habits and App usage feedback will be discussed. [less ▲]

Food Governance durch Qualitätszertifizierungen

in Godeman, Jasmin; Bartelmeß, Tina (Eds.) Handbuch Ernährungskommunikation. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven im Kontext von Nachhaltigkeit (2021)

In diesem Beitrag wird das Potential von Qualitätszertifizierungen zur Förderung eines nachhaltigen oder ethisch verantwortlichen Lebensmitteleinkaufs, sowohl in Bezug auf VerbraucherInnen als auch ... [more ▼]

In diesem Beitrag wird das Potential von Qualitätszertifizierungen zur Förderung eines nachhaltigen oder ethisch verantwortlichen Lebensmitteleinkaufs, sowohl in Bezug auf VerbraucherInnen als auch Akteure des öffentlichen Beschaffungswesens, vorgestellt. Es wird gezeigt, dass Governance-basierte Qualitätszertifizierungen wie Label effiziente Kommunikationsinstrumente für nachhaltigkeitsorientierte Ernährung sein können, indem sie Ernährungskompetenz und nachhaltigeres Einkaufsverhalten bei potentiell widersprüchlichen Interessen fördern, insbesondere, wenn die Zertifizierung den Mehrwert des Produktes transparent aufzeigt und die definierten Nachhaltigkeitskriterien gesetzlich verpflichtend sind. Political food communication may take many forms, including direct recommendations to public institutions and private households (cf. Reckinger/Régnier 2017), or more indirect labelling schemes that certify various types of quality – from sustainable via nutritious to ethical. The underlying governance claims differ in those cases: in the first one, priority is given to analytical, top-down information to procurement actors and to individuals of a given population; in the second one, action is rather taken in the direction of food production and transformation, be it top-down or participatory, with an associated effort to make the communicated guarantees transparent to consumers. In this article, we will analyse in a praxeological perspective the contrasting governance claims that structure a selection of labelling schemes in contemporary Luxembourg: official ones (such as organic produce, among others), voluntary and regional ones, international ones, as well as supermarket brands blurring boundaries and using overlaps of several labels. We will compare the guarantees and transparency that labels tend to offer in the socio-ecological, socioeconomic, sociocultural and socio-political dimensions of food certification, viewed as a potentially enabling or disabling form of food communication. At the same time, we will examine the potential of these aids for individual consumers’ priorities and public procurement actors’ legal framework in selecting foodstuffs with added sustainable or ethical value, asking the question if such certifications are efficient tools of food communication and ultimately of an enhanced food literacy in an arena of potentially conflicting and crowded messages. [less ▲]

Nous voulons apporter notre soutien sur le fond du débat

Article for general public (2020)

The top-down diffusion process of agroecological practices within farmer groups in Bilanga, Burkina Faso: barriers to agroecological knowledge creation?

Scientific Conference (2019)

Smallholder Farmers’ Adaptations of Agroecology in the Context of Livelihood Asset-Deprivation: Social and Ecological Consequences in Bilanga, Burkina Faso

in Tielkes, Eric (Ed.) Tropentag 2017: Future Agriculture: Social-ecological transitions and bio-cultural shifts (2017)

Agroecology in Burkina Faso: A Smallholders' Livelihoods' Catalyst?

Poster (2016)

Assessing the impacts of a transition to agroecology-based agricultural systems on smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in Burkina Faso: The contribution of a methodological framework combining the Anglo-Saxon Sustainable Livelihoods and the francophone “Agriculture Comparée” approaches”

Scientific Conference (2015, May)

Festung Europa oder Chance Immigrationstradition? Erwartungen und Realitäten im Alltag subsahara-afrikanischer Asylsuchender in Luxemburg

Bachelor/master dissertation (2010)