Foodscapes: Theory, History, and Current European Examples (RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft) 3658414987, 9783658414986

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RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft

Olaf Kühne · Julia Deborah Fischer · Timo Sedelmeier · Volker Hochschild · Barbara Staniscia · Cesare Manetti · Liliana Dumitrache · Ana-Maria Taloș · Angel Menéndez Rexach · Ana de Marcos Fernández   Editors

Foodscapes Theory, History, and Current European Examples

RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft Reihe herausgegeben von Olaf Kühne, Forschungsbereich Geographie, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany Sebastian Kinder, Forschungsbereich Geographie, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany Olaf Schnur, Bereich Forschung, vhw - Bundesverband für Wohnen und Stadtentwicklung e.V., Berlin, Germany

RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft | SpaceAffairs: City – Region – Landscape Im Zuge des „spatial turns“ der Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften hat sich die Zahl der wissenschaftlichen Forschungen in diesem Bereich deutlich erhöht. Mit der Reihe „RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft“ wird Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern ein Forum angeboten, innovative Ansätze der Anthropogeographie und sozialwissenschaftlichen Raumforschung zu präsentieren. Die Reihe orientiert sich an grundsätzlichen Fragen des gesellschaftlichen Raumverständnisses. Dabei ist es das Ziel, unterschiedliche Theorieansätze der anthropogeographischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Stadt- und Regionalforschung zu integrieren. Räumliche Bezüge sollen dabei insbesondere auf mikro- und mesoskaliger Ebene liegen. Die Reihe umfasst theoretische sowie theoriegeleitete empirische Arbeiten. Dazu gehören Monographien und Sammelbände, aber auch Einführungen in Teilaspekte der stadt- und regionalbezogenen geographischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung. Ergänzend werden auch Tagungsbände und Qualifikationsarbeiten (Dissertationen, Habilitationsschriften) publiziert. Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Dr. Olaf Kühne, Universität Tübingen Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kinder, Universität Tübingen PD Dr. Olaf Schnur, Berlin In the course of the “spatial turn” of the social sciences and humanities, the number of scientific researches in this field has increased significantly. With the series “RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft” scientists are offered a forum to present innovative approaches in anthropogeography and social space research. The series focuses on fundamental questions of the social understanding of space. The aim is to integrate different theoretical approaches of anthropogeographical and social-scientific urban and regional research. Spatial references should be on a micro- and mesoscale level in particular. The series comprises theoretical and theory-based empirical work. These include monographs and anthologies, but also introductions to some aspects of urban and regional geographical and social science research. In addition, conference proceedings and qualification papers (dissertations, postdoctoral theses) are also published. Edited by Prof. Dr. Dr. Olaf Kühne, Universität Tübingen Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kinder, Universität Tübingen PD Dr. Olaf Schnur, Berlin

Olaf Kühne · Julia Deborah Fischer · Timo Sedelmeier · Volker Hochschild · Barbara Staniscia · Cesare Manetti · Liliana Dumitrache · Ana-Maria Talos, · Angel Menéndez Rexach · Ana de Marcos Fernández Editors

Foodscapes Theory, History, and Current European Examples

Editors Olaf Kühne Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany Timo Sedelmeier Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany Barbara Staniscia Sapienza Università di Roma Rome, Italy Liliana Dumitrache Universitatea din Bucures, ti Bucharest, Romania Angel Menéndez Rexach Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Madrid, Spain

Julia Deborah Fischer FB Geographie Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany Volker Hochschild Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany Cesare Manetti Sapienza Università di Roma Rome, Italy Ana-Maria Talos, Universitatea din Bucures, ti Bucharest, Romania Ana de Marcos Fernández Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Madrid, Spain

ISSN 2625-6991 ISSN 2625-7009 (electronic) RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft ISBN 978-3-658-41498-6 ISBN 978-3-658-41499-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer VS imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Contents

Introduction: Foodscapes—Theory, History, and Current European Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olaf Kühne, Timo Sedelmeier, and Julia Deborah Fischer

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Theory Landscape Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Foodscapes – a Neopragmatic Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olaf Kühne Origins of the Concept of Foodscape from the 1990s to Today: Quo Vadis? . . . . Gisèle Yasmeen

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Poverty Foodscapes: Why Food Banks Are Part of the Poverty Problem, not the Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Timo Sedelmeier

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Everything Sausage (Salad)—Regionalizing Sausage Salad via Chefkoch.De . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sven Gerstlauer and Julia Deborah Fischer

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Accessability Case Study Analysis: Access to Unconventional Local Producers in Covasna County, Romania (Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ana-Maria Talos, , Florin-Alexandru Zaharia, R˘azvan-Cristian Muntean, and Alexandru Coman Spatial Accessibility to Supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Angelo Andi Petre and Ioana Alexandra Mirea Measuring Geographic Accessibility to Healthy Food for the University of Bucharest Student Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cristian Cazacu, Andreea Carab˘a, and Gabriel-Valentin Dimisiano

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Factors Influencing Food Choice Among Romanian University Students . . . . . . Angelo Andi Petre and Ioana Alexandra Mirea “We Are Rather the Aesthetes”—(Re)production of Hegemonic Patterns of Interpretation and Evaluation in the Foodscape of Urban Gardening . . . . . . Melanie Mahler and Jakob Stock

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Roman Urban Foodmarket Urban Food Markets and Community Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabriele Lombardi, Cesare Manetti, and Barbara Staniscia

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Urban Food Markets: An Analysis of Customer Characteristics and Motivations in the City of Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lorenzo Corsi and Ivan Guiducci

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Urban Food Markets in Rome: A General Overview from the Vendors’ Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Danilo Spiro, Loredano Cianfa, and Rosanna Prosperi

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Urban Food Markets in Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabriele Lombardi, Cesare Manetti, and Barbara Staniscia

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Tübinger Foodmarkets Analysing the Tübingen Weekly Market: Concepts of Regionality and Alternative Food Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carmen Christina Grupp and Felix Gschwender The Characteristics of the Local Food Environment: The Case of Urziceni Municipality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexandra-Cristina M˘argarit, Ioana-Georgiana Zafiu, and Elena-Valentina Z˘ah˘ar˘achescu

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Normative Approaches Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Its Impact on Consumption Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cristiane da Silva Lopes do Nascimento

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Promoting Healthy Foods and Diets: Exploring Communication, Recipes, and Attitudes in Romanian Food Blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liliana Dumitrache and Mariana Nae

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Urban Planning and Food: A Necessary Integration? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Angel Menéndez Rexach

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Contents

Regional Food as an Instrument for Regional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anna-Maria Weber, Theodor Geiger, and Leon Barghoorn Fighting Food Waste: Current and Upcoming Policies and Regulations in Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carlos Castells-Somoza

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Introduction: Foodscapes—Theory, History, and Current European Examples Olaf Kühne, Timo Sedelmeier, and Julia Deborah Fischer

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, the term ‘foodscape’ has been used. Its reference to landscape opens it up to a wide variety of theoretical conceptions and numerous methodological approaches. Exploring the large ‘semantic yard’ of the concept of landscape it becomes clear that the approach of foodscapes aims less at the description or pure positivistic analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of food, but is significantly open to aesthetic approaches, normative questions, as well as aspects of the connection of food and space creating meaning. In this respect, research on foodscapes is not simply a part of food geography but reaches beyond it. Keywords

Foodscape . Foodscapes . Landscape . Landscape theory . Food availability . Food production . Food distribution . Food consumption Since the mid-1990s, the concept of ‘foodscape’ (Yasmeen 1996) has been used in academia to initially address spatial distribution patterns related to food production, distribution, and consumption. In recent years, however, research has also emerged that O. Kühne (B) · T. Sedelmeier · J. D. Fischer Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] T. Sedelmeier e-mail: [email protected] J. D. Fischer e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_1

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addresses questions of individual and social constructions of foodscapes, as well as their experience (Sedelmeier 2018; Sedelmeier et al. 2022; Vonthron et al. 2020). The two-part compound, ‘foodscape’, consists of the base word (determinatum) ‘scape’ and ‘food’ (the modifier, or determinans in linguistics). The determinatum ‘scape’, as the foundation of the compound, determines the morphosyntactic features and the semantics of the compound, the determinans, here ‘food’, modifies the determinatum more succinctly, defining its scope of meaning. The scope of meaning of the determinatum ‘scape’ is extensive. This is a verbal abstract derived in Germanic languages from ‘-skapjan’ (similar: *skapi-, *skapja-, and *skafti-), as in the German: Freundschaft [friendship], Mannschaft [team], Vorstandschaft [board of directors], Professorenschaft [professorate], etc.). From the beginning, these ‘-schaft’ abstracts were characterized by a uniform range of meanings, describing a synopsis of gestalt, form, constitution, nature, state, and manner (Müller 1977). The determinans ‘food’, on the other hand, is more concrete as regards its range of meaning. This is also expressed in the fact that ‘food’ is subject to legal definability. Thus, in its Regulation 178 of 2002, the European Union understands “food (or foodstuff) as […] any substance or product, whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed, intended to be, or reasonably expected to be ingested by humans”. (European Parliament and the Council 2002, Article 2). As mentioned at the outset, foodscape research is concerned with spatial aspects of food production, distribution, and consumption. The spatially arranged elements of production, distribution, and consumption are subjected to a synthesis, as it became clear from the semantic considerations of the determinatum ‘scape’. In the spatial sciences, such spatial syntheses at intermediate scales commonly take place under the term ‘landscape’ (among many: Antrop 2019; Kuehne 2019; Mathewson 2011.). Thus Adema (2006, p. 12) contemplates ‘foodscape’ as “[a]n emulsion of food and landscape.” This connection is particularly clear in German, where the term ‘foodscapes’ is translated directly as ‘food landscapes’ (‘Nahrungslandschaften’, see for instance: Sedelmeier 2019; Sedelmeier et al. 2021; Sperk and Kistemann 2012). A reference to landscape research—with its more than two centuries of tradition—would have the advantage for research on foodscapes, as with Kühne (2022) but also to avoid the painful departure from positions that are no longer tenable in terms of scientific theory, such as an essentialist position. Compared to other terms dealing with spaces, especially on a mesoscale, such as territory, area, and especially region, the concept of landscape is more strongly charged in a real-world, aesthetic, emotional, normative, and synthetic way. Whereas ‘region’, for example, makes a sober descriptive or analytical reference to space, the ‘semantic yard’ (Hard 1969] of landscape is larger, rooted not least in a conceptual history stretching back more than a millennium that developed guides to political, territorial, aesthetic, moral, and normative synthetic constructs, with clear cultural differentiations (among many: Antrop 2019; Berr and Kühne 2020; Berr and Schenk 2019; Bruns and Kühne 2015; Drexler 2013; Kühne 2020).

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Current theoretical approaches to the topic of landscape illustrate the importance of multitheoretical and multimethodological approaches for the study of complex objects such as landscape, and equally so, foodscape. This results not only from the relationships of physical space, individual consciousness, but also from the cultural and social production of knowledge (Popper 1979; Popper and Eccles 1977) by including the integration of the human being—in his bodily constitution—into all three of these Popper ‘Worlds’. In relation to foodscape, this significantly involves the material dependence of humans on food to maintain their bodily subsistence, the development of individual preferences for food, individual knowledge about the availability and preparation of these, additionally, the social and cultural agreements about the types of cultivation, processing, transport, preparation, and consumption of food, whereby these agreements are socially and culturally differentiated and are thus also socialized to the individual in a differentiated way. Already from these brief explanations it is clear how diverse questions to complex objects like foodscapes can actually become—and thus also theoretical and methodological approaches—at least as long as the theoretical approach is carried out by means of ‘medium-range theories’ (Merton 1968[1949]) and no universal theory of foodscapes or landscape has been developed. Whereby it is questionable whether such a universal theory—in view of the complexity of the object—can be developed in a meaningful way at all, especially since there is an existing concern that it could lead to a significant restriction of contingency. This, in turn, would limit and unify understandings of landscape and foodscape, so that their potentials to provide bases for new and appropriate descriptions of ‘World’ would be diminished (see generally: Rorty 1997; Topper 1995; in relation to landscape: Chilla et al. 2015; Kühne and Jenal 2021; Kühne and Koegst 2023.). New ‘vocabularies’ appear when ‘time-honored’ vocabularies have become brittle, no longer capable of capturing current developments (Rorty 1997, 1998). If the development of research on foodscapes is understood in this way as an increase of ‘vocabulary’, a question arises; why in the 1990s the hitherto common scientific approaches in the context of space and food needed renewal. Until the 1980s, the traditional approach to food in spatial perspective was strongly agro-geographical (agricultural geography); consequently, it was strongly related to the spatial structuring of primary production. In this respect, Bowler and Ilbery (1987) convey an expansion of the ‘vocabulary’ in terms of further processing, distribution, and marketing, the collateral consequences of agricultural production on society (not solely rural but also urban), an expansion of the theoretical base from political economy and agricultural sociology. Atkins (1988), meanwhile, rejected such an expansion of the ‘vocabulary’ of agricultural geography and argued for its replacement by a ‘food geography’. This should no longer be focused on the global North, it should take greater account of the importance of food for the development of nations and the relationships of exchange between them, also including a focus on the eating habits of consumers. The understanding of foodscape that underlies our anthology of research can be described as an intersection of the insights of current landscape research and food

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geography: In our understanding of foodscapes, we integrate the objects of production, distribution, and consumption, perceiving consumption as the constitutive aspect that induces production and distribution. The importance of consumption arises not least from the constitutive embeddedness of all people regarding the intake of food. The influence from landscape research that is relevant for our understanding of foodscapes refers both to the focus of a more microscale and mesoscale spatial framework, and concurrently to the focus of synthetic considerations, in which relationships (for instance between the individual and society or groups and physical spaces) are specifically investigated. At the same time, an approach is borrowed from current landscape research that is particularly characterized by theoretical and methodological multiperspectivity, but also by diversity of researchers’ perspectives (both in terms of disciplines, but also of gender, age, and stage of scientific career). Arising from this understanding of foodscapes, some aspects come into the foreground of considerations: the ‘availability’ of food, which focuses on the presence of an individually suitable food offering, spatial ‘accessibility’ of the product locations in relation to the residence of each person, the ‘affordability’, i.e., the level of food prices in relation to the financial circumstances of the customers, the ‘accommodation’ and ‘acceptability’, i.e., the relation to store operational hours, accessibility by means of transportation, and also the shopping ambience. (Clary et al. 2017). At the same time, norms can also be formulated based upon the relation to the concept of foodscape, such as in the capability approach following Sen (among many: Sen 1982, 1985), the vulnerability approach according to Chambers (1989), and the life chances approach according to Dahrendorf (1979). Our anthology “Foodscapes—Theory, History, and Current European Examples” is the result of collaboration between faculty and students from the Universities of Bucharest, Madrid, Rome, and Tübingen. A jointly organized seminars on foodscapes in spring and summer 2022 grew out of the collaboration of the European university initiative CIVIS (CIVIS 2022) whose eleven member universities have set for themselves the task of promoting education, research, innovation, and social commitment. This anthology is the result of this participation and support, not only financial but also idealistic, for which we would like to express our sincere thanks. This anthology is divided into five parts, not including this section of introduction. The first part presents ‘Basic Features of Foodscapes’. The initial essay, by Olaf Kühne (2023) “Landscape theoretical approaches to the study of foodscapes—a neopragmatic proposal”, is a discussion of theoretical landscape approaches relevant to how they could be made available for the study of foodscapes. Because of the complexity of the subjects, both foodscape and landscape, a neopragmatic approach is proposed, which provides suggestions for the triangulation of theories, methods, researcher perspectives, data, and modes of representation. Following on within this, Gisèle Yasmeen (2023) in her paper “Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis?” traces the now roughly three-decade history of the concept of ‘foodscape’ and asks what contributions to mastering the major challenges of the present, from the Covid 19 pandemic to the consequences

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of global climate change, this concept can make. The subsequent contribution by Timo Sedelmeier (2023) “Poverty Foodscapes. Why Food Banks are Part of the Poverty Problem, Not the Solution” deals very fundamentally and critically with the phenomenon of food banks, which in Germany are called ‘Tafeln’, focusing on their strongly diverging assessment on the part of public opinion and academic study. This fundamental part is concluded by the essay “Everything Sausage (salad)—Regionalizing Sausage Salad via Chefkoch.de” by Sven Gerstlauer and Julia Deborah Fischer, where they—following a neopragmatic-ironic approach to Popper’s ‘World’—deal with culinary regionalizations, here using the example of sausage salad (Gerstlauer and Fischer 2023). The second part of our anthology on the topic of ‘availabilities’ opens with the paper “Case Study Analysis: Access to unconventional local producers in Covasna County, Romania (Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca)” (Talos et al. 2023) opened. Here, the availability of locally produced food is investigated by use of Geographic Information System (GIS) in a region strongly characterized by a population of Hungarian origin. In the following essay, the topic of availability is approached less from the side of the producers by examining “Spatial accessibility to supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a county” (Petre and Mirea 2023b) where—also with use of GIS—differences between very urban and more rural areas are examined. In the following paper we stay in Romania, although the thematic focus is shifted in the paper “Measuring geographic accessibility to healthy food for the University of Bucharest student community”: the distribution of (healthy) food offerings in a part of Bucharest is thematized here—again by means of GIS technology (Cazacu et al. 2023). Angelo Andi Petre and Alexandra Ioana Mirea (2023a) turn their attention away from the supply side of food to the demand side when they deal with “Factors influencing food choice among Romanian university students”. With the following essay ““We are rather the aesthetes”—(Re)production of hegemonic patterns of interpretation and evaluation in the foodscape of urban gardening” (Mahler and Stock 2023), we stay in the urban context, but this context is not formed by the metropolis of Bucharest, but by the tranquil Tübingen, and it follows a different theoretical approach: the article is not positivistic, but constructivistic and, based on this, it takes a critical look at the production of urban foodscapes. The following two parts of our anthology are closely intertwined in terms of content, as they deal with urban food markets, with the third part focusing spatially on Rome and the fourth part widening its gaze towards Germany and Romania. The third part begins with an introduction by Gabriele Lombardi, Cesare Manetti, and Barbara Staniscia (2023a) in which they discuss the manifold cultural and social significance of food markets in Italy. In their following contribution, “Urban Food Markets: an analysis of the customer characteristics and motivations in the city of Rome”, Lorenzo Corsi and Ivan Guiducci (2023) trace the social meaning of and social practices involving different food markets in Rome, especially through observational methods. In the next contribution, “Urban food markets in Rome: a general overview from the vendors’ perspective”, the authors (Spiro et al. 2023) expand the widespread view of the consumer perspective to

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that of the vendors, focusing in particular on their expectations and motivations to operate in local food markets. Gabriele Lombardi, Cesare Manetti, and Barbara Staniscia (Lombardi et al. 2023b) conclude this section with their conclusions drawn from the examples within Rome, in which they highlight the particular challenges for local markets, including their own exploration. The fourth part is dedicated to the topic of local markets and their context, starting with the contribution of Carmen Grupp and Felix Gschwender (2023) “Analysing the Tübingen weekly market: concepts of ‘Regionality and Alternative Food Networks’”. Employing semi-structured interviews, which they conducted with vendors, they deal with the origins and relations to the offered products as well as spatial anchors. In the second contribution of this section, “The Characteristics of the Local Food Environment: The Case of Urziceni Municipality” by M˘argarit Alexandra Cristina, Zafiu Ioana Georgiana, and Z˘ah˘ar˘achescu Elena Valentina (2023) the context—and the competitive relations—of local markets is established. The fifth and last part of our anthology deals with the aspects: foodscapes and norms. In her contribution “Taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages and its impact on consumption habits”, Cristiane da Silva Lopes do Nascimento (2023) considers the influence of taxes on human behavior by addressing the different implementations of taxes on sugary foods in an international comparison. The article “Urban Planning and Food: a necessary integration?” (Menendez Rexach 2023) also deals with the relationship between legal regulations, albeit on a different level: the municipal one. The ensuing contribution “Regional food as an instrument for regional development” by Leon Barghoorn, Theodor Geiger, and Anna-Maria Weber is on a regional level. The following contribution “Promoting healthy foods and diets: Exploring communication, recipes, and attitudes in Romanian foods blogs” by Liliana Dumitrache and Mariana Nae (2023) also addresses the issue of disseminating healthy food, although here the topic of social norms rather than legal norms is discussed. The final contribution of the fifth part is also the last contribution of the book: it does not deal with direct production, distribution, or consumption of food but with its unintended nebulous consequences and their (politically induced) restrictions: “Fighting food waste: current and upcoming policies and regulations in Spain” (Somoza 2023). Thus, in the present anthology we have gathered a collection of contributions that have shown the arc from (possible) theoretical approaches to the history of the concept to a variety of individual aspects of the relationship between food and landscape. Taken together, the contributions do not represent an inventory of the current state of research, but rather offer thematic, theoretical, and methodological suggestions for further and more intensive engagement with this rapidly developing field of research.

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References Adema, P. (2006). Festive Foodscapes: Iconizing Food and the Shaping of Identity and Place. Austin: University of Texas Press. Antrop, M. (2019). A brief history of landscape research. In P. Howard, I. Thompson, E. Waterton, & M. Atha (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies (2nd ed., pp. 1–16). London: Routledge. Atkins, P. J. (1988). Redefining Agricultural Geography as the Geography of Food. Area, 20, (3, 281–283). Berr, K., & Kühne, O. (2020). “Und das ungeheure Bild der Landschaft …”. The Genesis of Landscape Understanding in the German-speaking Regions. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Berr, K., & Schenk, W. (2019). Begriffsgeschichte. In O. Kühne, F. Weber, K. Berr, & C. Jenal (Eds.), Handbuch Landschaft (pp. 23–38). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Bowler, I. R., & Ilbery, B. W. (1987). Redefining Agricultural Geography. Area, 19, (4, 327–332). Bruns, D., & Kühne, O. (2015). Zur kulturell differenzierten Konstruktion von Räumen und Landschaften als Herausforderungen für die räumliche Planung im Kontext von Globalisierung. In B. Nienaber, & U. Roos (Eds.), Internationalisierung der Gesellschaft und die Auswirkungen auf die Raumentwicklung. Beispiele aus Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz und dem Saarland (Arbeitsberichte der ARL, vol. 13, pp. 18–29). Hannover: Selbstverlag. https://shop.arl-net.de/media/direct/pdf/ ab/ab_013/ab_013_02.pdf. Accessed: 26 November 2018. Cazacu, C., Caraba, A., & Dimisiano, G. (2023). Measuring geographic accessibility to healthy food the University of Bucharest student community. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Chambers, R. (1989). Vulnerability, Coping and Policy. IDS-Bulletin, 20, (2, 1–7). Chilla, T., Kühne, O., Weber, F., & Weber, F. (2015). „Neopragmatische“ Argumente zur Vereinbarkeit von konzeptioneller Diskussion und Praxis der Regionalentwicklung. In O. Kühne, & F. Weber (Eds.), Bausteine der Regionalentwicklung (pp. 13–24). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. CIVIS. (2022). What is CIVIS? https://civis.eu/en/about-civis/who-is-civis. Accessed: 2 December 2022. Clary, C., Matthews, S. A., & Kestens, Y. (2017). Between exposure, access and use: Reconsidering foodscape influence on dietary behaviour. Health and Place, 44, (1–7). https://doi.org/10.1016/j. healthplace.2016.12.005 Corsi, L., & Guiducci, I. (2023). Urban Food Markets: an analysis of the customers’ characteristics and motivations in the city of Rome. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Dahrendorf, R. (1979). Lebenschancen. Anläufe zur sozialen und politischen Theorie (SuhrkampTaschenbuch, vol. 559). Frankfurt (Main): Suhrkamp. Drexler, D. (2013). Landscape, Paysage, Landschaft, Táj. The Cultural Background of Landscape Perceptions in England, France, Germany, and Hungary. Journal of Ecological Anthropology, 16, (1, 85–96). https://doi.org/10.5038/2162-4593.16.1.7 Dumitrache, L., & Nae, M. (2023). Promoting healthy foods and diets: Exploring communication, recipes, and attitudes in Romanian foods blogs. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Menendez Rexach, A. (2023). Food in urban planning: a necessary integration? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Merton, R. K. (1968[1949]). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. Müller, G. (1977). Zur Geschichte des Wortes Landschaft. In A. Hartlieb von Wallthor, & H. Quirin (Eds.), „Landschaft“ als interdisziplinäres Forschungsproblem. Vorträge und Diskussionen des Kolloquiums am 7./8. November 1975 in Münster (pp. 3–13). Münster: Aschendorff. Petre, A. A., & Mirea, A. I. (2023a). Factors influencing food choice among Romanian university students. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Petre, A. A., & Mirea, A. I. (2023b). Spatial accessibility to supermarkets in Dâmbovita county. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Popper, K. R. (1979). Three Worlds. Tanner Lecture, Michigan, April 7, 1978. Michigan Quarterly Review, (1, 141–167). https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/p/popper80.pdf. Accessed: 12 May 2020. Popper, K. R., & Eccles, J. C. (1977). Das Ich und sein Gehirn. München: Piper. Rorty, R. (1997). Contingency, irony, and solidarity (Reprint). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1998). The Contingency of Language. In M. F. Bernard-Donals, & R. R. Glejzer (Eds.), Rhetoric in an antifoundational World. Language, culture, and pedagogy (pp. 65–85). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Sedelmeier, T. (2018). Urbane Nahrungslandschaften – ungleicher Zugang zu Nahrungsmitteln. Berichte. Geographie und Landeskunde, 92, (3–4, 267–277). Sedelmeier, T. (2019). Food Deserts – Einblicke in Nahrungslandschaften. In K. Berr, & C. Jenal (Eds.), Landschaftskonflikte (pp. 687–698). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sedelmeier, T. (2023). Poverty Foodscapes: Why Food Banks Are Part of the Poverty Problem, Not the Solution. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sedelmeier, T., Kühne, O., & Jenal, C. (2021). Foodscapes/Nahrungslandschaften. Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven (Essentials). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sedelmeier, T., Kühne, O., & Jenal, C. (2022). Foodscapes (Essentials). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sen, A. (1982). Choice, Welfare and Measurement. OXFORD: Blackwell Publishers. Sen, A. (1985). Commodities and capabilities. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publications. Somoza, C. C. (2023). Fighting food waste: current ans upcoming plicies and regulations in Spain. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sperk, C., & Kistemann, T. (2012). Food desert oder gesunde Stadt? Eine Untersuchung von Nahrungslandschaften in Bonn. Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde, 86, (2, 135–151). Spiro, D., Cianfa, L., & Prosperi, R. (2023). Urban food markets in Rome: a general overview from the vendors’ perspective. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Talos, A.-M., Zaharia, F.-A., Muntean, R., & Coman, A. (2023). Case Study Analysis: Access to unconventional local producers; Covasna County, Romania (Chichis, Ozun, and Sântionluca). In

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O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Topper, K. (1995). Richard Rorty, Liberalism and the Politics of Redescription. American Political Science Review, 89, (4, 954–965). https://doi.org/10.2307/2082520 Vonthron, S., Perrin, C., & Soulard, C.-T. (2020). Foodscape: A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies. PloS one, 15, (5, 1–26). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0233218 Yasmeen, G. (1996). Bangkok’s foodscape. public eating, gender relations and urban change. (Dissertation, University of British Columbia). Vancouver. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collec tions/ubctheses/831/items/1.0088160. Accessed: 30 March 2021. Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Dr. Olaf Kühne is Professor of Urban and Regional Development at the University of Tübingen. Dr. Timo Sedelmeier is a senior academic councillor in the Urban and Regional Development Group at the University of Tübingen. Julia Deborah Fischer is a PhD student in the Urban and Regional Development Group at the University of Tübingen.

Theory

Landscape Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Foodscapes – a Neopragmatic Proposal Olaf Kühne

Abstract

For almost three decades since the formulation of the conceptual outlines, foodscapes have been addressed. After a long-lasting dominance of (mostly implicit) positivistic approaches, the theoretical reference has differentiated in recent years, but without the development of clear ‘schools of thought’, as is the case in landscape theory. In this respect, the paper argues for skipping the phase of competing ‘schools’ based on exclusive interpretive claims and turning to an approach based on the complexity of the subject and the suitability of the results to be achieved: neopragmatism. Its aim is to produce suitable, contingent redescriptions, which in turn are suitable to enter future redescriptions, if this is suggested by the development of the world (and thus also science). Keywords

Foodscapes . Neopragmatism . Landscape . Landscape theory . Constructivism

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Introduction

Research on ‘foodscapes’, conceptualized in this way since the mid-1990s (Yasmeen 1996), was initially concerned with spatial distribution patterns related to food production, distribution, and consumption. It was associated with questions that assumed (mostly O. Kühne (B) Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_2

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unquestioned theoretically) a ‘real’ existing world that could be investigated by means of (usually quantitative) methods, georeferenced in Geographic Information Systems, and represented cartographically. In recent years, however, there has been an increasing amount of research that has addressed the question of individual and social constructions of foodscapes (more elaborated: Sedelmeier 2018; Sedelmeier et al. 2022; Vonthron et al. 2020). With this addition of perspective, the question of the scientific-theoretical classification of studies on Foodscapes became more topical. Since foodscapes research is concerned with the synopsis of ‘something’, as indicated by the suffix ‘-scape’ which denotes and deals with spatial relations, a reference to landscape research is obvious (the relationship becomes even clearer in German, where foodscapes [Nahrungslandschaften] are directly translated as ‘food-landscapes’). Adema (2006, p. 12) describes ‘foodscapes’ accordingly as “an emulsion of food and landscape”. In this respect, it is worthwhile to not only refer to the elaborated landscape-theoretical research for the theoretical classification of foodscapes research conducted to date, but also to derive possible perspectives for further foodscapes research from it (extensive overviews of landscape theory have already appeared in several languages and with different emphases, for example at Bourassa 1991; D’Angelo 2021; Howard et al. 2019; Kühne 2019, 2021b; Paquot 2016; Roger 1995; Winchester et al. 2003; Wylie 2007). However, before examining currently discussed theoretical approaches to landscapes, I will address the question of why it makes sense to engage in a theoretical framing of foodscapes research, which has been, after all, primarily empirical in recent years. After these two sections, the focus will turn to the potential of different landscape theoretical approaches to foodscapes. Because of the variety of ‘medium range’ theories currently discussed in landscape research (Merton 1968[1949]) and the complexity of the subject of foodscapes, the meta-theoretical concept of ‘neopragmatic landscape research’ will be presented, which deals with the integration of theories (but also methods, researcher perspectives, etc.) oriented towards the research topic. Finally, the considerations of the paper are integrated in the conclusion.

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Reasons for a Theoretical Approach to Foodscapes

As a rule, the spatial, social, and cultural studies approach to a thematic complex, here being foodscapes, springs from the observation of’World’ (as conceived in the three world theory: Karl Popper). ‘Something’ is noticed, this ‘something’ is observed, investigated with empirical methods, and assigned a designation (inductive approach). Much more rarely, the empirical concern is deductively derived from a theory (for this in more detail: Bauberger 2016; Kühne and Berr 2022; Seiffert 1996). Foodscapes research also began to form empirically, more and more studies on the subject were published, a theoretical classification and abstraction took place only gradually. In this respect, it seems useful to reflect at this point on the meaning of a theoretical concern with an object, in this case

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Foodscapes (Kühne 2019, 2021c; more generally: Kühne and Berr 2021; Poser 2012; Tetens 2013): 1. Theory is—as previously expressed—practical, because abstraction from the multitude of individual cases facilitates orientation. 2. Theory, as an organizing function, enables the most diverse research on the topic of foodscapes, which at best, is itself implicitly connected to theoretical traditions, to being assigned to theoretical traditions, and to being compared. 3. Theory also functions as a realization of contingency. It illustrates the multiplicity of possibilities to deal with foodscapes (or other topics). 4. Theory serves as the function of attaining awareness of contexts and interacting with them. Thusly enabling the correlation of different approaches with each other, to compare them with each other and to visualize differences of world views. 5. Theory can help to regulate conflicts. These often arise from different conceptions of norms, which are connected with dissimilarities (often implicit basic theoretical positions), which, for example, also influence selection or representation of the ‘something’ (material or immaterial) under investigation. Awareness and reflection of these normative ideas facilitates the understanding of conflicts. 6. Theory has the function of strengthening interdisciplinary connectivity; for example, foodscapes research can be connected to the social sciences, psychology, or philosophy, and equally to landscape research. This creates connections to other disciplinary contexts. 7. Theory, in its framing of performing foodscape research, can contribute to the envisioning of the social production of ‘World’. Thus, research (here on foodscapes) contributes to the constitution of the normal in its distinction from the non-normal. Theoretical reflection can thereby contribute to the fact that the ‘normal’ and the ‘non-normal’ are not to be found in the subject of the research objective, but in the individual and supraindividual constructions produced by researchers (if necessary, in recourse to patterns of interpretation, categorization, and evaluation practiced elsewhere; basically on this: Berger and Luckmann 1966). 8. Theory can (as also clarified this section’s introductory remarks) have an empiricistguiding function. Accordingly, empirical research can be guided by theoretical considerations. Empirical observations then tests the fitness of theories as well as their generalizability—and thus can also determine the boundaries of suitability of ‘medium-range theories’ (basically on this: Merton 1968[1949]; Popper 1959). While this paper seeks to contribute to all eight points regarding foodscapes research, it is nevertheless focused on Point 6, so it is necessary to derive impetuses for foodscapes research from the more general theoretical landscape research. To this end, current approaches to landscape theory shall be presented below.

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Currently Discussed Landscape Theories—An Overview

The foundational elements of foodscapes research in the late twentieth century has meant that an essentialist understanding—formerly dominant in landscape research— has scarcely become pronounced. In this respect, it is only mentioned here for the sake of completeness. The essentialist understanding of landscape assumes that “things possess necessary properties that constitute their essence” (Chilla et al. 2015, p. 15). Thus, ‘landscapes’ are understood as ‘entireties’ in which there are ‘essential’ and ‘incidental’ components. The ‘essential’ is then the ‘historically grown’, the ‘incidental’, contrastingly, is only that which is accidentally and not specifically found. Certain (essential) materialities are attributed an “immutable intrinsic value and identity of their own (Gailing and Leibenath 2012, p. 97). With the ‘positivist’ or ‘quantitative’ turn after the middle of the twentieth century, this understanding of landscape was largely replaced in favor of a positivist understanding. Landscape is henceforth understood as an object that can be quantified empirically by measuring, weighing, and counting. The ‘object landscape’ is divided into different levels (this becomes clear when applying GIS layers). For example, climate, vegetation, settlements, etc. are recorded and assigned separate ‘layers’. Landscape’ is thought of as a container, which is ‘filled’ with different elements. These elements behave in a certain—mathematically unambiguous way—to each other, an essential basis for a computer-aided modeling of the possible states (see Tilley 1997; in this anthology for example: Cazacu et al. 2023; Talos et al. 2023). Constructivist approaches commonly hold that landscape emerges constitutively as a pattern of interpretation, categorization, and evaluation in social processes and is then projected onto material spaces. The various constructivist understandings have different foci in this regard: The social constructivist theory of landscape focuses on the question of how ideas about landscape emerge in society, what influences exist reciprocally between society and the individual, and in which form material spaces are symbolically charged (Cosgrove 1984; Greider and Garkovich 1994; Kühne 2008a). The radical constructivist landscape research, following Niklas Luhmann (1986), examines the question of how social subsystems (such as politics, economy, science, etc.) construct landscape in different ways, with what social consequence and on the basis of which relevance. Thus, the construct of landscape becomes relevant in the subsystem of economy when money is to be earned from it (for example, in tourism or agriculture—both relevant for foodscapes research), in the subsystem of politics when power is to be generated by it—or its loss is threatened (for example, when the question of biodiversity of different land uses is socially and morally discussed; see: Kühne, Berr, and Jenal 2022a, b). Discourse-theoretical landscape research is oriented towards investigating which discursive entities strive to gain and secure hegemonic power by excluding which interpretations and valuations about landscape (for example, as ‘historically grown’ vs. ‘modern’; see, e.g. Leibenath and Otto 2013; Weber 2019; in this anthology: Gerstlauer and Fischer 2023; Mahler and Stock 2023).

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Inherent in a positivist and constructivist perspective is a separation between subject and object, thus they segregate into the signifying and the signified, the representational and the represented. ‘More-than-representational theories’ (Lorimer 2005; Waterton 2013) aim at dissolving this dichotomous thinking. Phenomenological landscape research, which has regained importance in recent decades, is concerned with phenomena that are understood as entities, as things and events that present themselves in the world (Tilley 1997). The focus is not so much on a comprehensive description, certainly not on an ‘objective analysis’, but in particular on the individual experience, in this case of landscape (Tilley 1997). The phenomenological landscape researcher becomes a ‘storyteller’ of his experiences of landscape (Tuan 1989). In the actor-network theory (Latour and Roßler 2007 [2005] social, technical, and natural entities and factors are understood on an equal footing, they are treated by the “actor-network theory not as explanans but as explananda” (Schulz-Schaeffer 2000, p. 188). Landscape thus becomes a network of nodes that can act with each other, it emerges from the relations of the elements of landscape that have become ‘actants’ (Allen 2011). The assemblage theory, on the other hand, starts from a constructivist-based attitude and asks what relevance materialities have socially (Mattissek and Wiertz 2014; Müller 2015). Critical landscape research—mostly tracing back to Marxist thoughts of varying degrees of transformation—is related to the unequal distribution of power in relation to landscape, which is ultimately attributed primarily to economic relations. Central to this is the notion of the ‘duplicity of landscape’ (Daniels 1989). Here, on the one hand, landscape is determined constructivistically as a power-determined conception, on the other hand, landscape is also used as a power-determined physical space (here, the connection to positivistic thinking becomes clear). The central object of the critique is the ‘capitalist logic of utilization of space’ (Schein 1997). This dominates over alternative spatial claims, such as those arising from politics or community. Landscape-aesthetic conceptions would have the meaning of legitimizing the physical manifestations of unequal distribution of power and especially of capital. The result is a double alienation, from the domination of external nature determined by the interests of the powerful, to which is added the “defamation of nature in man” (Horkheimer and Adorno 1969, p. 61). In that concept, the latter has distanced himself from his ‘true’ needs and subordinated himself to technical control. Here also, essentialist residues (in the sense of Pareto 1916) become clear, since reference is ultimately made to an ‘essence’ of man, just as historical materialism believed to recognize a determinate course of history (Popper 1965, 2011[1947]). The approach of ‘critical research’ to make use of theories and theory fragments, as long as they can be used in the framework of one’s own critique of society, also becomes clear (Ackermann 2022; Kühne 2021a). Pierre Bourdieu (1987 [1979]) further differentiates the concept of capital beyond an economic understanding when he includes, for example, social capital (as social networks) and cultural capital (as suitable knowledge, educational qualifications, cultural objects) in his theory of symbolic capital. With the help of his theory, landscape-aesthetic standards can be examined, how they are formed and by which

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parts of society, how they are socially disseminated, and how they materialize and serve to distinguish themselves from parts of society that have a lower endowment of symbolic capital (Burton 2012; Kühne 2008b, 2018).

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Exploring Foodscapes Against the Backdrop of Landscape Theory Perspectives

As noted at the outset of this paper, foodscapes research is dominated by positivist perspectives in which food production, distribution, and consumption are examined quantitatively. In recent years, however, the range of theoretical references is definitely expanding. The social connectedness of foodscapes allows social constructivist perspectives to become topical, especially with regard to the question of how individual access to the world depends on social constructions. This concerns, not least, social norms with regard to the question of a ‘good life’ (as it becomes clear in: Arthur 2017; Bradford and Sherry 2017; Morgan 2010). Compared to landscape research, an exception is that which defines planning desired statuses, foodscapes research is more strongly charged as normative. Of significance, the research on those areas with no or only very limited access to healthy food as well as those areas having an excess of healthy food—respectively, ‘food deserts’ (Shaw 2006) and ‘food swamps’ (Elton 2019; Minaker 2016)—not only shows an analytical interest in foodscapes, but also includes the norm of changing these conditions. Also, the concept of ‘foodification’ (Bourlessas et al. 2021; Loda et al. 2020), i.e., the displacement of other land and especially building uses by (mostly higher priced) food-related service providers (especially restaurants, delicatessens, stores with regional specialties, etc.) has a ‘functionally mixed inner city’ as a normative standard of comparison. Here, the importance of the habitus, the societal incorporated into the body, becomes clear, i.e., the availability of different endowments of symbolic capital, following Bourdieu, which are expressed in the way, as well as the form and place, food is consumed (see for instanceBernardo et al. 2021; Richards 2015). Especially in the tradition of ‘critical food studies’ normative statements are connected to the theoretical strand of critical theory (Colombino 2014). An alternative to egalitarian normative approaches is offered by the empowerment approach following Amartya Sen (Sen 1985), such as Palm (2021) or the life chances approach in the wake of Ralf Dahrendorf (1979) as in Kühne and Jenal (2020a). These approaches, which are also present in landscape research, do not focus on equality of outcome, but are normatively oriented towards enabling individuals to have as many options as possible, which in turn arise in particular from access to education and a resulting reflected handling of ligatures (Kühne, Berr et al. 2021; in this anthology for example: Mahler and Stock 2023; Menendez Rexach 2023; Sedelmeier 2023; Somoza 2023). However, other theoretical references, such as those practiced in landscape research, can also be found in the study of foodscapes: for example, discourse theory can be

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used to examine the importance of food in generating regionality (Fischer and Weber 2015; Kühne and Weber 2022). In the context of considerations about hybridization of human and non-human objects in the context of production and consumption of food, thoughts of the actor-network-theory are referred back to (Bruckner et al. 2019; Colombino and Ermann 2022; Goodman 2016). Another more-than-representational theory has also proved fruitful when it comes to the experience of foodscapes: phenomenology, for example, in the context of growing food in schools (Surman and Hamilton 2019), but also of ‘poverty-foodscapes’ (Sedelmeier et al. 2022). An attempt to make Niklas Luhmann’s autopoietic systems theory fruitful for foodscapes research is currently still pending, although it promises a great potential for insight—for example, in tracing the construction of foodscapes from different societal subsystemic logics. Even though a number of theoretically informed works on foodscapes are available to date, no foodscape-specific theories of a paradigm-like character have yet been formed, as has been done in landscape research, for example, with the social constructivist landscape theory or—even less spelled out—a discourse-theoretical landscape theory. Especially for a topic with a high degree and presently an only slightly developed tradition of consistent theorizing, a neopragmatic access to theoretical approaches and also methods, data, researcher perspectives, etc., could prove to be suitable to generate new knowledge in the context of food and landscape.

5

A Neopragmatic Approach to Foodscapes Research

In view of research on foodscapes having not yet coalesced on specific sub-discourses, the question arises whether the phase of discursive closures and related theoretical (and partly empirical) hegemonic efforts cannot be skipped in favor of a neopragmatic approach to foodscapes (in detail on this concept on foodscapes research: Kühne 2022). In recourse to ‘classical’ pragmatism (Dewey 1917; James 1907; Peirce 1991), which can be oriented in a development ‘from consciousness to action’ (Gethmann 1987), neopragmatism advocates the primacy of practical criteria over abstract theory. Criterion for ‘truth’ serves the success of ideas, “interests, values and goals” (Barnes 2008, a, p. 1544), not the noncontradictory derivation from moral or theoretical principles. John Dewey specifies the pragmatic concept of truth with his concept of ‘warranted assertibility’ (Dewey 2016; also Neubert 2004): What is considered ‘true’ is that which is located at the intersection of that which has already been shown to be suitable by means of scientific methods and results and that which will be shown to be suitable by means of the considerations, methods, and results to be developed in the future (Kühne and Berr 2021; also Neubert 2004). Neopragmatism takes up this core idea and transfers it into a linguistic-philosophical context (Putnam 1995; Rorty 1982, 1997, 1998). Rorty, for example, takes up the thoughts of Wittgenstein, Derrida, and Foucault. This emergence becomes clear in Rorty’s changed

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understanding of what is called ‘truth’, this concept he replaces with ‘redescription’. This term clarifies two things: first, the constitutive importance of language in the production of world, and second, also contingency (a central concept in Rorty). This contingency runs through the lives of human beings in society, in general, and of knowledge, in particular (Baltzer 2001). Correspondingly, the ‘insight into contingency’ as a philosophical reflection is limited: “For it is not enough to recognize that there is a multiplicity of other vocabularies besides one’s own; rather, one must relate this observation to antifundamentalist conceptions of language, man, and the world in order to make the diagnosis of contingency” (Deines 2008, p. 158). As ‘vocabularies’ Rorty perceives (1991), in further development of Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘language games’ (German: ‘Sprachspiele’; Wittgenstein 1995 [1953]), common platforms of social justificatory practice. Here, justification is always related to the context of the vocabulary of a concrete language community (discourse-theoretically translated: a discourse; Müller 2021). Redescriptions become necessary—according to Rorty (1997)—when a ‘time-honored’ vocabulary becomes questionable. A vocabulary becomes questionable when it can no longer fulfill its claim to be suitable for the interpretation of the world (Rorty 1997). Redescription represents the attempt to find provisions that refer to unsolvable problems and conflicts or unsolvable anomalies. Redescriptions create a ‘fabric’ in which ‘old’ vocabularies are rewoven into a new vocabulary (Topper 1995), whereby remnants of old vocabularies are subjected to recycling (Rorty 1997; Topper 1995). In view of the above, the quality of redescriptional vocabularies can be measured by two criteria (Kühne and Koegst 2023a, b): 1. Redescriptions must be currently (!) suitable to interpret ‘World’. 2. Redescriptions must be capable of being integrated into the fabric of a future redescription (Rorty 1997; Topper 1995). Thus, neither essentialist conceptions nor utopian interpretations of the world are suitable to be woven into neopragmatic redescriptions. Both are incompatible in a framework of knowledge production that is aware of its contingency. For practical research, the basic tenets of generating effective redescriptive vocabularies, especially for complex questions, mean that—to be justified against these backgrounds—triangulation of theories, methods, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives, data, and methods of representation should occur. These triangulations not only have the advantage of being able to illuminate the complexity of an object more comprehensively, but also of being able to demonstrate the contingency of (scientific) knowledge, namely that different theoretical and empirical approaches to a research object are possible, the testing of which is initially legitimate, but which must prove their suitability according to the criteria mentioned. Especially with regard to the presentation of results—markedly in the form of illustrations—it seems necessary for neopragmatic regional science (here foodscapes-related) research to be aware of the power-boundness—substantially of cartographic representations—without, however,

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practicing their renunciation or the abandonment of a professional point of view (as is demanded in large parts of Critical Cartography; see in this context: Counter Cartographies Collective et al. 2012; Crampton and Krygier 2005; Harley 1989; Kim 2015). From a neopragmatic perspective, such a consequence does not seem opportune, since it reduces contingency, for instance by declaring (professional) cartography dead (Wood 2003). A neopragmatic approach to spaces that is sensitive to contingencies (e.g., foodscapes), however, uses the stylistic device of irony to highlight the contingency, provisionality, and revisability of redescriptions—for example, in the form of ironic cartography using caricatured symbols (Edler and Kühne 2022; Kühne, Edler, and Jenal 2021, 2022; Kühne and Fischer 2022; Kühne and Jenal 2020b; see in this volume e.g.: Gerstlauer and Fischer 2023).

6

Conclusion

This paper has highlighted the current theoretical thinking on foodscapes against the backdrop of the landscape theory debate. It has also highlighted the importance of theoretical reflection in research. Combining the two has brought forth the finding of a long continuing focus of research on foodscapes on positivist grounds (often implicit), with an emphasis on empirical approaches. The large number of results now available suggests a theoretical abstraction in this regard, not least for reasons of overview. In addition to an inductive abstraction, the possibility of deductive research conceptualization by addressing theories also suggests the identification of research gaps. The increasing diversification of theoretical approaches to foodscapes, which can be observed in recent years, shows both a lively interest in theoretical substantiation, and contrastingly—compared to landscape research—a low degree of “school formation”. The hitherto missing development of distinct ‘vocabularies’ (or ‘discourses’) with their exclusivist claims to interpretive sovereignty can, however, be used to approach a neopragmatic approach. This is characterized by not ignoring the competition of theories (thus derived: methods, data, disciplinary perspectives, forms of representation), but their complementarity. A neopragmatically oriented research is concerned with developing suitable perspectives for current contingent understandings of the world. Especially complex objects, such as foodscapes, are difficult to investigate adequately without appropriate triangulations. Thus, the object of foodscapes holds the chance not to reflexively fall back into the excusivistic patterns of interpretation of ‘ancient’ vocabularies, but rather to use them as a basis for a redescriptive reweaving.

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Surman, E., & Hamilton, L. (2019). Growing Consumers through Production and Play: A Phenomenological Exploration of Food Growing in the School Foodscape. Sociology, 53, (3, 468– 485). https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038518789542. Talos, A.-M., Zaharia, F.-A., Muntean, R., & Coman, A. (2023). Case Study Analysis: Access to unconventional local producers; Covasna County, Romania (Chichis, Ozun, and Sântionluca). In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Tetens, H. (2013). Wissenschaftstheorie. Eine Einführung. München: C.H. Beck. Tilley, C. (1997). A phenomenology of landscape. Places, paths and monuments (Explorations in anthropology). Oxford: Berg. Topper, K. (1995). Richard Rorty, Liberalism and the Politics of Redescription. American Political Science Review, 89, (4, 954–965). https://doi.org/10.2307/2082520. Tuan, Y.-F. (1989). Surface Phenomena and Aesthetic Experience. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 79, (2, 233–241). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1989.tb00260.x. Vonthron, S., Perrin, C., & Soulard, C.-T. (2020). Foodscape: A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies. PloS one, 15, (5, 1–26). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0233218. Waterton, E. (2013). Landscape and non-representational theories. In P. Howard, I. Thompson, & E. Waterton (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies (pp. 66–75). London: Routledge. Weber, F. (2019). ‚Landschaftskonflikte‘ aus poststrukturalistisch-diskurstheoretischer Perspektive. In K. Berr, & C. Jenal (Eds.), Landschaftskonflikte (pp. 51–64). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Winchester, H. P. M., Kong, L., & Dunn, K. (2003). Landscapes. Ways of imagining the world. London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. (1995 [1953]). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Tagebücher 1914–1916. Philosophische Untersuchungen (10. Auflage). Frankfurt (Main): Suhrkamp (Werkausgabe Band 1). Wood, D. (2003). Cartography is Dead (Thank God!). Cartographic Perspectives, (45, 4–7). https:// doi.org/10.14714/cp45.497. Wylie, J. (2007). Landscape. Abingdon: Routledge. Yasmeen, G. (1996). Bangkok’s foodscape. public eating, gender relations and urban change. (Dissertation, University of British Columbia). Vancouver. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0088160. Accessed: 30 March 2021.

Dr. Dr. Olaf Kühne is Professor of Urban and Regional Development at the University of Tübingen.

Origins of the Concept of Foodscape from the 1990s to Today: Quo Vadis? Gisèle Yasmeen

Abstract

Building on the recent scoping review by Sedelmeier et al. (Sedelmeier, Kühne, O., and Jenal, C in Foodscapes. Wiesbaden, Springer VS, 2022), as well as Vonthron, Perrin and Soulard (Vonthron, S., Perrin, C., and Soulard, C.-T, Foodscape: A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies. PloS one,15(5), 1–26. https:/ /doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233218, 2020), this article will go back to the origins of the term ‘foodscape’ as it emerged in the early to mid 1990s. Specific attention will be paid to the influence of the work of Appadurai, Cosgrove as well as Porteous in English speaking geography, which lent themselves naturally to the proposal of this term and concept and its use for various empirical contexts. Some reflection on the limitations of the term and concept from a linguistic point of view will be offered given the challenges of a similar concept in, for example, romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian. The inherent tension on the ‘playfulness’ of the term and need for useful frameworks to address the urgent challenges related to food system transformation will feature prominently in this article. Thirty years later, what have we learned and what does it matter? The article will critically unpack foodscape research at this critical juncture in human history where the ravages of Covid-19, climate change, and conflict make it collectively urgent to address hunger, malnutrition, and environmental degradation. As part of the conclusion, some commentary will be made on the utility, or not, of the foodscape concept to help reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2, which G. Yasmeen (B) University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_3

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commits United Nations member states to achieve zero hunger, improved nutrition, and a transition to sustainable food systems by 2030.

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Introduction: Origins of the Foodscape Concept The term ‘foodscape’ emerged in the mid-1990s (Yasmeen 1996) in the context of the scientific study of social and spatial inequalities in public health and food systems. (Vonthron et al. 2020). However, issues of food production, its distribution, marketing, as well as consumption have a history that dates back to the early nineteenth century in geography and its neighboring disciplines (Sedelmeier et al. 2022, p. 1).

The year was 1990 and I was designing a proposal to do a Ph.D., I knew I wanted to do something on the geography of food in relation to cities, livelihoods, and gender relations in Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, where I had had the opportunity to participate in a study tour in 1985. What struck me, particularly in comparison with my experiences in India and other parts of the world, was how convenient the urban food system appeared to be in my eyes and how present women were within the public sphere. As a young woman, I felt comfortable and was able to access high quality prepared food at all hours of the day and night in the city of Bangkok. This was the genesis of my proposal entitled “Bangkok’s Foodscape” and I was fortunate to be accepted at the University of British Columbia to study with one of the greats in the field of urban food system, Professor Terry McGee. I had never seen anyone publish on the term ‘foodscape’ but, in the late 1980s and in 1990 itself, ‘-scape’ words were becoming very common thanks to a seminal essay by Arjun Appadurai introducing various similar concepts and Porteous’s famous ‘smellscape’ essay. Work by Daniels and Cosgrove on landscape also had a deep influence (Daniels and Cosgrove 1993). Hence, I got to work and, beginning in 1992 (Yasmeen 1992) began publishing and fleshing out the concept (Yasmeen 1995, 1996a) eventually used and successfully defended in my Ph.D. dissertation (Yasmeen 1996b) and subsequent work, including post-doctoral analysis of the Asian economic crisis (Yasmeen 2001, 2003). I eventually settled on the following working definition: Food and foodways can be used as a “lens” to focus on many other aspects of human existence. Like the concept of landscape, which is a view of space from a certain perspective, a foodscape can be thought of as a point of view on a given place (Appadurai 1990; Cosgrove 1984; Daniels and Cosgrove 1993). It is therefore a type of representation or an “aid to vision” that pays particular attention to the spatial relations in the “food-system.” (Yasmeen 2006, pp. 2–3).

As a young scholar, I struggled with the concepts of ‘truth’ and subjectivity and found comfort in the notion that “like landscape, a foodscape is a representation created by the

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viewer.” (Yasmeen 2006, p. 29). Having studied the notion of perspective and its ‘invention’, eventually making its way into the world of visual arts, the comparison seemed apt and a natural extension of the idea of landscape, as it emerged in the Renaissance, particularly with Dutch painting. Thirty years later, I am even more convinced that “we see things as we are” rather than as “they” are—a wise saying attributed both to author Anaïs Nin and Talmudic scholarship (Amlen 2017). Inspired by recent German scholarship on foodscapes, this chapter will unpack these notions a bit more in the next section. “The term ‘foodscape’ first found its way into the scientific literature in the mid- 1990s (Yasmeen 1996) and was only very hesitantly taken up by other authors in the following years. It was not until 2010 that the number of scientific publications using the term increased noticeably” (Sedelmeier et al. 2022, p. 15). A useful visual representation of the growth of this scholarship is in Fig. 1. In the mid-1990s, I did not expect—30 years later—to be asked to write a reflection piece on the foodscape concept and its evolution and propose a quo vadis in terms of where and in what moment we find ourselves now as a global society. While I’m delighted to be acknowledged as the first to publish on the concept of foodscape in the 1990s, I by no means claim to be the sole originator of this term. It is very likely, as with all innovation, that several of us around the world had a similar idea around the same time and all began experimenting with it in different ways. The following section will address the limitations of the concept building in some recent insights from German scholars.

Fig. 1 Number of publications using the term foodscape in the corpus of publications included in the review. 2019 includes from January to June (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 5)

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Limitations of the Foodscape Concept and Linguistic Issues

The scoping review of foodscape scholarship by Vonthron and his colleagues published in 2020 provides some groundbreaking analyses on the evolution and use of the concept over more than twenty-five years. They conclude that “not all scholars conceive the foodscape as “a marriage between food and landscape, both the conceptual notion (idea) of landscape and actual, physical landscapes [10]” (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 15). This creativity goes well beyond what I naively experimented with in the mid-1990s, and the following section delves into more details of the findings by Vonthron and his colleagues in terms of how the term has been used. The even more recent work of German scholars on foodscape challenges us to go even further and deeper in terms of unpacking the linguistic foundations and assumptions, which point to some potential limitations in the use of the concept. Although there are a growing number of studies internationally—especially in North America, but also in Great Britain and Scandinavia—that draw on ‘foodscapes’ as a conceptual framing, in the German-speaking world, with few exceptions, (Sedelmeier, 2018, 2019; Sperk & Kistemann, 2012) there are hardly any studies in the German-speaking world that refer to the term ‘foodscape’ or its German-language counterpart “Nahrungslandschaft” (Sedelmeier et al. 2022, p. 15).

As a francophone, I recognize the difficulty of finding a similar concept to foodscape in French recognizing that the ‘scape’ suffix has its origins in Germanic languages. As an interesting contrast, the French concept of terroir—while it is not comparable to foodscape—is hard to translate into English and other languages, points to the complex environmental and place-based factors around food production (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 16 citing Delfosse 2011). All of these observations reinforce Merleau-Ponty’s argument that human thought is rooted in language and that there are limits to the translation of certain concepts (Morris 2020). Sedelmeier et al.’s ( 2022) overview delves into a much deeper and nuanced analysis of the relationship between foodscape and language, particularly the link to German and various conceptualizations in relation to ‘Landschaft’. Their contribution significantly advances our way of thinking about the term and various levels and types of abstraction. They explain the conceptual, abstract roots of the term that then acquired a second, aesthetic, meaning during the Renaissance (in this anthology: Kühne 2023). Thus, the ‘double character’ of the term in German, which still exists today, came into being: First, ‘Landschaft’ denotes the arrangement of material objects, beyond the local level of observation; second, ‘Landschaft’ also denotes the synthesis of such objects in an aesthetic synopsis. This de-differentiation of object- and meta-level is characteristic for the understanding of landscape in the German-speaking world, for instance in comparison to other European languages (Sedelmeier et al. 2022, p. 4).

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This new volume about ‘foodscape’ is a translation of a German-language book. Thus, in addition to the international state of research, the current discussions in the German-speaking world about foodscape and landscape are reflected. This gives international readers the opportunity to engage in discussions that would otherwise have less transnational presence. This also applies to approaches that were developed in the German-speaking world such as ‘neopragmatic landscape theory’ (Sedelmeier et al. 2022, p. 2). The subtlety of Germanic thinking, even in translation, helps us tease out various ways of thinking about foodscapes.

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What Have We Learned and What Does It Matter?

The scoping review by Vonthron et al. (2020) identifies four different approaches to ‘foodscape’ following their analysis of major studies that have been published over the past thirty years: 1. Spatial approaches that use quantitative data and statistical methods to measure the impact of ‘foodscape’ on residents’ diets and health. 2. Social and cultural science approaches analyzing structural inequalities based on quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. 3. Behavioral approaches examining, at the level of individuals, how their perceptions influence their eating behaviors. 4. Systemic approaches that unite critique of the global food regime and promotion of regional as well as sustainable diets. (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 1 also cited by Sedelmeier et al. 2022, p. 15) Substantively, Vonthron and his colleagues conclude that “foodscape studies principally address three issues: public health, social justice, and sustainability.” (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 1). These analyses are far from frivolous academic exercises. Geographically speaking, the Vonthron et al. scoping review shows that the uptake of the foodscape concept has been primarily by scholars in English speaking parts of the world, or at least by scholars publishing in English, primarily in North America and Northern Europe (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 13). Figure 2 depicts this pattern. Of course, there is a paradox here. The word foodscape itself is a child of the English language and the scoping review therefore limited itself to studies published in that language. However, what surprised me was the relative scarcity of cross-cultural studies employing the concept with many studies undertaken by scholars of their own communities. Part of my intention in my study of the evolution of Bangkok’s foodscape from 1991–2001 was to consciously position myself as an observer of the ‘other’ through a socio-spatial lens. It is not clear to me to what extent other studies have done the same with a critical view of interrogating our scholarly ‘gaze’ on food systems both in

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Fig. 2 Countries studied in the publications of the corpus. Numbers refer to the number of studies on a country. Eleven publications include studies on different countries. ‘Other countries’ cover 35 countries and areas studied between 1 and 4 times. (Vonthron et. al. 2020, p. 6)

a scholar’s familiar settings as well as terra incognita—again, from the point of view of the researcher, regardless of their mother tongue. Vonthron and his colleagues conclude astutely that: ‘Foodscape’ is the right term when explaining how food landscapes are shaped, influenced, transformed by social practices (shopping, cooking, eating), by political and legal institutions, by economic decisions, and by relations of power within food systems. ’Foodscape’ should also be the preferred term when examining how food landscapes are perceived differently by each of us according to our “historical, linguistic and political situatedness” (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 16).

Building on the extremely useful scoping review by Vonthron and his colleagues, Sedelmeier et. al. (2022, p. v) provide a more conceptual overview translated into

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English from German of the evolution of the foodscape concept. Their objectives in this publication are to provide: . An introduction to essential tenets of ‘foodscape’, from their beginnings to new approaches. . The presentation of the conceptual history of ‘landscape’ and scientific research perspectives (essentialism, positivism, and constructivism). . A differentiation of constructivist perspectives on ‘foodscape’ with a focus on social constructivist and discourse theory approaches. . An illustration of ‘foodscape’ using selected case studies including applied research methods. . An illustration of the relevance of food geography and other potential research perspectives. While the insights in this publication are many and brilliant, the following remark is worth pondering: with few exceptions, (Sedelmeier, 2018, 2019; Sperk & Kistemann, 2012) there are hardly any studies in the German-speaking world that refer to the term ‘foodscape’ or its German-language counterpart “Nahrungslandschaft”. What can we infer about the meaning of this? In my view, it is further reinforcement of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of language whereby language “co-constitutes the meaning of experience” (Morris 2020) or, put another way, we think through language(s). So what, we might ask. Where do we go from here? The following section concludes by proposing a pragmatic agenda for foodscape research given the perilous moment we find ourselves in now.

4

Conclusion: Quo Vadis? Foodscapes and the 2030 Agenda

Vonthron and his colleagues propose a “future research agenda, arguing that the foodscape concept can help tackle the complexity of the food-people-territory nexus” (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 2). Specifically, they advocate for “interdisciplinary research on foodscapes combining place-based and people-based approaches at different scales” (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 17). I couldn’t agree more and would like to propose more specifically that, at this point in human history, we need to bring together foodscape and other food-systems scholars to collaborate on urgently needed action research to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. See Fig. 3 for a visual depiction of these goals to which all United Nations member states committed in 2015, following the end of the Millennium Development Goals, which were, in colonial fashion, targeted to the Global South. Fortunately, the SDGs are globally framed which helps us move forward in a more positive and less paternalistic way, compared to the past.

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Fig. 3 The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. From https://www.un.org/en/sus tainable-development-goals

Specifically, SDG 2 titled ‘Zero Hunger’, which also commits to good nutrition and a transition to the sustainable food systems, is an obvious focal point. But many others are associated with food systems and, by extension, foodscape work including SDG 6 (‘Clean Water and Sanitation’), SDG 3 (‘Good Health and Well-Being’) and several others. This is so given the relationship between food and so many other aspects of well-being not to mention the food, energy, water nexus. Some of the innovations that Vonthron and his colleagues point to such as Syrjäla et al.’s (2017) concept of ‘snackscape’, which characterizes where and how people consume snacks and the concept of ‘pseudo food’ (Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 10–11) can be part of this ‘roll up’ approach given the ubiquitous and nefarious impact of highly and ultra-highly processed foods and their now thoroughly documented negative impact on human and environmental health. Likewise, Morgan’s illustrations of ‘ethical foodscape’, which drills down on carbon-labeling and school-food reform as well as the politics of care are essential vectors for global food-system transformation (Morgan, 2010 cited by Vonthron et al. 2020, p. 12; in this volume related: Cazacu, Caraba and Dimisiano 2023). But how do we connect the dots between these disparate pieces of work, even though many of them aspire to the same virtuous outcomes such as social justice, improved human, animal, and environmental health as well as broader concerns about sustainability? Vonthron and his colleagues provide one suggestion:

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This could be achieved by applying integrated and multiscale approaches, as well as actionoriented studies. Foodscape studies also require interdisciplinary frameworks involving researchers in spatial modeling, social sciences, public health, and urban planning. All this should contribute to the further development of foodscape analysis as a tool for urban planning and community development. (Vonthron et al. 2020 p. 17)

Integrated, multiscale and action-oriented studies are a specific tactical challenge, given that we have but seven years to achieve the 2030 agenda with many daunting hurdles not the least of which are the triple threat of Covid, climate change, and conflict. We urgently need a global foodscape action-research gathering, but not yet another academic-style conference. The gathering could involve the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors as well as important multilateral bodies such as the Committee for World Food Security and be specifically focused on mobilizing existing foodscape knowledge to achieve the SDGs, while advancing a limited number of doable policy and program solutions for implementation by 2030. Why not just convene all and sundry working on food systems more generally for such a gathering? The value-added of foodscape, as a concept, is the recognition of various, different, and legitimate perspectives. “‘Foodscape’ should hence be the preferred term when tackling not only a physical food environment, but also a socially constructed landscape, perceived differently according to the stakeholder’s background and situation” (Vonthron et al. 2017). The notion of foodscape opens up policies for different groups in society to understand each other and respect differences in point of view. In that sense, the concept is not at all frivolous but essential in terms of collectively moving forward to protect future generations, both the people and the planet. After all, “food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth” (EAT-Lancet Commission 2019, p. 5). Let us not miss this opportunity (see e.g. in this anthology: Grupp and Gschwender 2023).

References Amlen, D. (2017). We do not see things as they are. New York Times, August 4th . Available at: https:/ /www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2017-08-05.html. Appadurai, A. (1990) Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory, Culture, and Society, 7, 295–310. Cazacu, C., Caraba, A., & Dimisiano, G. (2023). Measuring geographic accessibility to healthy food the University of Bucharest student community. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Cosgrove, D.E. (1984). Social formation and symbolic landscape London: Croom Helm. Daniels, S., and D. Cosgrove (1993). Spectacle and text: Landscape metaphors in cultural geography. In J. Duncan and D. Ley (Eds.) Place/ Culture/Representation, (pp. 57–77). London: Routledge. Delfosse C. (2011) La patrimonialisation des produits dits de terroir, Anthropology of food [Online], 8, URL: http://journals.openedition.org/aof/6772. https://doi.org/10.4000/aof.6772.

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Eat-Lancet Commission (2019) Healthy diets from sustainable food systems: Food planet health. Summary Report of the EAT-Lancet Commission. Oslo. Available at: https://eatforum.org/con tent/uploads/2019/07/EAT-Lancet_Commission_Summary_Report.pdf. Grupp, C., & Gschwender, F. (2023). Analysing the weekly market in Tübingen within the concepts of Regionality and Alternativ Food Networks. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Morgan K. (2010) Local and green, global and fair: the ethical foodscape and the politics of care. Environment and Planning A, 42, 1852–1867. https://doi.org/10.1068/a42364. Morris, D. (2020). Review of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language, by Dimitris Apostolopoulos, Rowman and Littlefield, 2019, 311 pp. In Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Available at: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/merleau-pontys-phenomenology-of-language/#:~:text= His%20central%20claim%20is%20that,it%20and%20whether%20language%20%22co%2D. Sedelmeier, Kühne, O., & Jenal, C. (2022). Foodscapes. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sedelmeier, T. (2018). Urbane Nahrungslandschaften – ungleicher Zugang zu Nahrungsmit- teln. Berichte. Geographie und Landeskunde, 92(3–4), 267–277. Sedelmeier, T. (2019). Food Deserts – Einblicke in Nahrungslandschaften. In K. Berr & C. Jenal (Eds.), Landschaftskonflikte (pp. 687–698). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Syrjälä H, Luomala H. T. Autio M. (2017) Fluidity of places in everyday food consumption: Introducing snackscapes. International Journal of Consumer Stud; 41(6): 761–768. https://doi.org/10. 1111/ijcs.12389. Sperk, C., & Kistemann, T. (2012). Food desert oder gesunde Stadt? Eine Untersuchung von Nahrungslandschaften in Bonn. Berichte zur deutschen Landeskunde, 86(2), 135–151. Vonthron, S., Perrin, C., & Soulard, C.-T. (2020). Foodscape: A scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies. PloS one,15(5), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0233218. Yasmeen, G. (1992) “Bangkok’s restaurant sector: Gender, employment and consumption,” Journal of Social Research, (Publication of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand) 15(2). 69–81 Yasmeen, G. (2001) “Stockbrokers turned sandwich vendors: The economic crisis and food-retailing in the Philippines and Thailand”. Geoforum (special issue on the Asian Economic Crisis). 32(1), 91–102. Yasmeen G. (1995) Exploring a foodscape: the case of Bangkok. Malaysian Journal of Tropical Geogrraphy 26: 1–11. Yasmeen, G. (1996a) “Plastic bag housewives and postmodern restaurants: Public and private in Bangkok’s foodscape,” Urban Geography, 17(6), pp. 526-544. Yasmeen, G. (1996b). Bangkok’s foodscape : public eating, gender relations and urban change. (Dissertation, University of British Columbia). Vancouver. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collec tions/ubctheses/831/items/1.0088160..

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Yasmeen, G. (2006) Bangkok’s Foodscape: Public Eating, Gender Relations, and Urban Change, Bangkok: White Lotus Books, (Studies in Contemporary Thailand No. 16). Yasmeen, G. (2003) “Stockbrokers-turned-sandwich vendors: the economic crisis and small-scale food retailing in Thailand and the Philippines” In David B. Dewitt and Carolina G. Hernandez (Eds.), Development and Security in Southeast Asia Volume II: The People (pp. 177–203). The International Political Economy of New Regionalisms Series, Aldershot, Hampshire (UK): Ashgate.

Gisèle Yasmeen, Ph.D. Senior Fellow, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia.

Poverty Foodscapes: Why Food Banks Are Part of the Poverty Problem, not the Solution Timo Sedelmeier

Abstract

Food banks have become an integral part of the supply options for poorer sections of the population in the countries of the Global North. In Germany, a type of food bank emerged in the early 1990s in the form of the ‘Tafel’ (German for ‘table’, designated term for a volunteer-operated food bank in Germany: plural form is ‘Tafeln’), whose work now seems almost indispensable to welfare work after 30 years. In fact, however, there is great discrepancy between the inordinately positive media coverage of the Tafeln and their critical examination in academic publications. This article traces the history of Tafeln and provides an insight into their organizational structures. This is followed by a critical reflection on the many non-intended impacts associated with their work. At the end, a plea is made that it is imperative to find an ‘exit strategy’ from the system of assistance that has been established by the Tafeln. Keywords

Food banks . Tafeln . Poverty . Nutrition . Alms system

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Introduction

Food banks are nearly a global phenomenon, being especially widespread in the countries of the Global North. They have become an almost indispensable part of everyday life as well as the food landscape of many people. Just as numerous as food banks are the articles T. Sedelmeier (B) Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_4

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about their work. They have become a regular feature of media coverage and have been analyzed in numerous social science publications. In particular, there is a rich literature base on food banks in the Anglo-Saxon world as well as on the German Tafeln, which represent a special form of food banks. It should be emphasized, however, that there is a huge gap between the predominantly critical scientific perspectives and the predominantly very positive media coverage and public or published opinion: “For despite social science instruments that have been sharpened in the meantime, it is still difficult to penetrate the public relations absorbent cotton in which the food bank movement is packed.” (Selke 2013). What Stefan Selke stated ten years ago in the run-up to the twentieth anniversary of the Tafeln in Germany has unfortunately not lost any of its topicality and correctness. Therefore, this article is another (last?) desperate wake-up call from a geographical and social science perspective to draw attention to the many problems associated with the system of food banks and their rapid proliferation. Consequently, the goal is also not to pursue the question of whether food banks are an appropriate institution to fight poverty. To pursue this question would be downright absurd, given the enormous number of scientific publications pointing to the contrary. Instead, the article aims to provide a pointed summary of the wide-ranging criticism of food banks. This summary is done on the basis of a review of articles on food banks and food banks in Great Britain which is supplemented by the experiences and insights of the author, who has himself worked in food banks for research purposes allowing a look back on many years of scientific involvement with them. The critique is preceded by a chapter dealing with ‘Poverty Foodscapes’ on a conceptual level and an introduction to the history and organization of the German Tafeln. This being necessary to understand the argumentation that follows.

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Food banks are embedded in the supply structure of numerous households. According to the chairman of the Tafel Deutschland e. V. association, the number of people who regularly visit a Tafel is about two million (ZEIT online 2022) and has grown significantly since the beginning of 2022. A similar development can be observed for the food banks operated by ‘The Trussel Trust’ in the United Kingdom. For example, the use of these food banks increased by 33% from 2020 to 2021 (McCloskey 2021). As a result, food banks have become an important part of many people’s food landscapes. In the words of MacKendrick, foodscapes are “the spaces and places where you acquire food, prepare food, talk about food and gather some sort of meaning from food.” (MacKendrick 2014, S. 16). In this definition, it is evident that foodscapes include not only quantifiable and mappable elements, such as grocery stores, but also intangible elements that are closely linked to the subjective interpretive patterns of the actors, and foodscapes are consequently also

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subject to sociocultural, economic, and political influences (Lake 2018; in this anthology also: Kühne 2023; Menendez Rexach 2023; Yasmeen 2023). In the discussion of foodscapes, with special regard to so-called precarious living situations, access to them plays a decisive role. This is usually subject to structural constraints, in the case of people in poverty situations these are often limited financial resources (Miewald und McCann 2014). In addition to ‘affordability’, the dimensions of ‘availability, accessibility, acceptability and accommodation’ are also crucial for access to food landscapes (Clary et al. 2017). Since the main focus in this paper is on foodbanks as part of so-called ‘Poverty Foodscapes’, affordability will be given paramount importance in the further course. For individuals from low-income households, the purchase of food often competes with costs in other key areas of life, such as rent payments, which means that their shopping options are often severely narrowed (Clary et al. 2017) and are limited to special offers from discounters, food with a favorable price-calorie ratio, or resorting to assistance from other providers, such as soup kitchens and food banks. How these have developed and organized will be the focus of the following, with the German Tafeln chosen as case studies, but parallels will also be drawn repeatedly with the British food banks, as these—despite a different welfare system—show astonishing similarities.

3

The Tafeln in Germany

Food banks are based on the idea of linking two societal problems: food surplus on the one hand, and the lack of opportunities to purchase affordable food for poorer populations on the other. Both problems are already being dealt with by other actors: by the companies in the food industry, which want to avoid food surpluses in their own interest—this being their profit orientation—and by the welfare state, which is supposed to ensure the basic supply of the citizens (Willjes 2021). The linking of an ecological goal with a social goal seems plausible and desirable to many people, with the result that food banks are held in high public esteem and their diffusion has grown very rapidly in recent decades (Willjes 2021). The world’s first food bank was founded in the United States in 1967, followed by numerous others in North America in the 1980s. In Europe, the first food bank opened in Paris in 1984, and the European Food Banks Federation (FEBA) was launched just two years later. Despite their growing popularity in European countries, food banks were unable to gain a foothold in Germany, where the Tafeln (food banks) established themselves instead (Lorenz 2009). The first Tafel was founded in Berlin in 1993 by a group of committed women who wanted to do voluntary work for homeless people. (Molling 2009). The United States initiative ‘Feeding America’ served as a model. (Grell 2010) and so the group began to collect food from supermarkets and donate it to warming rooms and soup kitchens. In the beginning, this was done in a less professional setting: The volunteers collected the food with their own cars, refrigerated vehicles were not yet available,

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having just as little as a storage room in that the premises of the Tafel were still in the own apartment of the founder, Sabine Werth (2009). After only a short time, the facilities became much more professional and the Berlin Tafel found numerous imitators in Germany, so that only ten years after its founding, about 330 Tafeln existed in Germany (Normann 2003). There was also a noticeable change in the group of users: While the target group was initially concentrated on the homeless, these are now minimally represented among the needy and have been outnumbered by low-income earners, the unemployed, and people with small pensions. These people have such limited financial resources that they use the food banks to save on food expenses. Selke (2009b) has introduced the term ‘almost at the bottom’ for these people, wanting to express that they have not yet dropped out of all categories of benefits, their poverty is not visible in their outward appearance, but they are nevertheless so poor that they have to make use of what the Tafeln have to offer. This group grew very strongly with the introduction of the Hartz reforms, in particular Hartz IV, which in turn was reflected in a sharp increase in the growth of Tafel, which reached its peak in 2005 and 2006 (Hartmann 2009; Selke 2009a). Hartz IV is the colloquial term for a secondary form of German unemployment compensation. Hartz IV is available to people who do not meet the requirements for receiving the primary form of German unemployment compensation (requiring a specified duration of employment subject to social insurance contributions before becoming unemployed) or who exceeded the maximum duration for receiving this primary unemployment compensation (between six and twenty-four months, depending on age and duration of previous employment). While the amount of primary unemployment compensation depended on the previous net salary, the amount of secondary unemployment compensation was most recently set at 449e (as of November 2022). At this point, it is evident that social policy decisions had a very direct influence on the development of food banks. The same can be demonstrated by the British food banks run by The Trussel Trust, an organization founded by a married couple in 1997. Here, too, the number of users and the tons of food distributed increased enormously as a result of the austerity policies pursued by the United Kingdom after the global financial crisis of 2008 (McCloskey 2021). From the beginning, different models emerged among food banks according to which food is distributed. The differences mainly relate to the forms of operation, the payment systems, and the legal structure. In terms of operating form, a distinction can be made between delivery Tafeln, distribution points, and food bank locations. The delivery Tafeln do not distribute food directly to the needy but supply social institutions such as women’s shelters and homeless shelters. Until the end of 2004, the Berliner Tafel operated purely as a delivery Tafel, and it was not until 2005 that it began cooperating with church congregations in Berlin, distributing food once a week on the premises of the respective congregation (Sedelmeier 2011). However, most food banks in Germany operate a distribution point where users can buy food once or multiple times a week, depending on the size of the bank and the size of the user’s household. In return, users pay a small

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fee, the so-called ‘symbolic coin’, which is usually one or two euros, and receive a prepacked bundle of foodstuffs (Sedelmeier 2011, 2018; Sedelmeier et al. 2022). In some cases, these food banks supplement their stationary food banks with a mobile distribution point. For this purpose, a refrigerated vehicle drives to central locations in the city at fixed times and the food is distributed directly from the vehicle to those in need. This saves users the—possibly long—trip to the distribution point and any associated costs, but they must accept that the range of food on offer is generally less broad because of the limited space available (Sedelmeier 2011). Some food banks, particularly in southern Germany, operate food bank stores that aim to provide users with a shopping experience that is as close as possible to shopping in a conventional supermarket. According to the self-service principle, users select their desired goods from the shelves and pay a price at the checkout for each individual product, which is around 10–20% of the original store price (Sedelmeier 2018). This form of individual pricing is often justified on the grounds that it increases appreciation of the food and activates the person to help themselves: “On the one hand, this has to do with the Swabian proverb ‘What costs nothing is worth nothing’. Another idea is the self-help that goes with it: People should not be given presents, but should be involved and participate within their means. After all, they have money—even if not much. And with that, they should learn to make a budget. They should learn personal responsibility. That’s closer to our original idea: activation instead of provision” (Engelhardt 2009). According to their legal structure, food banks can be differentiated into registered associations and sponsored food banks. The former being frequently founded by private individuals, who often have a Christian background, and are particularly driven by idealistic as well as non-economic goals. Sponsored food banks, on the other hand, are integrated into another association or federation (e.g., Diakonie or Caritas: German Christian entities). Compared to other food banks, they have the advantage that they can often fall back on an infrastructure implemented by the sponsor (Sedelmeier 2011). A look at Great Britain shows certain parallels in development. Using the example of the Bristol and Birmingham food banks, Denning shows that their founding was based on the commitment of volunteers (2021). Denning points out that the food banks were founded by committed volunteers who often had a religious background, mostly Christian. Food distribution also takes place on the premises of church congregations, as is the case with the Berlin Tafel. The group of users must undergo a means test in both the British food banks and the German Tafeln. For this purpose, users in the United Kingdom receive a voucher from an intermediary agency, such as a job center (Denning 2021). In the food banks, the receipt of Hartz IV usually counts as proof, but there are also food banks that accept users if they can prove that their household income is below a threshold set by the food bank (Sedelmeier 2013). The fact that means testing is required across the board at all is a development that began in the early 2000s in particular. In 2000, only about half of all food banks conducted a means test (Normann 2003). In 2002, this figure had already

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risen to 76%, and by 2005 it had risen to 93%. (Bundesverband der Deutschen Tafeln e. V. 2006). The narrative of misuse or fraudulent use of benefits is often used to justify the need for a check: “Unfortunately, there are always people who try to get goods at the Tafel even though they have enough money. In order for the help to really reach those who can make good use of it, the neediness must be proven” (Berliner Tafel e. V. o. J.) This insight into how the Tafel is organized is now followed by a critical reflection on the Tafel phenomenon in order to also reveal all the non-intended effects and structural problems of the Tafel idea.

4

Criticism

With their work, the Tafel want to create a balance between, on the one hand, the waste of food and, on the other hand, their observation that “not all people […] can afford a balanced diet” (Tafel Deutschland e. V. o. J. b). At first glance, this combination of a social and an ecological goal seems to make sense, because there can be no doubt that collecting and passing on food that would otherwise be thrown away makes sense (Selke 2009a). In fact, however, the link to poverty is highly problematic. Yes, there is food waste in Germany—as in all countries of the Global North. And yes, there is also (relative) poverty in Germany. Both are serious problems that require solutions— independently of each other! Poverty in Germany is not caused by throwing away food in an affluent society and the distribution of this unused food cannot solve the problem of poverty. Tafeln want to distribute the surplus, they have taken it upon themselves not to buy any additional food (Selke 2009a) but in fact campaigns such as ‘One more!’ take place regularly, in which customers of a supermarket are asked to buy one more food item and donate it to the local food bank (Molling 2009). However, a food item purchased for this purpose is not surplus food—nor are those grown by the Tafel themselves in the Tafel gardens. A fundamental problem emerges here: Food banks have induced a supply that they now want to maintain. They have created expectations among their users, which they are now trying to satisfy. However, they do not just distribute the superfluous, and their service is not complementary help in emergencies, but rather a steady supply of help that has gradually turned into a second-class full supply (Selke 2009a). The food banks are therefore inherently contradictory, “because the achievement of one purpose makes the fulfillment of the other impossible. If there are no more food surpluses, there are no more resources to provide for the needy—and vice versa” (Willjes 2021, S. 399). By expanding their range of services (in larger food banks, other daily necessities are also distributed), simulating ‘normal’ shopping in food banks and addressing their users as customers, food banks contribute to a trivialization and normalization of poverty. The term ‘customer’ is associated with certain rights that are suspended in the food

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banks (exchange of goods, change of provider, etc.). Instead, their use is accompanied by numerous educational measures and the ‘publication’ of one’s poverty situation (Selke 2009c). Moreover, food banks do not spring up in places where poverty is greatest, but rather where financially strong sponsors and donors are located and where volunteers have sufficient financial and time resources to commit themselves on a voluntary basis. Consequently, the density of food banks is especially high in the economically stronger regions, which, measured by common indicators, have the greatest prosperity (Sedelmeier 2011, 2013). Many users take advantage of the food banks’ services on a permanent basis, which means that they are not only used in acute emergencies but are also integrated into everyday supply routines and firmly scheduled. This is problematic because it induces a certain attitude of entitlement among the users and at the same time places them in a relationship of dependency. The dependence on the food provided by the food banks and the orientation of meals to the ingredients available at the food banks is also an invasion of the users’ privacy, since part of their food supply is thus determined by others (Selke 2009b). Considering Feichtinger (1995), it can be stated that the food banks free their users from material food poverty in the best case, but they release them into social food poverty, because the use of the food banks implies a loss of normal supply channels (Sedelmeier 2011). However, not only the users but also the food banks enter into a relationship of dependency. They depend on the willingness of their donors to provide them with food free of charge. Through commitment and reliability, the food banks can build up a positive image with their donors, but if they cannot fulfill their role as ‘garbage collectors’ to their satisfaction, there are numerous other, and often more lucrative, possibilities for the donors to hand over the goods (Sedelmeier 2011). However, the Tafel do not see themselves in the role of ‘garbage collectors’; instead, they see themselves as “the largest social movement of our time” (Tafel Deutschland e. V. o. J. a). However, this assertion is not accurate, since they lack a clearly articulated goal and simultaneously ignore the fact that the work is not only done by volunteers, but also to a large extent by full-time and part-time employees, who are often users of a food bank themselves (Selke 2011). Instead of contributing to a change in social conditions, the food banks establish and stabilize a system of dealing with social injustice through their work (Selke 2009b). Even the regular appeal of the food banks to politicians to finally solve the problem of poverty does not change this. Because this criticism is ritualized, the appropriate press releases have appeared—in easily changed form—for over 20 years and remained so far unheard and/or without consequences and it probably will remain so in the future. In addition, the Tafeln are interlaced on too many levels (locally, regionally, and nationally) with the policy. That shows up already by the fact that the respective Bundesfamilienministerin (Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth: BMFSFJ) office becomes also the patroness of the boards. Additionally, Lorenz noticed (2009) some time ago and quite accurately noted that an

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organization, which developed assistance structures of this extent, cannot retreat on the point of view to engage in only emergency assistance and be the authority for ‘correct’ solutions with the policy. “Where longer-term structures are built, one must also take responsibility for longer-term effects” (Lorenz 2009, S. 82). And that the work of the Tafeln is not designed to be discontinued in the short term is obvious. An organization that wants to make itself unnecessary does not build its own properties in which to offer its services, as has already happened in some places. The food banks and their umbrella organization have reached such a size, including in terms of the number of employees, that they must have a vital self-interest in their continued existence and have sufficient reasons to legitimize their own existence (Selke 2009b). In this way, the food banks contribute, albeit unintentionally, to the dismantling of the welfare state services since their offerings mitigate the consequences of the dismantling of social services. The result: Welfare-state benefits that secure a person’s livelihood and to which he or she is legally entitled are increasingly being replaced by a system of handouts (Rohrmann 2009). The food banks are even criticized in some places with reference to the practices of other food banks, as can be seen from the following quote: “But if the voluntary work is organized institutionally, as for example at the Magdeburger Tafel, whose sponsor is a limited liability company of the city of Magdeburg, then I think it is impossible. If a place with one hand grants the state ‘Hartz IV’ and with the other hand also again hands out alms and food vouchers, then that is for me an absurdity. That would have to be absolutely separate for me. If the food banks had even a basic political self-image, then something like this shouldn’t happen.” (Engelhardt 2009, S. 246–247).

5

Plea

On the occasion of the Tafel’s 10th anniversary, the then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder praised the organization in a greeting: “The many people who are involved here do not first call on the state, but provide those in need with food from their own resources. Our society needs this commitment” (Molling 2009, S. 186). In this quotation, the political turnaround with regard to the responsibility of the poverty problem becomes apparent. It is not the state that is being called upon to solve social problems, but local communities consisting of volunteers. Almost 20 years later, nothing has changed. Volunteers are still available to alleviate the poverty of those affected, but a real solution has become a distant prospect. Instead of fighting poverty, it is being administered. But what could a solution look like? The Tafeln have reached such a size that it is not possible to end their involvement immediately, as this would cause enormous social hardship. The solution must be a medium-term to long-term one, in which the food banks announce their own ‘end date’ for a fixed date in the future. This could be in two, three, or even five years. In this way, there would be a sufficiently large timeframe for establishing sociopolitical

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solutions, and all those involved, both full-time employees and volunteers, as well as the users, would have sufficient time to adjust to the new situation. That an ‘exit strategy’ is needed comes to light in the discomfort of the following two quotes, made by two people who were involved in setting up a food bank or Tafel. The first quote is from Bret Suval, then director of New York City Harvest, in an August 1990 interview with the New York Times. At that time, the organization’s founding was only eight years ago, but the conclusion was sobering: “We’ve become too institutionalized. We’ve gone from a program that was started to meet a short-term problem and we’ve grown into what some believe is a long-term solution” (The New York Times 1990). I would like to end this article with a quote from Sabine Werth, the founder of the first food bank in Germany, which started work in 1993 following the example of City Harvest: “When I used to drive along the highway, I always thought: If there’s a plaque behind every city name, then we’ve made it! Today, I ask myself what kind of spirits I was calling. We really are just about everywhere by now—it’s really unbelievable. And at the same time, I dread the day when someone says we now have 1,000 Tafeln in Germany. I hope we stay at 999 indefinitely, because I don’t want to reach 1,000 at all, I don’t imagine that would be nice. That’s also due to all the problems we have in the meantime: We’re getting less and less food, we’re getting in each other’s way more and more, there are more and more personal sensitivities in the food bank landscape. In this respect, I hope that at some point we will have to stop. I believe that the biggest mistake is to have allowed so many food banks in Germany” (Werth 2009, S. 257).

References Berliner Tafel e. V. (o. J.). Die Kritik an den Tafeln. www.berliner-tafel.de/%C3%BCber-uns/dieidee/debatte/die-kritik-an-den-tafeln. Zugegriffen: 20. November 2022. Bundesverband der Deutschen Tafeln e. V. (2006). Tafeln nach Zahlen. Ergebnisse der aktuellen Tafel-Umfrage. www.tafel.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2012-2005/tafeln-nach-zahlenergebnisse-der-aktuellen-tafel-umfrage. Zugegriffen: 20. November 2022. Clary, C., Matthews, S. A. & Kestens, Y. (2017). Between exposure, access and use: Reconsidering foodscape influence on dietary behaviour. Health and Place 44, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. healthplace.2016.12.005 Denning, S. (2021). Three Foodbanks in a Decade of Austerity: Foodbank Affective Atmospheres. Antipode 53 (4), 1018–1037. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12716 Engelhardt, U. (2009). Tafelarbeit als aktivierende Sozialarbeit statt Versorgung. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 243–249). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Feichtinger, E. (1995). Armut und Ernährung im Wohlstand. Topographie eines Problems. In E. Barlösius, E. Feichtinger & B. M. Köhler (Hrsg.), Ernährung in der Armut. Gesundheitliche, soziale und kulturelle Folgen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; [Beiträge der Tagung “Folgen der Heutigen Armut auf die Ernährung, Gesundheitliche und Kulturelle Aspekte” (S. 291–305). Berlin: Ed. Sigma.

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Grell, B. (2010). „Feeding America and the World“. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Kritik der Tafeln in Deutschland: Standortbestimmungen zu einem ambivalenten sozialen Phänomen (S. 129–146). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-92611-7_6. Hartmann, D. (2009). Mit der sozialen Frage kehrt die Barmherzigkeit zurück. Gegen die Vertafelung der Gesellschaft. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 263–271). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos et al. (Hrsg.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Lake, A. A. (2018). Neighbourhood food environments: food choice, foodscapes and planning for health. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 77 (3), 239–246. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00296651 18000022. Lorenz, S. (2009). Die Tafeln zwischen Konsumismus und ‚Überflüssigkeit‘. Zur Perspektive einer Soziologie des Überflusses. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 65–84). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. MacKendrick, N. (2014). Foodscape. Contexts 13 (3), 16–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/153650421454 5754. McCloskey, S. (2021). The Foodbank is the Canary in The Coalmine of Neoliberalism. Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review 33 (3), 101–113. Menendez Rexach, A. (2023). Food in urban planning: a necessary integration? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos et al. (Hrsg.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Miewald, C. & McCann, E. (2014). Foodscapes and the Geographies of Poverty: Sustenance, Strategy, and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood. Antipode 46 (2), 537–556. https://doi.org/10.1111/ anti.12057 Molling, L. (2009). Die Berliner Tafel zwischen Sozialstaatsabbau und neuer Armenfürsorge. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 175–196). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Normann, K. von. (2003). Evolution der Deutschen Tafeln. Eine Studie über die Entwicklung caritativer Nonprofit-Organisationen zur Verminderung von Ernährungsarmut in Deutschland. Bad Neuenahr (Dissertation). Rohrmann, E. (2009). Tafeln und der Abbau des Sozialstaates. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 143–162). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Sedelmeier, T. (2011). Armut und Ernährung in Deutschland. Eine Untersuchung zur Rolle und Wirksamkeit der Tafeln bei der Lebensmittelausgabe an Bedürftige. Berlin: Mensch und Buch (Zugl.: Freiburg, Univ., Diss., 2011). Sedelmeier, T. (2013). Süddeutschland ist »Tafelland«. Eine Analyse der räumlichen Diskrepanz zwischen Angebot und Bedarf der Lebensmittel-Tafeln. Ethik und Gesellschaft (1), 1–18. https:/ /doi.org/10.18156/EUG-1-2013-ART-6 Sedelmeier, T. (2018). Urbane Nahrungslandschaften – ungleicher Zugang zu Nahrungsmitteln. Berichte. Geographie und Landeskunde 92 (3–4), 267–277. Sedelmeier, T., Kühne, O. & Jenal, C. (2022). Foodscapes (Essentials). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Selke, S. (2009a). Einleitung. Tafeln und Gesellschaft. Soziologische Analyse eines polymorphen Phänomens. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 9–38). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Selke, S. (2009b). Fast ganz unten. Wie man in Deutschland durch die Hilfe von Lebensmitteltafeln satt wird (2. Auflage). Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. Selke, S. (2009c). Das Leiden der Anderen. Die Rolle der Tafeln zwischen Armutskonstruktion und Armutsbekämpfung. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 273–296). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Selke, S. (2011). Das Beispiel der Lebensmitteltafeln in Deutschland. Der Rationalitätsmythos der ‚guten Tat‘ an der Grenze zwischen bürgerlichem Engagement und Lobbyismus. www.trend.infopartisan.net/teilhabe/selke_lebensmitteltafeln.html. Selke, S. (2013). Schamland. Die Armut mitten unter uns. Berlin: Econ. Tafel Deutschland e. V. (o. J. a). Die Geschichte der Tafeln in Deutschland. www.tafel.de/ueber-uns/ die-tafeln/geschichte. Zugegriffen: 20. November 2022. Tafel Deutschland e. V. (o. J. b). Tafel-Grundsätze. www.tafel.de/ueber-uns/unsere-werte/tafelgrundsaetze. The New York Times (1990, 19. August). Harvest of Surplus Food Eases Plight of the Hungry. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1990/08/19/nyregion/harvest-of-surplus-food-eases-plightof-the-hungry.html. Werth, S. (2009). Es geht auch anders. Nach der Routine kommt die Vielfalt. In S. Selke (Hrsg.), Tafeln in Deutschland. Aspekte einer sozialen Bewegung zwischen Nahrungsmittelumverteilung und Armutsintervention (S. 251–257). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Willjes, K. (2021). Foodbanks: Moralisierte Organisation zwischen Vermittlung und Verteilung. In A. Armbruster & C. Besio (Hrsg.), Organisierte Moral. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos et al. (Hrsg.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. ZEIT online. (2022). Zwei Millionen Menschen suchen Hilfe bei den Tafeln. www.zeit.de /gesellschaft/2022-11/tafeln-verzeichnen-anstieg-beduerftiger-menschen. Zugegriffen: 18. November 2022.

Timo Sedelmeier, Dr., Department of Geography (Urban and Regional Development), Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University TübingenRümelinstr. 19–23, 72,070 Tübingen, timo. [email protected]

Everything Sausage (Salad)—Regionalizing Sausage Salad via Chefkoch.De Sven Gerstlauer and Julia Deborah Fischer

Abstract

This article conveys the construction of the regionality of dishes using the example of “sausage salad”. In doing so, the web portal platform ‘Chefkoch’ (www.chefkoch.de) was examined by means of discourse analysis. Aspects such as the communicative construction of regionality using the example of sausage salad variants in conjunction with the question of the interpretive sovereignty regarding regionality as attributed to sausage salads are investigated. Initially, the article is framed within a theoretical perspective, in which the conceptual connection to existing complexes of ideas involving social constructivist landscape research and discourse analysis, as well as the concept of foodscapes is outlined. This framing is followed by the methodology, wherein the methodological attention—via a triangulation of methods—purposefully leads towards the object of investigation. With the internet-based data from the platform ‘Chefkoch’ and the forums integrated within it, the production of regionality is examined and subsequently interpreted with the help of varying methods. In addition to the verification of users by indicating physical geographic locations (origins), the production of regionality via the ingredients of the respective sausage salad variations can also be noticeably documented. Additionally, the representation of something “different” in terms of stereotypes, such as vacations and beer gardens, plus regional foreign attributions are aspects this article will discuss in more detail.

S. Gerstlauer (B) · J. D. Fischer Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany J. D. Fischer e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_5

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S. Gerstlauer and J. D. Fischer Keywords

Sausage salad . Chefkoch.de . Regionality . Regional cuisines . Authenticity Foodscapes . Discourse analysis . Social constructivism . Recipe platform

1

.

Introduction: Sausage-Scapes?

Jetzt geht’s um die Wurst!1 The fact that this phrase has become a well-known German expression underscores its semantic content: sausage is important. Yet sausage can be many things—whether a stereotypical symbol of male patriotism, a bearer of hope for a progressive vegetarianization of the supermarket assortment in meatless form, or fuel for literature (Lindner 2020): “Wurst und wieder Wurst und immer Wurst, wohin das Auge blickt!” wrote the Viennese writer Friedrich Schlögl as early as 1883 (quoted from Lindner 2020, p. 172). The focus of this paper is not on sausage as an isolated phenomenon, but rather focuses on the human cultural achievement of cooking with sausage in the form of the polarizing culinary dish of sausage salad, to which regionally different preparation traditions are attributed and inscribed with particularly striking clarity. This discursive production of regionality was investigated on the German-language web portal Chefkoch, which through its provision of cooking practices represents a valuable resource in the research field of German-language ‘foodscapes’. Foodscapes, in our understanding, include digital media platforms as relevant sites of knowledge production concerning food and eating, which can additionally influence dietary practices. In this context, such recipe platforms can be seen as (re)production media of postmodern food practices. Our contribution also fits into the postmodern context through its reference back to neopragmatic research, here in particular to an ironic approach to the world in order to clarify its contingent construction (Kühne and Fischer 2022; Kühne and Jenal 2020; in this volume: Kühne 2023; Kühne, Sedelmeier and Fischer 2023). Overall, this work used a discourse theory perspective as well as triangulation of different methods to investigate how the regionality of the distinctly located sausage salad variants on Chefkoch were produced, which discursive practices can be observed in this context, and which actors play a crucial role in the discourse.

2

Foodscapes as Media Discourse

The integration of digital platforms into everyday practices has permeated all spheres of everyday life in the course of an observable increase in media appearances within the last decades, and thus also the area of eating. The media representations of food and the social practices associated with food can be incorporated as aspects of foodscapes in media. The

1 Translated: Now it’s all about the sausage!

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chosen understanding of foodscape is based on sociologist Norah MacKendrick’s definition: “Consider the spaces and places where you acquire food, prepare food, talk about food and gather some sort of meaning from food. This is your foodscape” (MacKendrick 2014). She points out, “Digital and online spaces are another component of foodscapes that deserve more attention” (MacKendrick 2014). This paper addresses this component by examining recipes on the Chefkoch platform, through which instructions for preparing dishes can be provided along with related communicative interaction in the form of comments. The study of such platforms can provide insight into how specific dishes are talked about, that is, which propositions and truths about the world are generated (and which are not) in this specific context and how they are negotiated. According to a social constructivist perspective, the world descriptions captured in language do not thereby generate a reflection of a pre-ordered reality, but rather create social reality through linguistic arrangements. Both the role in which one speaks and the context in which one speaks influence the ‘sayability’ and ‘unsayability’ of sentences. A possible theoretical conceptualization can be found in Michel Foucault’s heuristics. From this perspective, foodscapes can be seen as symbolic knowledge orders that constitute social reality. Such knowledge orders provide patterns of interpretation and action by forming them and additionally legitimizing them in a meaningful way. When examining the meaning attributed to and inscribed in certain foods or dishes, the Foucauldian understanding provides a potentially fruitful framing to make ‘discourse visible’ practices of the process form. These discourses can be understood “as reconstructible, productive propositional practices that constitute orders of reality in a conflictual web of social actors, institutional-dispositive orders, and knowledge formations, as well as producing power effects” (Keller 2010, p. 241, translated by J.D.F.). Here, the concept of power breaks away from everyday heuristic understandings: “One must stop describing the effects of power always negatively […]. In reality, power is productive; and it produces reality (Foucault 1976, cited in Proki´c 2012, p. 285–286, translated by J.D.F.). The propositional practices are linked to power in that these knowledge formations are placed in hierarchized relationships with each other. Thus, in the investigation undertaken here, we aim to analyze the conflictual processes in the thematically delineated field of discourse in which symbolic orders are constructed and stabilized. In this work, space as well as region is not considered as an existing a priori given, but rather as a component of symbolically occupied everyday practice. In the course of this work, it is made clear how communicative regionalizations reproduce the mental representations of regions and how these representations are constitutively inscribed in the meaning food. Along with language, food acts as one of the most important factors in marking, demarcating, and consolidating cultural identities (ethnic, regional, as well as national). In this context, regionalization seems to establish and limit a framework within which the “authenticity” of a dish becomes evidently assessable and testable. Authenticity builds on the essentialist idea of a true essence or genuineness of an entity, for example, a dish. This understanding refers to the presupposition of independent, objective truth.

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The evaluation of a dish according to authenticity or originality/genuineness can function as an orientation in postmodernity, in which, resulting from increasing differentiation of society, superordinate truths fall away and additionally assigns a value to the evaluated. In this context, the declaration of a regional affiliation represents only one of the possibilities for establishing authenticity. For this, Johnston and Baumann (2007, p. 179) name four qualities by which food is framed as authentic: “geographic specificity, ‘simplicity,’ personal connections, and historicism.“ In the following, we focus on geographic specificity as regionalization, which Johnston and Baumann’s analysis of gourmet magazines revealed to be the most common discursive strategy for authenticating food (Johnston and Baumann 2007; in this context, see also: Dumitrache and Nae 2023).

3

Methodical Approaches

The objective of the study resulted from an initial investigation, within the chosen research field, exploring the German-language web platform Chefkoch. The platform proved to be accessible on a low-threshold basis because of its reach and the everyday experiences already gathered by the researchers. Initial exploratory insights revealed a lively exchange that sometimes went beyond questions about preparation and praise, especially in those cases of recipes that carried a regional location attribute. Because of the many diversely situated variations of the dish, sausage salad is ideally suited for contrasting different possible references to regions while comparatively illuminating the negotiation and production of regionality. In order to illuminate the object of our investigation as diversely as possible in the sense of Karl Popper’s spotlight metaphor (Popper 2011), different quantitative and qualitative survey methods were triangulated. Method triangulation thereby allows these approaches to complement each other and create a richer picture. The first step is an analysis of sausage salads, in particular a comparison of ingredients for which a selection of sausage salads had to be made. After starting with a search on Chefkoch for common sausage salad variations, the variations were then searched for individually. The number of suggested results in the first step is the decisive factor for the ranking, which is displayed in Table 1. The number of suggested recipes is adjusted, because the search also shows recipes with similar names or recipes with segments of the search input. Thus, the first number in the table is the actual number of recipes on Chefkoch of the respective variation, the number in the parenthesis is the number of recipe suggestions in total for the respective search entries. In addition, different spellings (such as “Bavarian/ from Bavaria”) are considered. The selection falls on the five highest ranked sausage salads after tabulation. Within each of the five variations, the three recipes with the most comments/ratings are used for analysis. A list of all relevant recipes with the corresponding links is in the appendix. In the second step, after the selection, a comparative analysis of the ingredients will take place. For this purpose, all ingredients of the total of fifteen recipes (five sausage salad

Everything Sausage (Salad)—Regionalizing Sausage … Table 1 Ranking of sausage salad variations by number of recipe suggestions (adjusted). (Own presentation; data source: www.chefkoch.de)

57

Name of the sausage salad:

Number of recipes on Chefkoch:

Swiss sausage salad

25 (110)

Ranking: 1

Bavarian sausage salad 21 (30)

2

Alsatian sausage salad

3

8 (8)

Swabian sausage salad 6 (14)

4

Nuremberg sausage salad

5

5 (20)

Baden sausage salad

4 (14)

6

Appenzell sausage salad

3 (7)

7

Strasbourg sausage salad

3 (5)

7

Allgäu sausage salad

2 (7)

8

Thuringian sausage salad

1 (13)

9

Austrian sausage salad 1 (10)

9

variants, each multiplied by three recipes) are embedded in a table in order to compare them in a simplified way. With this comparison of the ingredients, it is possible to compare within as well as between the variations in order to gain initial insights into regional links, similarities, and distinctions. Table 2 shows the analysis of the ingredients—where differences, and also similarities, already become visible. In addition, the first indications of attribute types denoting regionality can be seen. Basic distinctions or commonalities are color-coded to visually ensure faster access and gain of knowledge. The colored categories are summarized in a legend. The third methodological contribution will take the form of an analysis of the comments derived from the previous selection steps. In order to classify and categorize these comments, it is first necessary to describe the Internet as a data source and the communication order on the Chefkoch platform. Accessing the foodscape within Chefkoch, we obtain our data and objects of investigation from the Internet. Data collection from the Internet opens up new possibilities for qualitative research. Nevertheless, web-based forums, discussions, and other data sources are considered alternative forms of data collection and cannot fully replace, for example, face-to-face group discussions. Group discussions from internet forums are particularly suitable for a narrative, interpretive pattern as well as discourse analytic approaches (Ullrich and Schiek 2014, p. 460 ff.). Kühne et al. were already able to vividly demonstrate the fruitfulness of such an investigation designed for patterns of interpretation and narration (Kühne et al. 2021). With the social constructivist and discourse analytic approach taken in this article, the food landscape, in

Table 2 Comparison of ingredients of 15 sausage salad recipes (five variants @ three recipes); Own presentation; data source: www.chefkoch.com

58 S. Gerstlauer and J. D. Fischer

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this case the Chefkoch platform, is understood as a social construct and its formation processes being based on social patterns of interpretation and evaluation (Kühne 2018, 2019). Linking to qualitative social research, the comment analysis will focus on the observation of processes on the Internet. The comments on the Chefkoch platform provide a space for asynchronous online forum discussions. The investigated food landscape is considered to be a forum where open discussions take place. Thus, even non-participants can view the posts and the discussion is also not limited (Ullrich and Schiek 2015, p. 135 f.). The asynchronous, open character of forum posts and comments favors a high number of participants, flexibility in time and space, inclusion of hard-to-reach participants and sensitive topics, long posts, parallel discussion threads, and a high degree of self-propagation of the discussion. On the other hand, disadvantages include a promotion of discontinuous participation, low spontaneity, and the long-time frames that can be attributed to lower responsiveness (Ullrich and Schiek 2015, p. 139). Etiquette and communication on Chefkoch are primarily framed with rules (netiquette). These fundamentally demand respectful and friendly interaction, no content that is offensive; pornographic; racist; or sexist, thereby advocating open expressions of opinion, privacy, and avoiding misunderstandings (Chefkoch 2022). In addition, it can be emphasized from personal experience that this decorum corresponds to polite interaction. Users are supportive of each other, give tips, tricks, and mainly praise. In the rarest cases, offensive or negative interactions can be observed, which are usually sanctioned by Chefkoch or other users. In order to classify the analysis of the comments and make it clearer, the respective comments of the individual recipes are classified, which can be observed in Table 3. Basically, the number of comments per recipe is noted for each recipe. To safeguard, for such a dynamic environment of data collection, the cut-off date is 15 February 2022. New comments or further collected data/changes are no longer considered in this article. After the number of comments is collected, the comments are analyzed individually and chronologically. The classification is divided into the categories of positive comment, negative comment, answers (responses to comments), suggestions for improvements, questions/ concerns/other, and regionality reference. These classifications resulted from the experience, as well as communication and decorum of the platform, after the various comments were read through. In addition, the classification should be kept simplified in order to not lose the focus on regionality and not to allow too many ways of looking at things with regard to the research question. The classes on positive and negative comments are not evaluated from the author’s point of view, rather they consider the user’s evaluation of whether they like a recipe or not. The “Answers” section reflects the quantity of interactions to which comments are responded. Suggestions for improvement, without including a rating, represent the number of times a recipe has been improved within the forum. Finally, the class “Questions, concerns, etc.” considers all comments that could not yet be assigned to a class, which predominantly includes questions about the production process and the ingredients. On the one hand, this classification is intended to reflect the

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Table 3 Classification of comment analysis and total number of the respective classes. (Own presentation; data source: www.chefkoch.de) Total number of comments

Positive

Negative

Answers

Suggestions for improvement

Questions, concerns, etc

Regionality reference

994

393

4

124

310

31

132

platform’s style of interaction and communication, and on the other hand, all comments relevant to the following chapter are grouped together in the regionality category. In the last step, a map about sausage salads with an ironic undertone is designed. The map is based on the regionality attributions as well as the recipe characteristics of the author. The frequency of each sausage salad is mapped using different sized symbols. The map is the last step of the method triangulation, as it is based on the previous empirical results. For example, the signatures are adapted to distinct regionality references (Switzerland: cheese). The caricature sausage salad map is used to summarize important aspects of the empirical results and, by embellishing, round off the named topic. In addition, the spatial assignment by means of the map serves the better understanding of the considered object of investigation. As part of the investigation, a breaching experiment was originally planned that included our own regionally located sausage salad recipe in order to make interpretive patterns apparent (see Textbox 1, below).

Textbox 1: Attempt of a Breaching Experiment on Chefkoch.De

The original research design of this study was to include a breaching experiment to make apparent the fragile order of meaning inherent with regionality attributions on Chefkoch. Both, questioning comments on the corresponding recipes, and concurrently, a recipe created by us, were intended to challenge everyday expectations. Commenting as part of the breaching experiment turned out to be potentially poor in producing results during the course of the analysis. The observable discontinuous participation and unplannable, low responsiveness would have meant that such an endeavor would have to span long periods of time. In addition, some of the questioning aspects emerged from the comments/discussions themselves, resulting in the use of comment analysis rather than a breaching experiment. The self-created recipe “Tübinger Wurstsalat” under the alias “Sterneköchin_Hildegard” has so far only received two ratings and no comments, which leads to its non-consideration in the empirical part (Fig. 1). The recipe has its name because of the geographical proximity of the authors. Likewise, Maultaschen, a Swabian regional product, is included. Furthermore, polarizing ingredients such as Tabasco, pineapple, and Camembert were included in the recipe to spark a lively discussion.

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Fig. 1 Collage of the individual recipe excerpts of the “Tübingen sausage salad”. (Own illustration)

4

Negotiation and Production of Regionality Using the Example of Sausage Salads

The focus of this study is how certain preparation practices of sausage salads are discursively attributed to different cuisines, whose distinction is made via regions and geographically assigned accordingly. For example, both the name “Alsatian-style sausage salad” and the name “Alsatian sausage salad” indicate that the dish is prepared according to a specific set of rules of a cuisine (here a set of rules attributed to the region of Alsace), which distinguishes it from others. The set of rules is applied to the individual dishes in recipes to guarantee the specific taste (Barlösius 2016, p. 133). In the regional assignment of these cultural instructions in recipe form already presupposed regions are connected in the function of cultural spaces and regionalization, thusly (re)produced without explicating them. Our investigation showed that the communicative construction of regionality is produced via all components of a recipe, i.e., the recipe name, the ingredients, as well as the preparation instructions. The following map offers in a reduced form a first visual insight into how the different sausage salad variants can be differentiated thereby summarizing altogether essential parts of the research results (Fig. 2).

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Germany

Nuremberg

Baden-Wurtemmberg

Bavaria Regensburg

Karlsruhe

France

Weißwurstäquator

Stuttgart

X

Strasbourg

??

Munich

Konstanz

Innsbruck L I E

Austria

Bern

Switzerland Fig. 2 Caricatured sausage salad map with regionality attributions of the unique identifying propositions elaborated. (Own representation)

The map shown is based on the ingredient analysis of the five sausage salad variations considered, with the designating symbols representing the specific characteristic of the respective variations. This feature is evident as a cross-recipe consensualized interpretation of the respective variation and also showed up as the focus of the respective region-related comments. Initial findings can be vividly illustrated using the map and the underlying ingredient comparison (Table 2): To facilitate the comparison and make it visually clearer, basic ingredients and ingredients for the dressing were grouped in each case. The grouped presentation makes it clear that, except for the four basic ingredients, no dressing within the sausage salad variations is identical. In addition, no dressing ingredients are attributed to a specific region. In the comments, a passionate discussion about the addition of cucumber water can be observed in all sausage salads, but not in order to legitimize the regional location of the respective variant. The Swiss sausage salad contains, in addition to the meat sausage or also Lyoner,2 pickles and onions in all three considered recipes the ingredient cheese, which is included in comparison to the other variations only with the Alsatian sausage salad likewise in all recipes. The comparison (see Table 2) makes it clear that

2 Lyoner or meat sausage is the German term for a boiled sausage without a filling, made mainly

from pork.

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Swiss and Alsatian sausage salad use largely identical ingredients and lack an ingredientbased distinguishing feature, which is why the designating symbol of question marks was chosen for the Alsatian variant. Across comments, the addition of cheese was equated with the Swiss variant in most cases and linked to Alsace in only a few. Overall, however, the interpretation of cheese as the Swiss variant is clearly more dominant, which is why the large piece of cheese was chosen as the designating symbol for the Swiss sausage salad and the small one for the Alsatian. In comparison, the Bavarian sausage salad is distinguished by the absence of cheese; only one of the three recipes deviates from it. This deviation is taken in comments as a reason to question the regionality attribution of the recipe and assign it to Switzerland. Even though the Bavarian sausage salad does not stand out because of the ingredients listed, it is often pointed out that the sausage should be sliced rather than diced. On the other hand, in the case of the Swabian sausage salad, the distinguishing indication is that all recipes of the Swabian variety add black sausage in addition to the meat sausage, which is considered a typical regional product of the Swabian region. This particular type of sausage forms the unique identifying point for the Swabian sausage salad and was therefore also chosen as the signature. The regionality transfer of the specific sausage to the sausage salad can also be observed in the Nuremberg modification of the sausage salad, which is the only variant that contains the Nuremberg Bratwurst or Nuremberg Stadtwurst. In both the Swabian and the Nuremberg versions, the attribution to the respective region is not questioned, but rather attributed in the comments in a reinforcing manner of the region-specific sausages, so that no other specific aspects became clear and therefore the further focus is less on these two variants. It is already clear that ingredients play an important role in the discursive production and reproduction of regionality of recipes, which is additionally expressed in the recommendation to use regional products as much as possible in order to obtain an “authentic” dish or at least to increase authenticity (e.g., it is recommended to use Swiss vinegar in order to obtain a “real” Swiss sausage salad). In the following, we focus deeper on the discursive production of regionality with a particular emphasis on the Swiss and Bavarian sausage salads, which is particularly attributable to the fact that in the study corpus as a whole, out of 132 comments with reference to regionality, 108 comments alone come from the recipes of these two variants. It can be observed that three of the five sausage salad variations refer to regions within Germany and two to areas bordering Germany. In the case of these bordering areas, it is noticeable that the references are drawn at different scale levels: on the one hand to the French region of Alsace, and on the other hand to the nation of Switzerland, thus homogenizing the latter in the recipes and ignoring potential regional differences. In the comments on the Swiss sausage salad, the title of the recipe is addressed as a foreign attribution and, with regard to the cheese, as stereotyping. According to the comments of self-described Swiss sausage salad practices, those in Switzerland differ in both name and ingredients: in “their” case, the sausage-cheese-salad variant is named and prepared with Swiss Cervelat sausage. From the authors of these recipes, some users, and with special

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weight from Chefkoch-Heidi (Team recipe editing), it is countered that this is only a designation, which merely is a reference to the cheese, but without regional reference to Switzerland as “country of origin” of the recipe. However, this position is only made explicit through questioning and references to practices in Switzerland, making it clear that this is not generally accessible or comprehensible knowledge. The discussion on the Swiss sausage salad takes on a special position overall in contrast to the other courses of discussion: thus, Switzerland is no longer considered the reference space for evaluating the “authenticity” or “originality” of the recipe with regard to regional practices, but rather Bavaria or Germany are mostly referred to. Chefkoch-Heidi (2021) writes about this: “this is just the German version, which, as already said, does not want to imitate a Swiss original. Traditionally, just a German sausage salad to which cheese has been added is called ‘Swiss sausage salad’”. The self-description of the Swiss, or the critics who find this attribution problematic as well as misleading, seem to carry little weight in the discussion of originality versus German tradition. The perceived devaluation in the foreign attribution is thus given no room, but the designation “Swiss” is assigned to German cuisine and this interpretation is legitimized by the reference to tradition. This tradition is additionally legitimized by restaurants and butchers, offering the variant as “Swiss sausage salad”, as gastronomic experts. In addition to the regional localizations, the commentaries also offer instructions on the appropriate consumption of the food. In doing so, they draw syntheses between stereotypical landscape images as part of the cultural experience, the season (sausage salad as “refreshment” in summer), and links with holiday rituals. The stereotypical landscape images are particularly linked to vacation experiences, such as hiking in Bavaria, mountain huts, and beer gardens. The linking of sausage salad to pre-modern rural landscape images gives rise to the association of a return to the tried and true in the desire for a unification of the world, which is also reflected in the valuation of sausage salad as authentic, original, and genuine in relation to the respective regionality of the variant. Recooking the regional dishes seems to symbolize a form of overcoming space, in that distant cuisines (and their communicatively constructed place of origin) can be experienced from one’s own locale. The summer as well as the vacation theme additionally symbolizes extra-ordinariness and has a romanticizing effect in combination with the aforementioned landscape images. As already mentioned, reference is often made to one’s own experiences in order to lend validity to regional classifications, whereby these are not limited to vacation experiences, but also refer to one’s own geographical position in one’s biography. The reference to one’s own childhood in the region, as well as the transgenerational passing on of the preparation practices in one’s own family with “roots” in the respective region, seems particularly effective, so that the affiliation and origin (originality) of the recipe seems historically proven by anecdotal knowledge. In the context of our narrowly defined scope of investigation, we also examined aspects of interpretive sovereignty, i.e., which actors and what knowledge possess power of definition. In the previous description, it became clear that three groups of actors can be

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categorized in the field: the recipe authors, the Chefkoch staff, and the users. It can be observed from the discussion processes that the interpretive sovereignty arises, among other things, from the platform’s internal ‘netiquette’ as formal, institutionally structuring rules of order for the production of statements, as well as from the format of the platform as a commercial enterprise: employees of the platform are given an editorial position with power to a particular extent in the discourse-specific organization, also respective to the scope for action towards sanctioning regulations (e.g., to block user profiles and thus exclude them from interpretive conflict). Recipe authors are interpreted as experts for their own recipe and are usually addressed in the comments with a greeting phrase. They seem to be given special weight in the discussions and are addressed in most cases of the comments, in questions and suggestions, which suggests an emphasized speaker role with interpretive power in this context: “[…] Can you possibly add garlic, cut into fine strips, or is it then not ‘Swiss sausage salad’ anymore? […]” (s-fuechsle 2009). The aforementioned roles already determine to a large extent the lines of discussion and, in particular, respective interpretive power. In addition to that, the affiliation or non-affiliation to the respective discussed region forms an essential variable for the meaning of the respective speaker position in the discourse. This is made visible by indicating a geographical location or one’s own regional identity: “[…] I don’t eat meat sausage in my kitchen, instead I take (as a real Saarlander) Lyoner in a ring or already cut and I replace the Emmentaler with Butterkäse. […]” (AbtAndreas 2012). The affiliation to a region is partly signaled by a dialect (for example: Bavarian dialect) in a reinforcing way. One’s own regional identity determines preparation practices and can also serve as a demarcation from other regions. In addition, it is to be stated that their own regionality serves also as self-protection, in particular the recipe author, in order to escape for example cluelessness, questions, or discussions over the regionality affiliation of dishes: “I live in Bavaria, 1 km from the Austrian and 20 km to the Swiss border (…). When we order a Swiss sausage salad here in Bavaria or Vorarlberg, I have never gotten it without cheese. It would be fatal to always associate Switzerland with cheese—I agree with you completely. But the fact is that in my corner of Lake Constance, cheese definitely belongs in a Swiss sausage salad. Probably it is just eaten differently at the other end of the lake. […]” (enelaacher 2012). The Swiss sausage salad provides an interesting contrast in this respect, as already listed: thus, Swiss users refer to practices in Switzerland regarding naming, as well as ingredients. However, these are evaluated as irrelevant by actors with more sovereignty of interpretation such as Chefkoch-Heidi. In addition, here the affiliation, which is necessary for the interpretive authority, does not refer to Switzerland, but to Germany, in contrast to the other recipes. Employees of the Chefkoch platform are generally considered the final authority in disputative discussions about origin, preparation, and other topics. However, it can be observed that the users and the employees often talk past each other. Apparently, similar argumentation cycles and interpretations are repeated without the positions being exchanged, but rather the users’ own interpretations are reproduced in a contentious manner. Basically, it can be observed that topics concerning regionality are emotionally

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charged and the users mark this accordingly in the respective sentences. Emotionally charged discussions, such as the excitement regarding the foreign attribution in the case of Swiss sausage salad, become the main topic in the comments on the recipes. In the process, the more interpretation-relevant instances try to appease them, but via the individual legitimization of affiliation, each user becomes a “cooking expert” with appropriate statements. Restaurants, butcher shops, family, and acquaintances are named to provide one’s own “food experiences” with personal connections or geographically-specific, gastronomic expertise. Often such experiences are evidenced either by one’s own history (such as the aforementioned reference to childhood) or by the geographic location of that experience. Stereotypes, such as beer gardens or vacations tempt users to associate the dishes with something else, to immerse themselves in thematic worlds and link them to regions. These stereotypes give them a reason to interpret dishes, recipes or regionality claims with higher validity.

5

Conclusion and Outlook

Through the sausage salad analysis, different discursive practices related to regionalization of dishes could be revealed. A reciprocal relationship can be observed on a linguistic level: On the one hand, the regional attribution constitutes the peculiarity of the dish, but the dish itself also constitutes the peculiarity of the region. The declaration of regionality and thus the setting of the “genuineness of the recipe” by the respective originators already initiates associations that are in the realm of the authentication of a dish. Through the recipe, the possibilities of what can be said are already influenced and connected with further patterns of authentication—especially stereotypical landscape associations related to the region. In our study, the elements around authenticity identified by Bauman and Johnston (2007) emerged that, despite our focus on regionality being one of the elements, went beyond this focus. It became clear that regionality is reinforced by other discursive strategies that align with the elements to construct the dish as authentic overall. In conclusion, our sausage salad analysis showed that dishes as cultural constructions contain value-asserting and stereotyping images of self and other, which mark reference spaces for these images through their regional assignment and create both inclusive and exclusive boundaries. The aspects of the power-knowledge complex became particularly clear with the contrasting examples of the Bavarian sausage salad as an idealized selfimage and the Swiss sausage salad as a stigmatizing foreign attribution, whereby the ‘knowabilities’ and ‘sayabilities’ as well as the effects of the speech roles became clear. With our contribution, we have made it clear that dealing with Foodscapes does not have to be beer-serious either, but neopragmatic-ironic. In this way, we hope to have provided a stimulus for analysis of contingent spatial construction.

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Appendix Appendix 01: List of Links to All Relevant Recipes on Chefkoch

References AbtAndreas (2012). Schweizer Wurstsalat [Online-Forum-Post]. Chefkoch.de. https://www.che fkoch.de/rezepte/1476371252847899/Schweizer-Wurstsalat.html. Accessed 22 Feb 2022. Barlösius, E. (2016). Soziologie des Essens. Eine sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung in die Ernährungsforschung (3. Auflage). Weinheim, Basel: Beltz Juventa (Ciando library). Chefkoch (2022). Umgangston und Netiquette. Chefkoch.de. https://kundenservice.chefkoch.de/hc/ de/articles/360000026599-Umgangston-und-Netiquette8. Accessed 22 Feb 2022. Dumitrache, L., & Nae, M. (2023). Promoting healthy foods and diets: Exploring communication, recipes, and attitudes in Romanian foods blogs. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. enelaacher (2012). Schweizer Wurstsalat [Online-Forum-Post]. Chefkoch.de. https://www.chef. Johnston, J., Baumann, S. (2007). Democracy versus Distinction: A Study of Omnivorousness in Gourmet Food Writing. American Journal of Sociology 113 (1), pp. 165–204. https://doi.org/10. 1086/518923. Keller, R. (2010). Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse und Systemtheorie. In John, R., Henkel, A., Rückert-John, J. (Ed.). Die Methodologie des Systems. Wie kommt man zum Fall und wie dahinter? (1. Auflage). Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 241–272. Kühne, O. (2018). Landschaftstheorie und Landschaftspraxis. Eine Einführung aus sozialkonstruktivisKühne, O. (2019). Sozialkonstruktivistische Landschaftstheorie. In O. Kühne, F. Weber, K. Berr, C. Jenal (Ed.). Handbuch Landschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 69–80. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Kühne, O., Koegst, L., Zimmer, M. L., Schäffauer, G. (2021). “... Inconceivable, Unrealistic and Inhumane”. Internet Communication on the Flood Disaster in West Germany of July 2021 between Conspiracy Theories and Moralization - A Neopragmatic Explorative Study. Sustainability (20), pp. 1–23. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011427. Kühne, O., & Fischer, J. D. (2022). Pillepallescapes. Journeys to the edges of socially shared landscape constructions. Human Geographies, 16, (2, 157–174). —https://doi.org/10.5719/hgeo. 2022.162.3. Kühne, O., & Jenal, C. (2020). Baton Rouge (Louisiana): On the Importance of Thematic Cartography for ‘Neopragmatic Horizontal Geography’. KN – Journal of Cartography and Geographic Information, 71, (1, 23–31). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42489-020-00054-z. Kühne, O., Sedelmeier, T., & Fischer, J. D. (2023). Introductions. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Lindner, F. (2020). Überall Wurst. Ein Literaturspot um 1900. In Nassehi, A., & Felixberger, P. (Ed.): Essen fassen. Hamburg: Kursbuch Kulturstiftung gGmbH (Kursbuch, 204 (Dezember 2020)), pp. 167–181. MacKendrick, N. (2014). Foodscape. Contexts 13 (3), pp. 16–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/153650421 4545754. Proki´c, T. (2012). Michel Foucault (1926–1984). In Jahraus, O., Nassehi, A., Grizelj, M., Saake, I., Kirchmeier, C., Müller, J. (Ed.). Luhmann-Handbuch. Leben - Werk - Wirkung. Stuttgart, Weimar: J.B. Metzler, pp. 284–287. Popper, K. R. (2011). The open society and its enemies. Abingdon: Routledge. Schlögl, F. (1883). Die Saison der Wurst. Eine volkswirtschaftliche und neugastronomische Studie. Wienerisches. Kleine Culturbilder aus dem Volksleben der alten Kaiserstadt an der Donau. Wien, pp. 84–91. s-fuechsle (2009). Schweizer Wurstsalat [Online-Forum-Post]. Chefkoch.de. https://www.chef. Ullrich, C., Schiek, D. (2014). Gruppendiskusionen in Internetforen. Zur Methodologie eines neuen qualitativen Erhebungsinstruments. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 66, pp. 459–474. Ullrich, C., Schiek, D. (2015). Forumsdiskussionen im Internet als reaktives Instrument der Datenerhebung. In Schirmer, D., Sander, N., Wenninger, A. (Ed.). Die qualitative Analyse internetbasierter Daten. Methodische Herausforderungen und Potenziale von Online-Medien. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 133–159.

Sven Gerstlauer studied business administration at the University of Applied Sciences in Kempten and for his final bachelors thesis he analysed the external communication of technically skilled companies in the B2B sector, whereupon he developed a cross-media B2B communication strategy for MdynamiX AG. Afterwards he studied human geography – global studies at the University of Tübingen. His main focus within the masters programme was on tourism as well as urban and regional development. ([email protected]) Julia Deborah Fischer studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen. Afterwards she studied human geography – global studies at the University of Tübingen and works as a research assistant at the Chair of Urban and Regional Development. ([email protected])

Accessability

Case Study Analysis: Access to Unconventional Local Producers in Covasna County, Romania (Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca) Ana-Maria Talos, , Florin-Alexandru Zaharia, R˘azvan Muntean, and Alexandru Coman

Abstract

This paper focuses on the specific problem of traditional food products in the context of traditional food products typically having strong associations with a particular origin and locality. Experts consider traditional food as food having a specific feature, which distinguishes it clearly from other similar products of the same category in terms of the use of ‘traditional ingredients’ (raw materials of primary products), ‘traditional composition’, or ‘traditional type of production and/or processing method’. The present work aims to analyze the access to non-conventional products made by the community in Covasna County, specifically the localities of Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca. Considering the high share of the Hungarian ethnic community, this paper aims to evaluate using specific methods how this ethno-cultural characteristic of the area determines the development of the concept of foodscapes. The approach is both a geographical one, with a methodological dimension specific to geographical sciences using GIS techniques for the primary assessment of accessibility and an analysis A.-M. Talos, (B) · R. Muntean · A. Coman University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania R. Muntean e-mail: [email protected] A. Coman e-mail: [email protected] F.-A. Zaharia Ministry of Investments and European Funds, Romanian Goverment, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_6

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of the distribution of gastronomic points. Additionally, a sociological approach as the interview method comes with a perspective including the most important element, the producers of foodscapes. The results of the analysis identify a series of advantages that accessibility and connectivity generate for the possibility of economic valorization of the food landscape, actively participating in its creation, and moreover a critical dimension on how the economic services related to the consumption of the food products can be improved. Keywords

Access • Unconventional local producers • Covasna resort • Foodscapes

1

Introduction

According to Vonthron et al. (2020, p. 15), a foodscape is considered as “a landscape including, perceived, and socially shaped by individuals and policies, not an environment external to individuals”. As an extension of this approach, a local foodscape can therefore be considered as that part of a food system which is shaped, both materially and socially, by the local producers or local people (Morley and Morgan 2021, p. 8; see in this volume: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). In 2012, subsidies accounted for over 50% of EU farmers’ net income, and farm incomes are lower in absolute and relative terms in the New Member States (NMS) from Central and Eastern Europe (European Commission 2014, p. 38). Rural areas in the NMS are more dependent on agriculture as a source of income and employment, with opportunities for gainful employment in the non-farm rural economy relatively scarce (Davidova et al. 2013, p. 35). One potential type of quality goods is Traditional Food Products (TFPs). A traditional food may be classified as: ‘a product [...] made accurately in a specific way according to the gastronomic heritage, [...] and known because of its sensory proprieties and associated with a certain local area, region or country’ (Guerrero et al. 2009, p. 2). These goods generally possess positive images such as superior taste, nostalgia, and/or ethnocentrism (Almli et al. 2011, p.10; Vanhonacker et al. 2010, p. 8). The EuroFIR definition acknowledged by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (Weichselbaum et al. 2009, p. 3) says that “Traditional food is a food with a specific feature or features, which distinguish it clearly from other similar products of the same category in terms of the use of ‘traditional ingredients’ (raw materials of primary products) or ‘traditional composition’ or ‘traditional type of production and/or processing method’”. While there are few official definitions, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (European Commission 2022, p. 7) identifies TFPs as those with “proven usage on the domestic market for a period that allows transmission between generations; this period is to be at least 30 years”. Consumers perceive that TFPs are anchored in the past (Guerrero et al. 2009, p. 16), tied to specific communities, regions, or countries and

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typically evoke strong memories of childhood (Cerjak et al. 2014, p. 12; Rudawska 2014, p. 13). TFPs typically, but not universally, have strong associations with a particular origin and locality (Verbeke et al. 2016, p. 14). Some TFPs in the EU are thus suitable for and already are protected under one of three main designation schemes: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), and Traditional Specialty Guaranteed (TSG). Moreover, Pieniak et al. (2009, p. 15) found the importance placed on familiarity and the natural content of food to be positively associated with attitude towards and consumption of TFPs. In their study, Almli et al. (2011, p. 137) showed that European consumers (from Spain, Italy, Norway, Poland, Belgium, and France) trade-off the relative expensiveness and time-consuming preparation of traditional food for the specific taste, quality, appearance, nutritional value, healthiness, and safety they find in TFP. Further, the general image of TFP relates to attributes typical of a festive consumption of traditional foods rather than a consumption of daily character (Almli et al. 2011, p. 137). The hierarchical value maps of Cerjak et al. (2014, p. 10) made for Austria and Croatia, contain ladders standing for health or support of local farmers (related in this volume: Spiro et al. 2023). The results show that the Austrians connect traditional food with environmentally friendly production, while for the Croatians a sentimental attachment ladder starts with perception of traditional food as a means to reconnect with one’s own childhood (Cerjak et al. 2014, p. 11). In research made in Italy, the results showed that the Parmigiano Reggiano production system has a very positive effect on employment and environment and is an excellent example of a European PDO product that has been able to secure a large and successful market (de Roest and Menghi 2000, p. 11). In a paper analyzing the olive oil from Lesvos Island in Greece, the focus was on the economic, social, and environmental valorization of a local asset of great economic and symbolic importance for a peripheral or disadvantaged area. These were analyzed and compared with a scale and success typology the supply chains of three different olive oil products in the area: PGI, organic, and conventional (Kizos and Vakoufaris 2011, p. 9). Public food provisioning is an important part of the municipal foodscape and provides reach into communities, homes, and the quality of life for individuals. This foundational approach is also being expressed through a flagship initiative that enrolls communities and businesses in a municipal foodscape centered on physical space (Noguer-Juncà et al. 2021, p. 7). The present work aims to analyze the access to non-conventional products made by the residents in Covasna County among the communities of Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca. Considering the high share of the Hungarian ethnic community and the Roma community, this paper aims to evaluate using specific methods how this ethno-cultural characteristic of the area determines the development of the concept of foodscapes. The Hungarian cuisine

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has various elements that can be acquired very easily at street level—street food, such as langos, kürt˝oskalács, specific pies, fried hake, and boiled corn. The main research question that we try to address in this article can be defined as follows: to what extent can local producers hope to play a consequential role in fashioning a more sustainable food system in their local tourism? Do these communities live in close connection with this type of activity? Is this activity historically reminiscent, one that preserves local culinary traditions and capitalizes on them? That the landscape clearly changes moving forward on the DN11 from Bras, ov to Bacau is because of these small local producers who provide these dishes on both sides of the road. The main objective of the study refers to how and why, from the perspective of accessibility, the specificities of local food are valued by the communities. Food acquires an economic value if it is purchased, but the influences of geography with aspects related to the culture of places, their populations, and ethnic structures, as well as elements of the natural environment that provide kitchens with various primary products create the premises for the foodscape landscapes as they are known in related literature. In order to be able to understand their formation, we proposed a series of objectives that address the problem from the perspective of accessibility, consumers, tourists, and the possible problems in their capitalization along the economic process. The present study’s objectives were to evaluate the access of the local producers in Covasna Resort, to understand how demographic and cultural aspects are addressed by different levels of accessibility, and the results of this addressing. We also proposed in this study to identify the opinion of the tourists after consuming local products to understand how the foodscape is consumed. Accessibility generates a lower or higher level of the food landscape through the impact it has on the valorization of the potential consumers, aspects that will be focused on in the paper. The analysis we carried out tried to identify the problems of local products sold in the study area so that we understand the relations at the community level in the context of the current economic situation. It can also be noted through this last objective the impact the COVID19 pandemic generated on these communities and these food landscapes. The article focuses on some working hypotheses that are consistent with the proposed objectives. The assumptions from which this scientific approach was started are the following: 1. The distribution of local producers is determined by the access to a main road, an aspect that influences the distribution of producers and the visibility of this type of foodscape. 2. Tourists are enthusiastic about local products, specially langos and kürt˝oskalács, products that are not specifically found in the Moldova and Bras, ov regions, to which the main road that crosses this area connects.

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3. There are several problems when it comes to local products concerning location, method of production, and prices. The study also asks a pertinent question regarding the purpose of local product traders, which does not fit into a competitive market paradigm, although they aim to obtain income. We are not dealing with a form of social economy, but a way to complete the general economic profile by capitalizing on this food landscape generated by the local products. The approach is both a geographical one, with a methodological dimension specific to geographical sciences, from the perspective of using GIS techniques for the primary assessment of accessibility and the analysis of the distribution of gastronomic points, as well as a sociological one, as the interview method comes with a perspective incorporating the most important element—the foodscape consumer. The results of the analysis will identify a series of advantages that accessibility and connectivity generate for the possibility of economic valorization of the food landscape, actively participating in its creation, while adding a critical dimension on how the economic services related to the consumption of the food products can be improved.

2

Methods

2.1

Study Area

Covasna is a county in Romania that occupies a central position within the country, located between 43°4' and 44°5' east longitude and 45°35' and 46°18' latitude of the northern hemisphere. Covasna County borders Vrancea and Bac˘au County to the east, Buz˘au County to the southeast, Bras, ov County to the southwest and west, and Harghita County to the north (National Institute of Statistics 2022) (Fig. 1). From an administrative point of view, the county was part of the Trei Scaune County (1876–1920) and the Hungarian Autonomous Region (1952–1968). These administrative divisions generally contained a population consisting of Hungarians and Szeklers. This had a positive effect in the proliferation and continuity of their specific traditions and customs. Currently, within the territory of the counties resembling the old forms of administrative division, especially in Covasna County, there are many small producers who are still engaged in these economic activities (National Institute of Statistics 2022). The study area includes three localities within two territorial administrative units, which are part of Covasna County. They are in the southwestern part of the county, on the border between Covasna and Bras, ov counties, and are represented by the local communities: Chichis, (UAT Chichis, ), Ozun, and Sântionlunca (UAT Ozun). The three communities are distributed along the pathway of the national road DN11, and in the community of Chichis, the national road DN12 intersects DN11. (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 The localization of the study area

DN11 connects the Municipality of Bras, ov with the Municipality of Bac˘au, on the route connecting Bras, ov—Ones, ti—Bac˘au, it crosses through Covasna County on this route and has a total length of 179 km (about 111.23 mi). Its importance is provided by the fact that it represents one of the main connecting routes between the historical regions of Moldavia and Transylvania and is traveled daily, according to statistical data, by 3500 to 8000 vehicles and on certain sections this number exceeds 16,000. In addition, the DN12 starts from the DN11 in Chichis, , which brings additional volumes of traffic from the route Chichis, —Sfântu Gheorghe—Miercurea Ciuc—Gheorgheni—Toplit, a, a road that crosses the Secuiesc Land (Portrait of Regions 2022). Thus, the national roads offer a significant volume of traffic, which gives local producers the opportunity to sell their products to tourists, commuters, and even entrepreneurs passing through these communities. The importance of selecting this region between Sf Gheorghe and Covasna is notable for our study because the connectivity provided by DN11, the main road that crosses the communities of Chichis, Ozun, and Santionlunca thereby connecting the two regions with different geographical, cultural, and economic profiles, respectively including the Bras, ov region and the Onesti-Bacau region (Transylvania-Moldova). This happens in a context of overlap with a series of geographical and cultural specifications, from the area of Sf. Gheorghe-Covasna, which lead to the creation of this landscape, in contrast to those neighboring these areas. The geography of the place, a low-lying topography (Sf. Gheorghe’s Depression, or the central sector of the

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Bras, ov Depression) enabled the development of these settlements here, with agriculture as the main economic activity. Subsequently, a series of local industries (agrifood, processing) supporting the agricultural systems developed in this territory. The topographical relief and other physical-geographical conditions contributed to the development of the connecting road between Moldova and Transylvania, which by traversing this region of Covasna and Sf Gheorghe, played an important role in generating the cultural and food landscapes. Together, the communities have approximately 4000 inhabitants distributed in a population density typical within rural Transylvania. Chichis, is geographically located in the angle formed by the Olt River and the Negru River on the border between Covasna County and Bras, ov. It is located along the path of the DN11 and within it is the junction originating DN12. The first historical documentation is occurred in 1461, the Szeklers being the traditional and present-day demographic majority. The long history and the long-term presence of the ethnic Szeklers in the region attest to the veracity of the traditions and customs specific to the area (Chichis, CityHall 2022). From an economic point of view, it is a developing commune, which, following the abolition of the large industrial centers in the two neighboring towns (Bras, ov and Sfântu Gheorghe) after the fall of the communist regime, imperatively imposed the redistribution of the labor force. Thus, small entrepreneurs and local producers appeared who focused on local, traditional productions specific to the local population. The primary occupation is agriculture which is now in rapid development and capitalization. Ozun is geographically located on the right bank of the Black River, in the southern part of Covasna County, 9 km from the municipality of Sfântu Gheorghe. Like Chichis, , the settlement is located along the alignment of the DN11. Thus, the local population benefits from the same advantage offered by the transit of tourists, commuters, and entrepreneurs for the promotion and marketing of local products. The first documentation dates from 1332, the predominant population being ethnic Hungarians. Like the first presented community, the long history and presence of ethnic Hungarians in the region attests to the veracity of the traditions and customs specific to the area. The main economic activities specific to the area are represented by agriculture, milling, agritourism, the production of alcoholic beverages, the food industry, the textile industry, and tourism. Resulting from the long tradition of activities specific to the area and the intersection with DN11, small producers have taken advantage of these favorable elements to open small shops or roadside stalls to sell their products. Thus, products such as potatoes, onions, bakery products, pálinca, and traditional sweets can be found throughout the town, within easy reach of the population passing through the town (Ozun CityHall 2022a). Sântionlunca is geographically located on the right bank of the Black River, in the eastern part of Câmpia Frumos, opposite Lunca Reci. Like the two communities, the settlement is located along the alignment of the DN11. Today’s Sântionlunca village was composed of the union of two settlements, namely Sântion and Lunca, and the first documentation of Sântion village is from 1332. The age of the village can be evidenced by

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local traditions and customs, the most significant being the traditional milling industry, which still operates today. Consequently, another specific economic activity is the production of homemade bread and bakery products. This category also includes the Szekler kolács (kürt˝oskalács) from Sântion, which is greatly regarded locally and even nationally (Ozun CityHall 2022b). These areas are valued for potato and onion crops in which the Szeklers and Hungarians excel. Every season, at each gate you can see a stall selling potatoes, onions, garlic, potato bread, and “kürt˝oskalács”. Currently, at the level of the national transport infrastructure development strategy, Highway 13 traversing Bras, ov-Bacau is being designed. In this context, DN11, which has a high value for transit, tourism, band regional traffic, will diminish in importance, something that can affect this food landscape in the long term, as well as individual communities from an immediate economic perspective.

2.2

Field Work and Data Collection

The research team went into the field between the 10th and 14th of August 2022 to complete the observation step by examining the number of local producers along DN11, the characteristics of the selling points, and the characteristics of the products. To evaluate the perception of the local people, the authors conducted 20 semi-structured interviews: half with the locals and the other half with foreign and Romanian tourists transiting the Covasna area. Data collection also included an observation stage documenting the stopping of passers-by at the local gastronomic points offered by the citizens of these communities. As for the towns of Chichis, and Ozun, they are also crossed by the Bras, ov-Sf. Gheorghe railway, but with a reduced impact on the generation of potential customers for the consumption of local products. For this reason, only the perspective of accessibility at the level of roadway infrastructure and interaction was analyzed in the study. The data collection was carried out with attention at the level of the road intersections, to determine if there are food production points located on other streets, apart from the main road. All food production points on the main street were marked and noted for inclusion in the study. To observe and determine the density of local producers in Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca, the data taken from the field with the location of each producer in their respective settlements were used. The points were taken using Google Maps, later the recorded points were transferred to Global Mapper where they were processed and prepared to be inserted into GIS applications. Thus, the data was converted from ‘kmz’ format to ‘shp’ format and reprojected from the WGS84 projection system to the Stereo70 system. This projection is the most suitable

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for data analysis and processing at the level of Romania, since it best respects the realities on the ground. The GIS application used for data processing is ArcMap 10.6.1. Within it, the Kernel Density function from the Spatial Analyst Tools, from the Density subcategory was used. This allows the density of the input values to be estimated, in this case the number of local producers, relative to a reference category, in this case the area in square kilometers. To render the results as representative as possible, the values were represented in raster format, with a cell size of ten and a classification of four categories. In this sense, the spatial distribution of local producers and the determination of the areas where they are most concentrated can be observed. The perspective of data collection in this region is determined by the connection between the Moldova-Transylvania region as well as the traffic that is generated by the Covasna tourist area. Part of the traffic is recreational in nature generating impactful product consumption in the selected communities.

3

Results and Discussion

3.1

Identifying and Explaining the Access to Local Products

The crossing of a specific region, with cultural particularities and the connection with those of the important regions of Romania, respectively Transylvania and Moldova, by an important road is the main factor that generated the participation of local producers. Many of the small producers choose to open their small shops or stalls on the side of the main roads, where there is a daily flow of tourists, commuters, and people transiting the region. In this way they promote their products and can generate a profit from selling them. Producers with a long history and large production capacity choose to expand to various associations of small entrepreneurs or participate in various events, such as fairs, exhibitions, and competitions, but small producers limit themselves to stalls and shops Important to the study was the field analysis of the study area. Thus, the distribution of the number of shops and stalls at the level of each locality was determined, as well as their density within a radius of one square kilometer. Identifying each stall, store, caravan, and construction was pursued with the aim of marketing the products from these communities. Thus, fifty-five commercially valuable structures were identified. Of these, four can be found in Chichis, , twenty-one in Sântionlunca and thirty in Ozun. It can be observed in this sense, from Chichis towards Santionlunca, how the density of buildings and points of sale per inhabitant increases. This happens because of the increase in the share of the ethnic Hungarian population, which is the cultural foundation of this landscape. The penetration into Covasna County leads to a visible increase in the number of production points, as well as the widening of the range of products (from langos, to pies, kürt˝oskalács, fried fish, and hot bread).

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The data taken from the field was used to create a map of their distribution and density over an area of one square kilometer. Thus, it can be observed that in terms of the distribution of local producers, they are concentrated along the DN11. The density of local producers was represented by a scale that differentiates low and high values by four specific shades, according to the number of producers per square kilometer (Fig. 2). Thus, the area with the densest values is represented by the town of Ozun where the number of producers is also the highest. This is the only locality where the maximum values are found. In the other settlements average density values prevail, they are being well represented in Sântionlunca, and in Chichis, they are concentrated in a single area of the community (Fig. 2). The high density of constructions is found around the road intersections in the local areas, where there are clusters of production and sales points. Thus, these points become for the community a kind of market, in which tourists also participate, those who transit and choose to buy local products. The path of the road provides important accessibility. The communities have gutter systems for rainwater on both sides, but most manufacturers have set up wide spaces at

Fig. 2 Kernel density of food points in the study area

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the level of the approaches so that vehicles, both small ones and buses, can park on the side of the road, to benefit customers by accommodating their vehicles.

3.2

Identifying and Presenting Traditional Local Products Sold in Covasna County (Ozun, Chichis, , and Sântionlunca)

There are different types of selling points: in front of the house, old camper, and small wooden constructions next to the road. During the field analysis, we observed that there were many more previously (some were abandoned) and we assumed that the pandemic affected the local producers (Fig. 3). There are, however, examples of good practice: the selling places are clean, the products are freshly made (langos, bread, and kürt˝oskalács), the vegetables are from the area (onion and potatoes), and the people selling them are always nice and smiling to tourists. The points of sale resemble each other and are found on both sides of the road. As a rule, the sellers and producers set up the stands in such a way in front of the gates so that the cars can stop without interrupting the flow of traffic. This aspect contributes to the competition at a small level, between the options that the buyer has, in relation to the offer often found throughout these locations (Fig. 3). The participation of the local community in the creation of these products and the visibility of the process of making them are details with which each of the producers covet possible customers. Some installations are set up in front of the gate, such as the one for making kürt˝oskalács, which are baked in front of the customers. Langos, as well as the pies, are produced in front of homes for the delight of customers, with an impact not only visual but also olfactory, from a marketing perspective. The foodscape is also maintained by the display signs in front of the gates of the specific primary agricultural products that are for sale (potatoes, onions) alongside products made by the locals. In addition to the items presented and visible to each direction of travel, in relation to the side of the road served by each, there are actual examples of products presented. These are sometimes replicas presented carved or built of wood, the area being prime for the exploitation and processing of wood. In some situations, the offerings are accompanied by the serving of traditional drinks and the possibility to sit on improvised terraces, with umbrellas during the summer to ensure protection against the sun. Some of the merchants have also set up toilets, thus completing the range of services they provide.

3.3

Locals’ Perception of Traditional Food Products

The name of kürt˝oskalács (chimney cake) combines the words “kürtö”, which means “oven” and “kalács”, which means “cake”. kürt˝oskalács is a specialty of the Szekler

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Fig. 3 Examples of local producers in Covasna area

families, it is a symbol of the Transylvanian Hungarians and is designated as a hungarikum product. The most delicious kürt˝oskalács is the freshly baked, crusty, and soft cake. Kürt˝oskalács Kürt˝oskalács has become a very popular dessert in the last 20 years at fairs and celebrations thanks to the residents of Covasna who have developed small family businesses with traditional products. The baking over hot coals requires little time and is suitable for quick dishes served at fairs, festivals, and events, which have turned

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the Szekler cake into an extremely popular specialty in all areas of the country. (Visit Covasna 2022). Covasna has established itself in the market of traditional agri-food products, spurring the development of the Regional Cluster of Products and Food Industry—AgroFood (AgroFood Regional Cluster, Covasna County). The cluster’s concern for strengthening value chains in agriculture and the food industry contributes to the creation of a regional brand of nationally and internationally known agricultural and agri-food products (BeRural 2022). In order to find out the perspective of the local population regarding the goods produced in their households and subsequently traded, several field interviews were conducted. These were carried out among the local producers but also among the tourists. “Our traditional bread is made with potatoes! Fresh from the oven, it goes best with bacon and red onion. We make it from old recipes, according to tradition, and many people who come to us buy it for home because, unlike the commercial one, it keeps well for several days. Many tourists buy it as a souvenir.” (female, household, 57 years old). “Quality pálinka (or fruit brandy) is part of the tourism of the Szeklerland, it is something specific to our area. We want the tourists who come to visit our region to return to our county not only for the tourist attractions, but also for the palinka with extraordinary taste, prepared with great care and according to old traditions.” (male, construction worker, 48 years old). “I sell polyflora honey, raw pollen, dry pollen, honeycomb, propolis tincture, wax, honey cover. People are very keen to buy from local producers because the honey is produced naturally, on our farm, and does not involve processing it in factories.” (male, agriculture, 52 years old). “The potato for us represents one of the most important productions. In every corner of Covasna you will find small or large producers. It is not for nothing that Covasna is called the Homeland of the Potato. We pride ourselves on that and people buy from us because they find it the best price and the tastiest!” (female, household, 61 years old). “Every time we pass this road, we have to eat a langos. It’s like his home here and we can’t find a better one. A hot langos with lots of garlic and lots of cream makes you super happy! It’s kind of a fried doughnut, pretty easy to make.” (male tourist, teacher, 28 years old). We can observe that there are also adults and older people selling traditional local products in front of their courtyard gate in Covasna area. The problem of demographic aging has generated a certain profile of the population that serves these gastronomic products. Most of the people who produce food are female, of advanced age. Men usually participate, at the household level, in the supply of goods necessary for the final gastronomic product. They also participate in the process of selling primary agricultural production— such as potatoes, onions, garlic, sometimes wholesale is also possible, and in packages of suitable sizes for the transit consumer. In some places in the Ozun, other types of commercial services complementary to those related to food could be observed, such as magnet-type souvenirs, bath salts or

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traditional hats specific to the place. This brings a positive contribution to the perception of the consumer, who is attracted to visit the gastro locations offering the opportunity to consume other types of goods.

4

Conclusions

Food products in general are used to protect and promote the local identity as a source of knowledge (e.g., olive oil, potatoes, cheese etc.). In several parts of the world, different food products have become iconic products of food tourism. The present work aimed to analyze the access to non-conventional products made by the community in Covasna County along the communities of Chichis, , Ozun, and Sântionlunca. Considering the high proportion of the Hungarian ethnic community, this paper aims to evaluate through specific methods how this ethno-cultural characteristic of the area determines the development of the concept of foodscapes. The results of the analysis have identified a series of advantages that accessibility and connectivity generate for the possibility of economic valorization of the foodscapes, actively participating in its creation, but also a critical dimension on how the economic services related to the consumption of the food products can be improved. Using quantitative and qualitative research, the article aimed to analyze the revaluation processes of the local products from Covasna area to describe its role within the cultural and social development of a community. The results show that from a bottom-up strategy, local products (langos and kürt˝oskalács) do not only form part of the regional local identity but have also become a factor that attracts tourism. The price, the quality, and the ingredients are identified as important attributes in the decisions of tourists to buy local products in the Covasna area. Long-held food traditions passed down through generations by Covasna’s inhabitants have generated special food recipes that attract tourists in the area. Both old and young residents prefer to sell traditional products in front of their courtyard gate, while tourists are fascinated by these products and buy them frequently when they travel through DN11 in the area. The analysis of data obtained from the semi-structured interviews confirms the relevance of langos and kürt˝oskalács as elements of social, cultural, and economic (re)valorization in the local environment of Covasna area. This is a territory where those two local products have a unique symbolism as part of local foodscapes. Also, it is evident that langos and kürt˝oskalács are traditional food products that form part of the identity of the Covasna area, and whose production and consumption have been recovered thanks to the commitment and entrepreneurship of the local population. The unique nature of these products means they can be used as a tourist product.

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In this sense, future research should expand the analysis of the public and private promotion of these two products as a tourist attraction. Results can be useful for policymakers and local authorities of the region to identify the strengths and the weaknesses of the synergies between public and private sectors in the revaluation processes of the local traditional Covasna products. Moreover, it is important to understand that foodscape is an essential partner for the agricultural sector. Rural areas must maintain such attractions to ensure the economic, demographic, and cultural continuity of their communities. At the same time, they can be used as examples of how ancestral and local products offer added value to the tourism industry.

References Almli, V.L., Verbeke, W., Vanhonacker, F., Næs, T., & Hersleth, M. (2011). General image and attribute perceptions of traditional food in six European countries. Food Quality and Preference, 22, 129–138. Be Rural (2022). Romania: Covasna. Available online: https://be-rural.eu/region/romania/ (accessed on 23 October 2022). Cerjak, M., Haas, R., Brunner, F., & Tomic, M. (2014). What motivates consumers to buy traditional food products? Evidence from Croatia and Austria using word association and laddering interviews. British Food Journal, 116, 1726–1747. Chichis, CityHall (2022). About Chichis, . Available online: https://www.chichis.ro/Chichis_3103/chi chis/index.php/despre-chichi (accessed on 8 October 2022). Davidova, S., Bailey, A., Dwyer, J., Erjavec, E., Gorton, M., & Thomson, K. (2013). Semi- Subsistence Farming—Value and Directions of Development Policy Department B: Structural and Cohesion Policies. European Parliament, Brussels. De Roest, K., & Menghi, A. (2000). Reconsidering “Traditional” Food: The Case of Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese. Sociologia Ruralis, 40(4), 439–451. European Commission (2014). EU Agricultural Income 2014—First Estimates. DG Agriculture and Rural Development, Brussels. European Commission (2022). Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on European Union geographical indications for wine, spirit drinks and agricultural products, and quality schemes for agricultural products, amending Regulations (EU) No 1308/2013, (EU) 2017/1001 and (EU) 2019/787 and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1151/ 2012. Available online: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A5202 2PC0134 (accessed on 10 October 2022) Guerrero, L., Guàrdia, M.D., Xicola, J., Verbeke, W., Vanhonacker, F., Zakowska- Biemans, S., Sajdakowska, M., Sulmont-Rossé, C., Issanchou, S., Contel, M., Scalvedi, M.L., Granli, B.S., & Hersleth, M. (2009). Consumer-driven definition of traditional food products and innovation in traditional foods. A qualitative cross-cultural study. Appetite, 52, 345–354. Kizos, T., & Vakoufaris, H. (2011). Valorisation of a local asset: The case of olive oil on Lesvos Island, Greece. Food Policy, 36(5), 705–714. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes—a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Morley, A., & Morgan, K. (2021). Municipal foodscapes: Urban food policy and the new municipalism. Food Policy, 103, 102–124. National Institute of Statistics (2022). About Covasna County. Available online: https://covasna. insse.ro/despre-noi/despre-judetul-covasna/ (accessed on 10 October 2022). Noguer-Juncà, E., Crespi-Vallbona, M., & Fusté-Forné, F. (2021). Sociocultural and gastronomic revaluation of local products: trumfa in the Vall de Camprodon (Catalonia, Spain). International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, 26, 1004–1025. Ozun CityHall (2022a). About Ozun. Available online: http://ozun.ro/ozun/2009/08/12/uzon/ (accessed on 10 October 2022a). Ozun CityHall (2022b). About Ozun- Langos. Available online: http://ozun.ro/ozun/2009/08/17/sze ntivanlaborfalva-3/?lang=ro (accessed on 10 October 2022b). Pieniak, Z., Verbeke, W., Vanhonacker, F., Guerrero, L., & Hersleth, M. (2009). Association between traditional food consumption and motives for food choice in six European countries. Appetite, 53, 101–108. Portrait of Regions (2022). Covasna County—Geography and history. Available online: https://cir cabc.europa.eu/webdav/CircaBC/ESTAT/regportraits/Information/ro073_geo.htm (accessed on 23 October 2022). Rudawska, E.D. (2014). Customer loyalty towards traditional products—Polish market experience. British Food Journal, 116, 1710–1725. Spiro, D., Cianfa, L., & Prosperi, R. (2023). Urban food markets in Rome: a general overview from the vendors’ perspective. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Vanhonacker, F., Lengard, V., Hersleth, M., & Verbeke, W. (2010). Profiling European traditional food consumers. British Food Journal, 112, 871–886. Verbeke, W., Guerrero, L., Almli, V.L., Vanhonacker, F., & Hersleth, M. (2016). European consumers’ definition and perception of traditional foods. In: Kristbergsson, K., Oliveira, J. (Eds.), Traditional Foods: General and Consumer Aspects (pp. 3–16). Springer, US, Boston, MA. Visit Covasna (2022). Kürt˝oskalács—festival of sweet flavour. Available online: www.visitcovasna. com/en/places/kurtoskalacs-festival-of-sweet-flavours--nzsl4fr0pt3cq (accessed on 23 October 2022). Vonthron, S., Perrin, C., & Soulard, C.-T. (2020). Foodscape: a scoping review and a research agenda for food security-related studies. PLoS ONE, 15(5), 218–233. Weichselbaum, E., Benelam, B. & Soares Costa, H. (2009). Traditional foods in Europe, No. FP6 FOOD-CT-2005-513944, 6th Synthesis Report, European Food Information Resource (EuroFIR). Available online: www.eurosfaire.prd.fr/7pc/documents/1263815283_traditional_f oods_can_sustain_european_cultures.pdf (accessed on 10 January 2014). Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Dr. Ana-Maria Talos, is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest, with expertise in teaching, research and students related activities. Her research activity is focused on health geography, population lifestyle and active ageing. For the past years she has been organizing student field works (Moeciu 2017, Cheile Gr˘adis, tei 2018 and 2019, Bras, ov 2022), symposiums

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and conferences aimed at helping students present and improve their research (PhD Students Conference 2015; Students National Symposium of Human Geography and Tourism 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). She was also part of the organizing team of international conferences held in Bucharest (2011, 2016 and 2020). She is the author of a book on lifestyle and health (Lifestyle and its impact on the health of the population. Case study: Ialomit, a County) and several articles related to health status and wellbeing (Socio-economic deprivation and health outcomes in Ialomita County (Romania), Influence of population lifestyle on local health profile. Case study: Ialomit, a county). She is member of the committee “Health and the environment” (International Geographical Union), and she earned numerous research mobility scholarships in order to participate to international conferences and summer courses (Thailand 2018, Indonesia 2018, Vietnam 2019). Florin-Alexandru Zaharia is a PhD student and a human geographer with interest in the sphere of applied geosciences such as transport geography, human settlements geography, urban morphology and urban planning, social geography, geostatistics, geopolitics, geodemography and social vulnerabilities. He has a particular interest in modern research tools and methods in the field of geographies such as GIS and GIScience, and the use of remote sensing to create geographical data. He is author of articles that analyze historical GIS, transport geography, structural funds and spatial planning. He participated and organized national and international conferences (2017, 2018), and earned numerous scholarships (2014, 2015, 2016). He has a four years’ experience in public administration, proved by his work as an expert and personal consultant in the Ministry of Transport (2016–2019) and he is presently the head of cabinet for the Minister of Investments and European Projects. R˘azvan Muntean is a master student with interest in physical geography, more precisely in geomorphology and the impact it has on society, spatial analysis and with a great interest in transport infrastructure. His research fields focus on geomorphology and the impact it has in transports, urban development, constrains and influences in the development of human settlements and spatial accessibility. He is also interested in the analysis of green infrastructure and the correlation between accessibility and the development of communities, in relation to the local specificity, traditions but also from the point of view of the geographic specificity. He was an intern at the Ministry of Transport, where the main part of the project he worked on was the implementation of some measures and projects to increase the investment attractiveness of the A0—highway (Bucharest Ring) for the development of the region Bucharest—Ilfov, attracting freight and passenger traffic, by generating an efficient and cost-effective traffic. He also took part in a project for the University of Bucharest, concerning climate changes and the impact it has on several leves (social, economic, infrastructure, social vulnerabilities) in the city of Câmpulung, part of Arges, County. Alexandru Coman is a master student with interest in geomorphology and the impact it has on environment society. His research fields focus on geomorphology and the impact of various hazards on the development and expansion of urban spaces it has in development, transports, spatial accessibility, and the influence of population development. He was an intern at the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, where he focused on social vulnerabilities and access to social services. In the faculty, together with several colleagues, he organized scientific activities focused on territorial planning and development.

Spatial Accessibility to Supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County Angelo Andi Petre and Ioana Alexandra Mirea

Abstract

Food accessibility represents the ease by which a population can access food. Supermarkets usually offer a wide variety of food options at lower prices. Thus, the present paper focuses on the evaluation of food accessibility to supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County, Romania. Living in areas devoid of food purchase options has been associated with health-related issues. Three measures of accessibility were selected and integrated into GIS methods: proximity, availability, and diversity. Findings show that there are considerable disparities between urban and rural settlements. Urban and suburban settlements have general higher scores of accessibility to supermarkets, while there are several rural settlements devoid of supermarkets in their proximity. Rural settlements with very low accessibility scores are located in the north part of the county, while the ones in the extreme south have satisfactory accessibility. Future research is needed with focus on settlements with low accessibility, regarding how they purchase their food. Keywords

Supermarkets • Availability • Proximity • Diversity • Dâmbovit, a County • Romania

A. A. Petre (B) University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] I. A. Mirea Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_7

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Introduction

Food is an essential component of life and a fundamental human right (Ikejima 2015; Sadler et al. 2016). The ease by which the population can access healthy and affordable food from various sources has been defined as food accessibility (Zhang and Mao 2019; see in this anthology for contextualisation: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). Accessibility is the relative ease by which the population from any location can access different services (Luo and Wang 2003; Wang 2012). Studies on spatial accessibility have addressed several services, including health services (Bilková et al. 2017; Kanuganti et al. 2016), libraries (Allen 2019; Cheng et al. 2021), public parks (Li et al. 2019; Xing et al. 2020), and educational facilities (Pizzol et al. 2021; Romanillos and García-Palomares 2018). More recently, various studies have focused on access to supermarkets and healthy food as a component of food security and equity in identifying food deserts (Battersby and Peyton 2014). Food deserts are disadvantaged areas of relatively poor physical accessibility to a wide variety of healthy food as a nutritious option for daily diet (Walker et al. 2010). However, as there is no consensus on defining and identifying food deserts, the concept has been well-debated in research literature over time (Cummins and Macintyre 2002; Reisig and Hobbiss 2000). Resulting from this, studies have focused on different aspects when identifying food deserts, such as availability, affordability, diversity, and spatial accessibility. Food deserts are associated with the expansion of large chain stores, which force local and independent grocery stores to close because of competition, leaving areas within cities devoid of food purchase options (Guy et al. 2004). Although much literature relates to food deserts, studies focus primarily on urban settlements (Trembošová and Jakab 2021; Crush and Batters 2016). Rural settlements are usually more deprived of essential services; therefore, food supply sources are unevenly distributed, making accessibility challenging (Lebel et al. 2016). Hamidi (2020) finds a connection between the occurrence of urban sprawl and the existence of food deserts, less compact areas being more vulnerable to having less access to food stores. However, despite numerous studies on identifying food deserts within urban settlements, significant advances in evaluating rural food accessibility have demonstrated that rural settlements are prone to low access to a more extensive range of healthy products (Bardenhagen et al. 2017). Living in food deserts is associated with population health outcomes (Giang et al. 2008). Low intake of nutritious and healthy food causes an increase in cardiovascular disease (Kelli et al. 2019) as well as chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer (Block et al. 2011; Bodor et al. 2010), combined with tobacco use (Fong et al. 2021). Furthermore, people tend to make food choices influenced by the food options that are available in their proximity (Furey et al. 2001). Thus, residents with limited access to a supermarket, which offers a wider variety of nutritious, healthy, and diverse food than local

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convenience stores are more vulnerable to ‘empty calorie’ food intake, which is available in convenience stores and fast foods (Drewnowski and Specter 2004). For rural residents to go shopping, they need to travel outside of their local area, causing the ‘out-shopping’ phenomenon to happen (Bardenhagen et al. 2017; Mullis and Kim 2011). This phenomenon is a real challenge as people need to rely on private cars or public transport to go shopping, making living in a food desert even more challenging (Kirkup et al. 2004; Lake and Townshend 2006). In this case, the vulnerability of people with low spatial mobility, especially the ageing population, becomes a real issue which must be addressed, as Trembošová and Jakab (2021) concluded in their study. Various methods have been incorporated to evaluate the presence or absence of a food desert or food outlets within an area (Charreire et al. 2010). From non-spatial methods such as surveys, interviews, and questionnaires (Morland et al. 2002; Rose and Richards 2004), which also account for the personal preferences of food choice as well as the prices of food, to more spatial-oriented analysis using Geographical Informational Systems (GIS). Due to massive progress in GIS technology, numerous studies integrate this tool in evaluating food accessibility and food deserts, even though some scholars consider that this issue is addressed in an overly geographic-oriented manner (Sadler et al. 2013, 2016). Studies integrating GIS programs are remarkably diverse in terms of methodology: density of supermarkets (Battersby and Peyton 2014; O’Dwyer and Coveney 2006), proximity or distance to the nearest supermarket (Smoyer-Tomic et al. 2004; Wang et al. 2007), clustering (Baker et al. 2006), and diversity (Apparicio et al. 2007). Also, there are studies estimating accessibility using different methods in determining distances, the most common ones being Euclidean distance and network distance (Bilková et al. 2017). Supermarkets are considered to offer more variety and availability of healthy food options (Leone et al. 2011; Liese et al. 2007), typically at lower prices than local food stores (Kaufman et al. 1997). Furthermore, many studies focus on accessibility to supermarkets when assessing food deserts (Apparicio et al. 2007; Kolak et al. 2018; Neumeier and Kokorsch 2021), while others integrate supermarkets also, grocery stores, and convenience stores (Liu et al. 2007). However, despite the critical role of local food retailers or non-chain stores in food access and the identification of food deserts (Bao et al. 2020), the following study will focus on the evaluation of spatial accessibility to supermarkets as an essential component in the identification of food deserts from three perspectives proposed by Apparicio et al. (2007) and then applied in numerous studies (Bilková et al. 2017; Trembošová and Jakab 2021). Ascribed to the deficiency and reliability of data, identifying local food stores would be very difficult in a large geographic area. Therefore, this study will focus first on supermarkets, with improvements for future research being needed. In Romania, from all the scientific research papers consulted, a very low share of them analysed food topics, none of them accessibility, only food security and at the national level (Bazga 2012; Istudor et al. 2014), not dealing with spatial access.

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This paper is structured as follows: the first section presents the concept of food deserts from a spatial perspective and reviews the writings on this topic, pointing out the importance of integrating spatiality in identifying underserved areas of food; the second section deals with the methodology applied in the study, the source of data and ways of manipulating it to reach the final results; the third part presents the results of the study; while the final part is the summary of the study, which concludes the research findings and states the limits of potential improvements for future studies on this topic.

2

Methodology

2.1

Study Area

The study area overlaps Dâmbovit, a County, an administrative division of Romania. It is in the southern region of the country, lying to the northwest of the capital city, Bucharest (Fig. 1). Dâmbovit, a County includes eighty-nine territorial administrative units, out of which seven are urban settlements. At the same time, the remaining eighty-two are rural settlements. The county’s total population in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics, is 510,218 people, out of which 161,215 (31.6%) people reside in urban settlements and 349,003 (68.4%) reside in rural settlements. Even though Dâmbovit, a County represents the study area, the analysis of the accessibility to supermarkets exceeded the administrative boundary of the county, so other supermarkets located within the first fifteen kilometres were also considered. In the study area, 201 supermarkets were found and geolocated. From this total, only 33.3% (n = 67) of the supermarkets were located within the administrative boundary of Dâmbovit, a County. In comparison, the rest of the 66.6% (n = 134) of supermarkets were located in the fifteen-kilometre buffer around the administrative limit. Supermarkets located in urban settlements account for 61.2% (n = 123) of the total supermarkets and 38.8% (n = 78) of them were in rural settlements. On a closer scale, which might become the subject of future studies, the allocation of supermarkets is very uneven, some of the main urban settlementss contained the greatest numbers of supermarkets. For example, Targoviste municipality possesses a cluster of supermarkets and their location is uniformly distributed around the city exits, along the main roads, and also in the city centre. The allocation of supermarkets near the exits of the city and along the main roads serves the rural population around the city and beyond.

2.2

Spatial Data

Data on the location of supermarkets has been collected from the official sites of the major chains in Romania: Auchan, Kaufland, Lidl, Carrefour, Mega Image, Profi, and Penny.

Spatial Accessibility to Supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County

Fig. 1 Study area

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This was then geocoded by searching for their addresses on Google Maps. For validation of the exact location of the supermarkets, field travel was performed. We considered only the chain supermarkets as they provide a wide variety of products at prices lower than local convenience stores. As the administrative boundary of the county is not a barrier in searching for food, in the analysis, all supermarkets within the county boundary and located in the first fifteen kilometres of buffer were considered to limit the margin effect (“edge effect”) (Luo and Wang 2003). For determining the Origin–Destination Matrix (OD Matrix), the destination points are the supermarkets. In contrast, the origin points (the place of start) are the centroid of each territorial administrative unit of each community from the study area. Even though some errors might appear, the lack of zip codes or population-weighted centroids at the national level leaves no alternative option in choosing the origin point (Dumitrache et al. 2020). For determining the cost unit for the Origin–Destination Matrix, the shortest street network distance was applied, as more realistic results derived from this method, even though Apparicio et al. (2008) finds a positive relationship between Euclidean distance and street network distance. The shortest routes between each community centroid and the supermarkets were determined by using the Open Route Service (ORS) plugin, which uses the Open Street Map (OSM) application programming interface (API) key (CamposSánchez et al. 2020). All geoprocessing and spatial analysis were completed in a GIS environment using the open-source program QGIS 3.20.

2.3

Methods

The methods used for analysing spatial accessibility to healthy and diverse food in this paper are inspired by the study carried out by Apparicio et al., (2007), which takes into account three accessibility measures to respond to three different aspects of accessibility: 1) proximity evaluated by the distance to the closest supermarket; 2) diversity determined by the number of supermarkets within a threshold distance from each community centroid; and 3) variety assessed by the mean distance to three different chain name supermarkets, in order to quantify accessibility to a varied range of products and prices. These methods have been applied in several studies to evaluate spatial accessibility to supermarkets, being considered to cover a wide variety of aspects regarding accessibility (Bilková et al. 2017; Leete et al. 2012; Sparks et al. 2011). In these studies, the threshold distance of one kilometre, considered to be the walkable distance for a person in fifteen minutes, was applied to urban settlements. As this study includes numerous rural settlements, the threshold distance of fifteen kilometres has been considered which is close to the threshold of 10 miles proposed by the USDA (Hamidi 2020).

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To determine the three accessibility dimensions proposed, the following formulas have been used: a) To determine proximity to the closest supermarket, formula (1) has been used, where A1 is accessibility to the nearest supermarket, and dij is the distance in kilometres between the settlement centroid (i) and the nearest supermarket (j); A1 = (km|di j )

(1)

b) To calculate the diversity of supermarkets within fifteen kilometres from the settlement centroid, formula (2) was applied. A2 represents the number of supermarkets (j) from the total (S), which are located within the threshold distance of fifteen kilometres (d0), and dij is the distance in kilometres between the settlement centroid (i) and the nearest supermarket (j);  A2 = S j (di j ≤ d0 ) (2) j∈S

c) To calculate variety, formula (3) has been applied, where A3 means the mean distance to three different chain-name supermarkets, dij is the distance in kilometres between the settlement centroid (i) and the supermarket (j), and n is the number of supermarkets, which in this case equals three.  A2 = S j (di j ≤ d0 ) (3) j∈S

The measures of accessibility are calculated by using the Origin-Distance Matrix (OD Matrix) results (see Sect. 2.2) in an open-source GIS environment (QGIS 3.20) and were spatialised at each territorial administrative unit for a better spatial analysis of the results from the three spatial perspectives.

2.4

Study Limits

Being an exploratory study, it is prone to the occurrence of errors. The study had to be adapted to the available data regarding supermarkets, as big data archives do not exist regarding supermarkets. The authors had to adapt to the available data on the official sites of the main chain stores; other local chain-name supermarkets have been omitted because of the lack of reliance on data and the reduced possibility of validation. Attributable to the lack of geographic data on population-weighted centroids or zip codes in Romania, the study had to rely on the geometric centroid of each administrative-territorial unit as the place of departure when shopping, and errors regarding distances might occur.

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Also, data on the supermarkets’ size would be essential, as bigger supermarkets are usually more diverse regarding food options. Integrating prices and food product availability would enhance the results if integrated into the analysis. The lack of scientific research on food accessibility at the national level can also represent one limit, as the study cannot compare data or results; not having a background might lead to a descriptive study, which states the actual situation. Given the abovementioned expected limitations, the study would have improved considerably by having more reliable data. Future studies will integrate more data which will be collected by the authors, more time and human resources are needed if the area is to be extended, and more aspects of food availability (questionnaire, economic data, and car ownership) to be added.

3

Results

3.1

Proximity

One of the most used parameters in accessibility studies is proximity to the nearest supermarket. This parameter shows the shortest road network distance to the nearest supermarket. For example, the mean distance to the nearest supermarket in Dâmbovit, a County is 7.066 kms (SD = 5.033). The minimum value is 0.362 kms (Bucs, ani), and the maximum is 24.227 kms (Ludes, ti). Although there are considerable differences between urban and rural settlements, the mean distance to the nearest supermarket for rural settlements is 7.479 kms (SD = 5.001) and for urban settlements is 2.231 kms (SD = 2.096) (Table 1). The longest distances people need to travel to reach the nearest supermarket were usually recorded in territorial administrative units located on the edge of the county administrative boundary. Accordingly, settlements located in the northern part of the county are generally the most inaccessible ones: Moreni (22.789 km), Vis, ines, ti (21.575 km), Pucheni Table 1 Descriptive spatial statistics of the accessibility to supermarkets Nearest supermarket (km) Number of supermarkets within fifteen kilometres

Mean distance to three different chain-name supermarkets (km)

Total

Urban

Total

Rural

Rural

Urban

Total

Rural

Urban

Mean

7.066

7.479

2.231

6.808

6.597

9.285

12.394

13.040

4.825

Std. deviation

5.033

5.001

2.096

7.130

7.129

7.181

5.890

5.571

4.162

Min. value

0.362

0.362

0.711

0

0.000

4

1.200

3.025

1.200

Max. value

24.227

24.227

6.825

29

29

25

28.052

28.052

12.065

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(19.264 km) and V˘aleni-Dâmbovit, a (16.787 km). Contrastingly, urban and suburban settlements, together with rural settlements which have a supermarket, recorded very short distances to the nearest supermarket: Bucs, ani (0.362 km), G˘aes, ti (0.711 km), Potlogi (0.77 km), Moreni (0.9 km), Titu (1.296 km), Pucioasa (1.719 km). Thus, 14.6% (n = 13) of the settlements are located less than two kilometres from the nearest supermarket. More than half, 60.7% (n = 54) are located at distances ranging between two and ten kilometres, while 19.1% (n = 17) are in the ten-to-fifteen-kilometre interval. The most inaccessible settlements are located over the fifteen-kilometre threshold and represent only 5.6% (n = 5) of the settlements. These discrepancies between urban, suburban, and rural settlements indicate an essential issue of the uneven allocation of supermarkets within the county. Living in settlements where the distance to the nearest supermarket is above ten kilometres poses significant issues. The population living in these areas need to rely on personal cars or public transport to purchase groceries, so the costs of acquiring food increase. Moreover, in this case, people that do not own a car need to rely on local grocery stores that do not always offer a wide variety of food options and are therefore more costly than supermarkets. In this proximity category, one can notice the gap between urban and rural areas and city dwellers’ advantages.

3.2

Availability

Availability is another important accessibility factor that provides relevant information about how many options people have when making a food choice. The mean number of supermarkets located within fifteen kilometres from the geometric centroid of each settlement in Dambovita County is 6.808 (SD = 7.130). There are five rural settlements that do not have any supermarkets in the fifteen-kilometre threshold (V˘aleni-Dâmbovit, a, Pucheni, Vis, ines, ti, Moroeni and Ludes, ti). The maximum number of supermarkets within the imposed threshold is twenty-nine in Gura Ocnit, ei. This is the case, as Gura Ocnit, ei is located between two urban settlements at less than fifteen kilometres, so the availability comes from having two urban settlements in the catchment area of fifteen kilometres. The pattern of settlements on the edge of the county boundary remains the same in this case, and the ones in the northern part of the county are the ones with the lowest accessibility. Urban settlements have a bigger availability of supermarkets, with a mean value of 9.085 (SD = 7.181). The minimum number of supermarkets in urban settlements is four, while the maximum is twenty-five. However, rural settlements have 6.597 supermarkets (SD = 7.129) in the fifteen-kilometre threshold, with a minimum value of zero supermarkets and a maximum value of twenty-nine. The maximum value of supermarkets encountered by a rural settkement happened as some territorial administrative units are located between urban settlements, so the availability includes supermarkets from at least

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two cities (Table 1). The proportion of settlements with no supermarket near fifteen kilometres is 5.6% (n = 5), and the ones with one to three supermarkets account for 32.6% (n = 29) of the total settlements. The majority of settlements, 48.3% (n = 43) have a quantity of four and up to ten in the proximity of fifteen kilometres, while 13.5% (n = 12) have over ten supermarkets (Fig. 2). The biggest number of supermarkets within the fifteen-kilometre threshold is generally urban or suburban settlements: Gura Ocnit, ei (29), Doices, ti (26), Târgovis, te (25), S, otânga (25), Ulmi (25), Comis, ani (24), Lucieni (24), Aninoasa (24). This emphasizes the higher

Fig. 2 Measures of accessibility to supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County: (A) Distance to the nearest supermarket (km); (B) Number of supermarkets within fifteen kilometres; (C) Average distance to three closest different chain-name supermarkets

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availability of food options in the urban or suburban environment, pointing out the rural– urban development gap.

3.3

Diversity

The mean distance to three different chain-name supermarkets is used to evaluate the diversity of food options, as different chain-name supermarkets might have different products. The mean distance to three chain-name supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County is 12.394 kms (SD = 5.890). The minimum distance is 1.200 kms (Moreni), while the maximum value is 28.052 kms (Ludes, ti). The urban–rural gap is even more stringent for this indicator of accessibility. For example, the mean distance, to three different chain-name supermarkets for rural settlements, is 13.040 kms (SD = 5.571), the maximum distance is 28.052 kms, and the minimum distance is 3.025 kms. Conversely, the mean distance for urban settlements is 4.825 kms (SD = 4.162), with a minimum value of 1.2 kms and a maximum of 12.065 kms. In this case, (Fig. 2) urban centres and settlements from surrounding areas have shorter mean distances to travel to three different chain-name supermarkets, meaning that the diversity of supermarkets is more considerable: Moreni (1.2 kms), Titu (1.759 kms), Pucioasa (1.916 kms) and Targoviste (2.225 kms). Again, the most inaccessible settlements were located on the outskirts of the county boundary, especially in the northern and southern limits: Ludes, ti (28.052 kms), Pucheni (26.288 kms), Cândes, ti (26.242 kms) and Moroeni (24.713 kms).

3.4

Discussions

The descriptive spatial statistics of the proximity, availability, and diversity factors as indicators of spatial accessibility to supermarkets point out significant disparities between urban and rural settlements. The remote areas in the county’s northern part generally have lower accessibility to supermarkets. As the distance between the urban centres grows, accessibility lowers. In the extreme southeastern settlements, despite the fact that they are located on the county’s boundary, they have relatively high accessibility to supermarkets, at all three accessibility dimension indicators, as they are located very close to the capital city Bucharest and all the surrounding urban settlements. In this case, it is easier and more accessible for residents from these settlements to travel to supermarkets located outside of the county’s boundary. In the extreme north localities, the absence of supermarkets in the area, as well as the long road network distance to the closest supermarkets make accessibility a challenge for the population living in those areas.

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Further studies should focus on these ‘food desert’ areas and see how people living in areas devoid of supermarkets purchase their food, as gardening and livestock farming is a common practice in rural Romania.

4

Conclusions

The present paper aimed to evaluate the spatial accessibility to supermarkets in Dâmbovit, a County by using three parameters of accessibility: proximity, availability, and diversity. The study area was extended to integrate a fifteen-kilometre buffer around the administrative boundary of the county and to diminish the edge effect. As a result, the supermarkets are unevenly distributed across the county, with clusters in urban settlements and vast areas of rural space with low numbers of supermarkets. This emphasises the existing disparities between urban and rural settlements. Also, the allocation of supermarkets along the main roads makes road accessibility and connectivity an especially important factor for supermarket access. GIS methods played an significant role in the analysis conducted in this study. Results show that all three parameters of accessibility are more favourable in urban and suburban settlements than in rural settlements. However, settlements in the northern part of the county are the least accessible ones along with those in the extreme south. This inaccessibility of settlements to supermarkets might influence people to make unhealthy food choices, as they need to rely on local grocery stores. Also, there is a cost problem, as travelling to the supermarket implies higher costs of fuel and public transportation, and the cost of products at local shops is generally higher than in supermarkets. However, being an exploratory study, future research is needed to adapt the methods used and integrate spatial accessibility measures with social and economic measures for a better image of accessibility. Moreover, an evaluation of the situation of accessibility to the settlements with low accessibility to supermarket is needed to understand the challenges and to identify how the population purchase its food. This study is essential as it represents the first attempt in Romania to evaluate food spatial accessibility concerning the existence of food deserts and might serve as a valuable tool for policy makers as well as for supermarket managers to identify the need for opening new locations of their chain.

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Angelo Andi Petre is a masters student specializing in human geography, with a great interest in geodemography, spatial analysis, spatial statistics, social geography and geography of education resources. His research fields focus on spatial accessibility to essential services, especially educational facilities, as well as foodscape characteristics and the impact on health and population wellbeing. He is also interested in the analysis of human capital and the links between health status and education level on the allocation of human capital. He was an intern at the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection where he focused on social vulnerabilities and access to social services and he is a representative of the University of Bucharest in the CIVIS Student Council. Ioana Alexandra Mirea is a masters student with great interest in the geography of transportation, territorial planning and spatial analysis. Her research fields focus on transport infrastructure development suitability by using multicriterial analysis. Also, she is very interested in spatial connectivity of transportation means and their efficiency for the population to make essential services more accessible.

Measuring Geographic Accessibility to Healthy Food for the University of Bucharest Student Community Cristian Cazacu, Andreea Carab˘a, and Gabriel-Valentin Dimisiano

Abstract

A healthy food environment within the proximity of universities is essential as students spend much of their time in the university and benefit from access to various foods nearby. Accessing healthy food is a global problem, accordingly important, prioritising healthy food environments especially where students and youth spend their time. In this paper, we explore the food environment characteristics and measure the potential spatial accessibility of students to healthy food in an area surrounding one of the University of Bucharest’s main buildings, located in the city centre. Identification and typologies of food establishments were based on field investigations. GIS methods, like interpolations and bivariate analysis, summates results shaping the study area food environment. Results show the distribution of different food establishment categories, concentrated in healthy and unhealthy areas, 500 m from this primary building. In general, over three-quarters of the study area comprises the unhealthy category. Additionally, a large area possesses low and medium accessibility, but the major problem remains the lack of healthy areas. Moreover, no healthy area has high accessibility, which means all healthy spots locate in medium and low accessibility areas, distant from this building. C. Cazacu (B) · A. Carab˘a · G.-V. Dimisiano University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] A. Carab˘a e-mail: [email protected] G.-V. Dimisiano e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_8

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Keywords

Healthy food . Spatial accessibility . Students . University . Bucharest . Romania

1

Introduction

An EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report set the global adoption of healthy diets as a primary goal for a sustainable food system that would safeguard our planet and improve the population’s health. Therefore, healthy food is one of the most critical targets for the planet’s future. Furthermore, the report revealed that healthy foods are usually unprocessed, including seeds, vegetables, and fruits. Also, a healthy diet is more important because the twenty-first century is a century in which the food problem is one of the most significant worldwide, and one of the parallel goals of adopting healthy food is to protect the environment and to prevent approximately eleven million deaths yearly. However, the recent studies in the field of healthy food focus on different aspects, including accessibility, availability, and food consumption, as correlated to a healthy lifestyle and healthy diet goals (EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report; Dumitras, et al. 2021; Forsyth et al. 2010; for to contextualise to the larger discourse in this anthology: Kühne 2023, Yasmeen 2023). Concurrently, other authors (Mann et al. 2021) demonstrate that unhealthy foods are ultra-processed foods that are often high in salt, saturated fats, added sugar, and energy. On a larger scale, the term “food environment” is more frequently being applied. This term is understood in different ways and assigned to factors like accessibility, food diversity, ‘real’ food necessity, and distance (Blinkova et al. 2017; Glanz et al. 2007). However, accessibility is also crucial in the spatial analysis of food environments. Other studies, such as The Nutrition Environment Measures Survey (NEMS-S), relate to a sum of factors, different components, both price and quality, to categories of food, to defining an area as a type of food environment (Glanz et al. 2007). Lastly, they are providing a localised view of food behaviour and supply (Tseng et al. 2016). Furthermore, these studies are focused on more extensive areas and did not primarily target a specific group of people. Recent studies focus more attention upon students, proving for example that the lack of proximity causes most students to travel farther to buy inexpensive and healthy products instead of opting for nearby shops, where expensive and unhealthy products can be found (Apparicio et al. 2007; Tangtrakul 2010; Rose 2010; Meyers 1980; MacDonald and Reitmeier 2017; Brown et al. 2020; Baics 2016). This general situation is very similar for the students in some faculties at the University of Bucharest, which is located in an old building in the city centre, wherein students do not benefit from a canteen nearby. Also, studies about the unhealthy food and fast-food stores surrounding universities campuses have increased over the last decades (Austin et al. 2005). Moreover, comparative studies on the local food environment show the relationship between a healthy level of different

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age groups and the local market profile (Caspi et al. 2012) or binds with the need for food supply in food desert areas (Blinkova et al. 2017). At the national level, from the 1990s onwards, Romania has undergone an exponential increase in the density of restaurants, grocery stores, and fast-food outlets, mainly concentrated in densely populated areas of city centres and alongside main roads (Chiciudean et al. 2019). However, many Romanian studies focus on conditions that determine the food behaviour and factors that influencing food choices (Boca 2021). Describing food near to university areas, as seen so far, some studies focus on the accessibility and quality of the grocery stores that students frequently visit in the vicinity of their university centre, the major aim of these studies being to prove that the situation could be improved. Studies made by Carson and Boege (2020) and Gould et al. (2012) treat the intersection of food availability, access, affordability, with a focus on accessibility at the scale of neighbourhoods, showing how unique and patchwork the areas can be at a small scale (in this volume see also: Sedelmeier 2023). Studies on the accessibility of the student population to healthy food are scarce in Romania, despite the importance of this group in the country’s main cities. More than thirty-three universities in Bucharest, the country’s capital, are home to over half of all Romanian students. One of Romania’s first universities, the University of Bucharest has campuses and buildings spread throughout the city. The main building, which houses seven faculties and more than 10,000 students, is in the city centre. It is also significant to note that the building is not advantageous for a canteen because of its location. Additionally, renovation and expansion are not permitted. As a result, students have a problem buying food in the immediate vicinity. As methods, so far, GIS-oriented studies measuring food availability applied buffers, Euclidean distance, network analyst, and interpolation through kernel density (Apparicio et al. 2007; Charreire et al. 2010; Forsyth et al. 2010; Vilme et al. 2021), plus applied bivariate analysis. Many other studies treat access to food at the level of a spatial administrative unit or as a sum of economic and social factors, relevant to spatial units/with variable scales. Those studies create spatial models or account for the repartition at large scale of food parameters, the results particularly concentrating on the unhealthy areas and the lack of food supply as well as the regional food issues (Schmid and Brenneman 2018; Philippe et al. 2007; Sari 2020; Kolesnyak and Polyanskaya 2022; John et al. 2010; Jason and Kristian 2008; Hossfeld 2018; Garcia and Cruz 2021). However, recently, accessibility through GIS methods is correlated with food problems during the pandemic (Nayar and Mehrota 2022; Jafri et al. 2021), showing that the accessibility to food has changed under the pressure of the crisis. Our study comes up with a bivariate analysis in the field of health geography in Romania. The method begins with the application of matrices from mathematics in the field of GIS analysis, the final purpose being to obtain a spatial evaluation. However, in other words, the goal of the study is to evaluate the availability of healthy food for the students

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at the University of Bucharest. The analysis is derived from the quantified and interpolated data of accessibility and healthy/unhealthy food sources and is applied at the scale of the study area.

2

Methods

2.1

Field Investigations and General Framework of the Study

A field investigation was the first and a most essential step for finding & mapping all the food establishments in the study area. We use three walking sessions in the field to find each food establishment under a methodology defined in the following sentences. While in the field, we used i) the activated location signal data from the smartphone, which helped us mark the points of interest on Google Maps and ArcMap 10.8.1 and ii) Google Traffic for calculating the range of distances for the food establishments in each area. Thirdly iii), for ArcMap 10.8.1, we had a laptop with us during the field investigation assisting with creating vectors (points) for the food establishments directly to input the areas of interest with the appropriate codes in the attribute table of each point. It is also important to note that the field investigation and mapping of the terrain was made after we created the study area limit polygon in ArcMap 10.8.1. We took as centre for our study area the main building of the University of Bucharest, from where all the students start their daily walk to the locations offering food. The maximum range of the study area was calculated using the actual perimeter generated by a pedestrian transit radiating outwards from this one University of Bucharest building. This is more accurate than a buffer of 500 m, which could unrealistically increase the actual distances travelled by a pedestrian to some of the edges of the buffer, this more accurate non-buffer perimeter being an outcome of the often chaotic directions of some streets.

2.2

Quantifying Data from the Field and Creating a Database for the Food Establishments in GIS

We quantified three general data types representative of the locations where we entered every food establishment. They are displayed in three columns in the attribute table of every point: one for food establishment typology, one for healthy/unhealthy typology, and one for distance/accessibility classes. The first data obtained is food establishment typology and the points for every establishment, quantified directly from the field investigation step. Within the study area, twelve (12) establishments were identified (Fig. 1) based on a classification made by Glanz et al. (2007) and Liese et al. (2007), which depart from three main categories (Supermarket,

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Fig. 1 The attribute table components and primary quantified food establishment results

Grocery store/Pastry, and Convenience stores) that were adapted to the great variety of study area. The second data obtained is the data for the healthy and unhealthy classes (Fig. 1). After introducing food establishment, we quantified the percentage of healthy food sold or the menu served at each restaurant. Then, the results were transposed to a code in the attribute table (‘1’ for healthy and ‘2’ for unhealthy establishments). In this study, healthy food establishments sell mainly (over 50% of products) non-processed food such as seeds, vegetables, fruits or natural and bio items (Glanz et al. 2007; Fuster et al. 2021; EAT-Lancet Commission Summary Report). In addition, restaurants that serve traditional, medicinal products cooked using healthy cooking methods, as well as vegetarian, gluten-free, and seafood products are also considered healthy (Wasike and Fwaya 2018). Therefore, where the percentage surpassed 50%, the food establishment was assigned the code number ‘1’ in the column healthy/unhealthy, meaning “healthy”, and if it subceeded 50%, it was considered “unhealthy” and marked with code number ‘2’ in the attribute table in the column healthy/unhealthy. Also, fast-food outlets and grocery stores have been considered unhealthy because of the rate of ultra-processed food and the minimal options for non-processed items (Black et al. 2014; Ohri-Vachaspati et al. 2011). The third data obtained is focused on distances from the University, defining three classes of distance (high 0–150 m, medium 150–350 m, and low 350–500 m: coded

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respectively as ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’ in the attribute table). The distance was calculated using the Google Traffic simulator for pedestrian access from the University’s main building for each food establishment.

2.3

Steps in ArcMap 10.8.1

For creating the maps and the bivariate matrix-based analysis at the end of the study, we also used ArcMap 10.8.1. As open-source data for other elements represented on the maps, we used the OpenStreetMap free data for infrastructure elements like roads, pedestrian routes, and other vectors such as buildings and hydrography. As mentioned before, the first steps in ArcMap 10.8.1 for creating the maps and the final bivariate analysis, using a matrix system, is obtaining data from the terrain for the locations with codes added for typology, healthy/unhealthy classes, and distance classifications. For the first map, we classify the typology of food. Then the data for healthy/unhealthy classes are interpolated (through the IDW method), thereby obtaining a raster of the healthy/unhealthy areas underlaying the typology of stores. Next, the same procedure is applied for distance class codes so that, finally, we have two rasters (the interpolation of healthy/unhealthy classes and the interpolation of accessibility). The rasters obtained are clipped according to the shape of the study area polygon and exported as a jpeg image at 600 dpi. After that, we reclassify the raster code data to properly apply the matrix from mathematics in ArcMap 10.8.1, using Raster Calculator. Initially, we reclassify the second raster, changing the values of ‘1’ and ‘2’ for the healthy column to ‘4’ and ‘5’ respectively for the matrix during the calculation of the raster to prevent generating the same results twice. The subsequent step was to apply the matrix, obtaining a bivariate analysis (healthy/unhealthy raster plus distances raster using Raster Calculator). In the end, we obtain five outputs (plus, one that does not exist), all represented at the raster level, as seen in the map below (Fig. 4). This result shows the accessibility to healthy food in the study area and was extracted by a mask applied to the study area polygon. After that, it underlaid the points categorized using the designated typology and the map was then exported at 600 dpi, as a jpeg image. Finally, these results were interpreted, and the areas where both healthy and unhealthy shops correlated to different classes of distance from the University were highlighted.

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Results and Discussions

3.1

Food Establishments in the Study Area

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The mapping of food establishments shows 154 units dispersed across the entire study area, having a much greater density in the east and south, with many more buildings and a greater concentration of stores in the old centre. In the eastern and northeastern parts there is a lack of food establishments in some areas, one of the main reasons being that some places have a plaza or other function (i.e., the Theatre area).

3.2

Food Establishment Typologies and Healthy Typologies in the Study Area

We identified twelve categories of food establishments: Minimarket, Market, Supermarket, Vending machine, Convenience store, Kiosk (that in some cases in Romania sell some food and drinks as well, excepting newspapers), Restaurant, Grocery store/Pastry, Specialty for other foods, Coffee shop (that also sell sandwiches or other bistro-kind items), Fast food, and Other. Included in the Specialty store for other foods category were Korean traditional and Chinese food options. Of the 154 stores, only ten are considered healthy, approximately 6.49% of the total. More precisely, in the field, we identified eleven minimarkets that represent 7% of the total food establishments identified, from which only one is categorized in the attribute table as healthy and ten as unhealthy. In the Market category, we identify only four, representing 3% of the total food establishments, of which all four are categorized as being unhealthy. In the Supermarket category, we identify just one (but having a majority of items being processed food, so it‘s been included in the unhealthy class), which represents under 1% of the total food establishments. We also identified four vending machines that represent 2% of the total food establishments, of which none qualified as being healthy. For Convenience store, eight food establishments that represent 5% of the total were identified, all categorized as being unhealthy. We also identified three kiosks (4% of the total food establishments), all categorized as unhealthy. In the Restaurant category, we identify forty-seven, representing the majority of the food establishment category (30%), of which seven restaurants are designated healthy, and forty are designated unhealthy. Finally, we identified ten grocery stores/pastry, which represents 6% of the total food establishments, and none in the healthy class. The same is true for the speciality store for other foods, from which none of the five establishments (3% of the total) is determined healthy. Of Coffee shops, which number 28, representing more than 18% of the total food establishments, just one is categorised healthy. The same is the case for fast-food stores, numbering six (4% of the total), of which none of them qualify as healthy. In the Other

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category, containing twenty-seven, representing over 17% of the total food establishments, only one is deemed healthy (Fig. 1). One can notice that eight store categories do not sell any healthy food: Market, Supermarket Vending machine, Convenience store, Kiosk, Grocery store/Pastry, Specialty store for other foods, and Fast food. Contrastingly, the largest portion of healthy food establishments are restaurants, where seven of forty-seven are considered healthy (a percentage of 7.47% of the total restaurants).

3.3

Spatial Interpolation of Healthy/unhealthy Data

Applying the healthy/unhealthy ratio, the interpolations of the data complete an image of healthy food availability in the study area, with unhealthy food being dominant. Darker colours represent food that cannot be included in the “healthy” category; 82% of the area is dominated by the unhealthy category, and this includes to a large extent the surrounding area of the university. According to the GIS interpolation (IDW method), the healthy food areas mainly overlap the study area’s northeastern, western, southern, and southwestern parts. However, the areas with unhealthy food, which represent a spatial issue (marked in darker greys on the map), could be seen on a large scale throughout the study area. Therefore, it can be said that the healthier options are the minority within our study zone, representing just 18% of the total (Fig. 2).

3.4

Spatial Interpolation of Accessibility

For accessibility, following the interpolation of the values from the attribute table, regarding the classes of values related to the distance from the University to the outer margins of the study area, we could see that three concentric circles were formed, representing the spatial accessibility. Correlating the data of the accessibility classes with the number of food establishments, we identify that most of the food establishments (eighty-one of them, meaning a percentage of 52.59% of the total) are situated in the low accessibility class. There are also fifty-five food establishments situated in the medium class accessibility area (meaning 5.57% of the total), and eighteen are situated in the high accessibility class area, representing 11.68% of the total food establishments (Fig. 3).

3.5

The Bivariated Analysis

The bivariate analysis, transposing the relationship between accessibility and healthy/ unhealthy food to the spatial level, technically shows the situation on the ground, the

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Fig. 2 Healthy and unhealthy areas

spatial disposition of food healthiness, and correlations with the accessibility classes (Fig. 4). We obtained five categories, represented differently at the scale of our study area. The first category, healthy food and medium accessibility, covers about 10% of the study area. The second category associating healthy food and low accessibility, covers over 8%. The third one, unhealthy food and high accessibility, covers 25%. The fourth category being unhealthy food and medium accessibility comprises nearly 28%. The final category being the most important concerning spatial distribution, unhealthy food and low accessibility, covers 29%. The analysis results show a lack of healthy food establishments near the University. There is also a general shortage of healthy food establishments throughout the study area. Additionally, many establishments considered “healthy” are restaurants belonging to luxury hotels. It can also be seen that the preferred value class (healthy food, high accessibility) is non-existent in the study area, the closest area with healthy food being located between 150–200 m, well within the second class of accessibility. There are also two larger areas with healthy food and medium accessibility situated east and south of the University which are dominated by restaurants considered healthy and having a star class over much of the city.

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Fig. 3 Accessibility classes of the study area

Moreover, there is also an area in the northwest, dominated by healthy restaurants, which offers rich in-demand vegetarian cuisine, qualifying for the healthy category (defined by Fuster et al. 2021). Smaller areas with healthy food are situated in the low accessibility class. They are located near some coffee shops selling vegetarian, bio, and non-processed products or in the eastern part of the area, where there is a market having over 50% of their products accredit as healthy and nearby restaurants similar to those just mentioned. On the opposite pole are those areas with unhealthy food, which occupy over 82% of the entire study area, which reveals a dissatisfactory situation in all three classes (unhealthy-low accessibility, unhealthy-medium accessibility, and unhealthy-high accessibility).

3.6

Discussions

Although this study uses a method that quantifies a relationship between two parameters, the limitation of the method is that it falls short when it comes to discussing the lack of elements interpolated on an area. In other words, the areas where “food deserts” could be found are not taken into the analysis because of the technical parameters and

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Fig. 4 The relation between healthy/unhealthy food and accessibility

the limitations of the interpolation method. Therefore the food establishments were added overlaying the raster results (healthy/unhealthy, accessibility, and bivariate analysis) so that the lack of food establishments is also suggested, despite the shadings of the existing raster. The scale of the study, the spread of elements considered in the interpolation process, and the sum of the rasters do not generate as many errors. It is also good to consider the higher number of restaurants framed into the healthy class compared to the other food establishments within the categories mapped. However, it arises as an issue regarding meal affordability for the students at those restaurants, most of these establishments being well-known as among the most expensive in the city. There is also a limitation related to the affordability of the food in the study area; in general, our study is concentrated upon the interpolation of the healthy food environment accessibility, as well as, in close connection with the food establishment categories represented at the scale of the study area. It is also notable that the methodology adopted was split in two involving the step of quantifying food establishments - one being adopted in stores (that sell food) and one in restaurants (that cook food).

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Conclusion

The general conclusion is that accessibility is not the primary problem, as the lack of healthy food options remains a significant obstacle at the spatial level. It is also good to point out that a healthy option area of only 18% as interpolated from our study area data is insufficient and unsatisfactory for such an important university centre like this. More than three-quarters of the study area is situated in the unhealthy class, correlated in chiefly low and medium accessibility classes. Also, according to the results, only 6.49% of the food establishments are considered healthy, showing a worrying number, moreso if we focus on the fact that the study area is situated right in the centre of an European capital. Also, throughout this study, the lack of healthy food is well delineated, equally so the problem of close accessibility to it, which becomes more problematic when discussing places in the vicinity of one of the most important universities in southeastern Europe. It can also be seen that a healthy food strategy for students, including what is to be eaten around universities, would be a good idea for the future (Lo et al. 2016), coupled with a plan for a healthier food environment near the University (Minaker et al. 2011) should be adopted. Moreover, it could be seen that there is a lack of convenience stores, markets, and other options supplying the students with healthy food alongside a high number of restaurants considered healthy but not affordable for a typical student. Also, the lack of high accessibility class correlated with healthy food, from the bivariate analysis, shows the critical need for some healthy food establishments in close proximity to the University. One can also mention that our method has some technical limits, consisting of two interpolations of two quantified parameters that do not consider the food deserts but still show a general framework of the area denoting establishments offering healthy food and accessibility to them. Nevertheless, the method’s accuracy remains quite good, and the areas lacking healthy food could easily be recognized with a simple perusing of the food establishment map. Being one of the few studies that quantify the food environment through this method in Romania, it also reflects the fact that healthy food access in Bucharest is a disconcerting problem among the students attending higher education institutions. The need for a strategy in the future for an improved healthy food environment nearby is a severe priority, that must be taken into discussion and regulated from a higher level. Presently, the university cannot control the private initiatives across the area and, additionally, there is no national legal framework that mandates the creation of areas that solely sell healthy goods.

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Cazacu Cristian PhD Student at University of Bucharest, Master’s graduate in Territorial Planning and Management of Urban and Rural Localities and bachelor’s degree graduate in Geography. The subjects of interest in scientific research are the geography of health, the geography of food environments and GIS. Andreea Carab˘a bachelor student in the third year of study at the University of Bucharest, Geography program. Her subjects of interest are geography of food, food supply and accessibility to food. Gabriel-Valentin Dimisiano bachelor student in the third year of study at the University of Bucharest, Geography program. His interest subjects are GIS, healthy and food-equitable environment.

Factors Influencing Food Choice Among Romanian University Students Angelo Andi Petre and Ioana Alexandra Mirea

Abstract

Food choice is an essential factor that influences the health of the population. Students become vulnerable to unhealthy food choices as they must adapt to the transition from high school to university. This study aims to assess the factors influencing food choices among students from the University of Bucharest. It is based on data collected through the Food Choice Questionnaire involving 287 university students. It consists of 36 items grouped into nine factors: health, mood, convenience, sensory appeal, natural content, price, weight control, familiarity, and ethical concern. Findings from the data analysis show that sensory appeal is the most important factor influencing university students’ food choices, followed by mood and health. Also, the price seems to have a moderate impact on food choices. The least important factors are familiarity and ethical concern. Significant correlations have been found among some factors: health and natural content, sensory appeal and mood, convenience, and price. Future research is needed to better understand the influences of the food environment and advertisement on students’ food choice. Keywords

Food Choice • Factors • University Students • Bucharest • Romania A. A. Petre (B) University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] I. A. Mirea Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_9

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Introduction

Individual food choices and eating habits are significant factors shaping well-being and health (Coquery et al. 2022). Obesity and being overweight represent an issue that generally affects the youth worldwide (Dabbaghian et al. 2012; Wang and Lobstein 2006). These two issues become a concern as they pose problems to the health status of the younger population and are associated with chronic diseases such as diabetes or cardiovascular diseases (Fruh 2017). Furthermore, students transition from high school to college or university is critical, as they must adapt to a new lifestyle and environment (Dyson and Kinberly 2006). During university studies, students are more vulnerable to unhealthy food choices (Deliens et al. 2014). Thus, understanding the individual factors influencing food choice is essential for the necessity to design and support of appropriate food systems based on people’s needs and preferences (Karanja et al. 2022), equally for policymakers to promote a healthier lifestyle (Januszewska et al. 2011). Most of the geographical studies regarding food are spatially oriented, focusing on accessibility and availability of food points, whether they are supermarkets, restaurants, fast foods, grocery shops, or food markets, as driving factors influencing food behaviours. Geographical accessibility to healthy food options has caught experts’ attention to find a relationship between healthy food access and the health condition of the population (Li and Kim 2018). McGuirt et al. (2018) find a positive association between healthy food environments and fruit and vegetable intake. Also, living in food deserts, defined as areas devoid of accessible and affordable nutritious food options (Walker et al. 2010), might influence the population’s health status (Kelli et al. 2019). However, there is a continuous debate about whether the geography of foodscapes influences dietary behaviours (Widener 2018; for a classification in the discourse around foodscapes, see this anthology: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). Thus, an assessment of individual and personal factors is needed for a better understanding and evaluation of food behaviours. Significant steps have been taken to assess the factors influencing food choice, and thus, several methods have been applied in scientific literature, ranging from qualitative to quantitative methods and theoretical studies, for making research advances. Qualitative studies focus on interviews applied directly to the focus group and represent an effective way through which researchers can assess the factors influencing food choices. For example, Roudsari et al. (2017) applied a quantitative study which focused on psychological, social, and cultural factors of the thirty-three respondents of the interview and found out that the determinant factors group into five categories, information resources and media being two of them. Bisogni et al. (2002) also used the interview method to identify identities based on food behaviours. Also, some studies associate food choices with accessibility and travel behaviour to restaurants and point out that living in a food landscape where fast foods are abundant might cause higher BMI (Body Mass Indexes) (Eckert and Vojnovic 2017).

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However, most studies concerning food choice are quantitative and conducted using questionnaires directly to the focus groups. Steptoe et al. (1995) have developed a standardised food choice questionnaire that focuses on the motives of individuals when making food choices. The Food Choice Questionnaire has been conducted on populations with various demographic, social, and economic characteristics, as well as from various countries with different cultural and food behavioural backgrounds. The first studies regarding food choice have been applied in the United Kingdom (Crossley and Khan 2001; Steptoe et al. 1995). Numerous studies have been conducted in the United States of America involving different focus groups: Forestell et al. (2012) applied the original questionnaire to female college students, while Locher et al. (2009) focused on food choice motives among the elderly population. The food choice questionnaire was used in countries such as Croatia (Breˇci´c et al. 2017), Germany (Fenko et al. 2015), and cross-national Balkan countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia (Mardon et al. 2015). Other studies evaluate food choices in Romania (Januszewska et al. 2011). In Romania, the situation of food choice motives has been analysed in quite a few studies that integrate qualitative or quantitative methods at both the national level and on smaller groups of people. Evidence shows that the diet of the Romanians is deteriorating compared to the new dietary and nutrition trends (Petrovici and Ritson 2000). Nistor (2014) finds out that food price and quality are the most important factors influencing food choice, with no differentiation between demographic characteristics. However, income is one characteristic that makes food quality an essential factor. Another study investigates the role of health and availability of healthy food options when choosing a restaurant and finds that it plays a significant role (Chiciudean et al. 2019). Also, the tendency of Romanian people to borrow unhealthy eating behaviours such as HFSS (high in fat, salt, and sugar) products represents a dietary vulnerability (Voinea et al. 2019). Nevertheless, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people have started to change their food consumption patterns, with more attention to buying fruits and vegetables from local producers and cooking their food. However, these patterns might have changed after restrictions have loosened (Dumitras et al. 2021). However, despite the numerous studies focusing on food choice and dietary patterns, the scarcity of comparable research results regarding university students’ food choices or dietary intake highlights the importance of conducting a study in this direction (Deliens et al. 2014). The proximity of food retailers and the types of food options near educational facilities might influence food choice (Seliske et al. 2013). Also, in a study by Tam et al. (2017), the student focus group was concerned about taste, convenience, and price when making food choices and reported that the availability of healthier food at lower prices on campus would be a good improvement for healthier food choices. During the COVID19 pandemic, unhealthy food behaviours, and frequent snacking as reported by students, deteriorated their diet compared to when on campus (Powell et al. 2021). So, the growing variety of studies regarding students’ food choices emphasises the necessity of future

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research work to create more comparable results and design appropriate food policies based on reliable data. The present paper explores the factors influencing food choice through the application of the food choice questionnaire among students from the University of Bucharest. The lack of food options inside university buildings represents a vulnerability for the students. Some buildings do not have a student canteen, cafeteria, or shop that might provide food at lower prices, therefore students need to rely on other options in the proximity of the campus, which might not always be a healthy option. This study also aims to explain the factors influencing food choice. It might be an essential tool for food policymakers and university administrations to adapt their food offer to university students on campus or at the university. The study will be structured as follows: the first part sets the scientific background of food choice motives as it reviews studies regarding this topic; the second part of the study sets the methodological framework of the study, giving relevant information on data collection and analysis; the third part of the study shows the results and discussions of the food choice questionnaire applied to university students and the last part summarises the conclusions of the questionnaire as well as future research recommendations.

2

Methodology

2.1

Data Collection

The Food Choice Questionnaire has thirty-six items grouped into nine dimensions: health, mood, convenience, sensory appeal, natural content, price, weight control, familiarity, and ethical concern (Steptoe et al. 1995). This standardized Food Choice Questionnaire has been applied in several studies, focusing on cross-national groups and different population factors (Cunha et al. 2018). Despite the broad application of the complete questionnaire in numerous studies, some authors have adapted the questions and factors to meet the studies’ preferences or objectives (Espinoza-Ortega et al. 2016; Lindeman and Väänänen 2000). The original questionnaire used a ‘1 to 4’ Likert scale to evaluate the importance of each item and factor. Other studies have adapted the scale to more points: ‘1 to 5’ (Miloševi´c et al. 2012) or ‘1 to 7’ (Pohjanheimo and Sandell 2009). The Food Choice Questionnaire was conducted online, using the Google Forms platform. The questionnaire consisted of questions regarding the demographic, social, and economic aspects of the respondents, together with the thirty-six items of the Food Choice Questionnaire, and all the answers were measured on a four-point Likert-type scale (Steptoe et al. 1995), ‘1’ meaning ‘not important’ and ‘4’ meaning ‘very important’. The questionnaire was randomly applied to students that are actively enrolled in different study programs at the University of Bucharest. Also, the questionnaire was delivered

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and promoted via email and other communication channels by university tutors and student representatives to the enrolled students. The questionnaire was available from April to July, and students gave their written consent to fill in the form, so they voluntarily answered the questions from the online form. Moreover, all the questionnaires were anonymously completed to ensure the collected data’s confidentiality and reliability. A total of 287 students answered the required questions.

2.2

Participants

The questionnaire was engaged by 287 students from the University of Bucharest. The descriptive data of the questionnaire sample can be analysed in Table 1. The mean age of the questionnaire respondents is 21.3 years (standard deviation—3.385), ranging from 18 to 51 years, including 66.2% (n = 190) female respondents and 33.8% (n = 97) male respondents. The questionnaire aimed to cover students on different levels of studies and to keep track of the proportion of students according to the study programme at university: 82.6% (n = 237) of respondents were enrolled in bachelor programs, 15.3% (n = 44) in masters programmes, and 2.1% (n = 6) being PhD candidates. A vast majority of students, 92.7% (n = 266), reported adopting an omnivore diet, while only 3.8% (n = 11) declared themselves as vegetarian, 1.7% (n = 5) as vegan, and 1.7% (n = 5) pescetarian. The employment rate is about one-quarter of the population from the sample, with 26.4% (n = 77) of students were employed, while 73.6% (n = 210) of students were unemployed. The monthly declared income of students, besides salary and sources such as family funds and scholarships, was: 500 RON (Romanian Leu) for 26.4% (n = 77) of students, between 500 and 1000 RON for 20.8% (n = 59) of students, between 1000 and 2000 RON for 12.3% (n = 65) of students, between 2000 and 3000 RON for 12.3% (n = 35) of students, and 13.4% (n = 38) of students receiving more than 3000 RON monthly (Table 1).

2.3

Data Analysis

Factor analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between the components of the Food Choice Questionnaire using the statistical software IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The principal component analysis (PCA) has been conducted on the data. ANOVA test was performed to compare means across the samples. The internal consistency of each factor was determined by calculating the Cronbach Alpha scores, and all values exceeded the threshold of 0.7 for each factor. This represents a satisfactory (acceptable) value that demonstrates a strong internal consistency of the data (Tavakol and Dennick 2011). Internal consistencies of more than 0.8 were found in: health (α 0.89), mood (α 0.85), price (α 0.82) and sensory appeal (α 0.81), while internal constancies ranging between 0.7 and 0.8 were found in: convenience (α 0.78), weight control (α

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Table 1 Description of the sample

Total Sample

N (287)

Gender

Female

190

66.2

Male

97

33.8

Bachelor

237

82.6

Masters

44

15.3

PhD

6

Omnivore

266

92.7

Vegetarian

11

3.8

Vegan

5

1.7

Pescetarian

5

1.7

Employed

77

26.4

Unemployed

210

73.6

Under 500 RON

59

20.8

500–1000 RON

87

30.6

1000–2000 RON

65

22.9

2000–3000 RON

35

12.3

Over 3000 RON

38

13.4

Mean

21.3 18 51 3.385

Study level

Diet

Employment Monthly Income

Age

Min Max

% (100)

2.1

SD

0.76), natural content (α 0.75), familiarity (α 0.74), and ethics (α 0.71). The ranking order was calculated by the average score obtained for each factor, creating a hierarchy of each factor from the most to the least important ones, with values close to ‘1’ signifying ‘not important’ and ‘4’ signifying ‘very important’ (Januszewska et al. 2011).

2.4

Study Limitations

The Food Choice Questionnaire was applied to 287 students from the University of Bucharest. One of the first limitations was the limited sample to which we applied the questionnaire. Furthermore, using online channels to fill in the questionnaire, the authors could not supervise how the questionnaire was completed or resolve potential questions that might have been raised. The lack of comparative research on food choices among students in Romania makes it challenging to compare results. The need for future studies is evident, as well as the

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application of the questionnaire on a larger scale, not only to students from the same university. Integration of students from various backgrounds, such as studying in STEM (Sciences, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics) or medicine, would give more relevant feedback on students’ food choices. Moreover, another deficiency of the study is represented by the gender imbalance of the sample, as more female students answered the questionnaire. This is a limit also observed in other studies (Dumitrache et al. 2021), since in social sciences studies, the female gender is more predominant. It would be interesting for future studies to evaluate the differences in food choice motives on gender characteristics. Also, the declared diet of the responding students is predominantly omnivore, with little representation of other types of diets. However, this factor could be tough to influence as the number of people having vegetarian, vegan, and other diets is limited. However, despite the limitations mentioned above, this exploratory study still stands as a steppingstone for future research studies on food choice among students. It thus might contribute to the enrichment of the results.

3

Results and Discussions

The relationship between the thirty-six items of the Food Choice Questionnaire was identified by a multivariate factor analysis of the components of the nine factors proposed by (Steptoe et al. 1995) and then applied (fully or adapted) by other recent studies (Mardon et al. 2015; Marsola et al. 2022). All the individual items recorded standardised factor loadings, which are highly significant as the values range between 0.549 and 0.748, exceeding the 0.5 threshold value (Williams et al. 2012). After the factor analysis had been conducted, seven factors were found to explain an accumulated variance of 63.58%. Low loadings of below 0.600 were recorded in eight items, especially being part of the ethical concern, familiarity, and convenience factors, showing that items related to food accessibility and availability nearby account for less in the analysis. In the case of the ethical concern factor, environmental and political aspects of food do not represent essential aspects, as all items’ factor loading is below 0.6. The lowest score of 0.549 was recorded in the familiarity factor. Because there are no extreme low loadings of the factor, all the items were considered for the interpretation of data. The biggest loadings were recorded in items from the factors: price (0.784), sensory appeal (0.735), mood (0.726) and health (0.720) (Table 2). The ranking of each food choice factor presented in Table 2 shows the hierarchy of the importance of factors by the mean value of the scores, ranging from 3.37 and 2.31. Sensory Appeal is the most important factor, showing that aspect of food and sensorial appearance plays an essential role in students’ daily food choices. Mood factor is also significant, as students seem to make food choices based on emotions or to help them enhance their mood (Al Ammar et al. 2020). Health factor is the third highest ranking

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Table 2 Factor loadings, reliability estimates, and ranking of the Food Choice Questionnaire items and factors Items and questions: Standardised factor It is important to me that loading the food I eat on a typical day:

Internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha score)

Ranking of factors (place and average score)

Factor 1—Health

0.89

3 (3.05)

0.85

2 (3.07)

0.78

5 (2.86)

27. Is high in protein

0.720

29. Keeps me healthy

0.653

9. Is high in fibre and roughage

0.645

10. Is nutritious

0.644

22. Contains a lot of vitamins and minerals

0.635

30. Is good for my skin/ teeth/hair/nails etc

0.606

Factor 2—Mood 26. Helps me relax

0.726

16. Helps me cope with stress

0.711

31. Makes me feel good

0.669

13. Cheers me up

0.652

24. Keeps me awake/ active

0.642

34. Helps me cope with life

0.616

Factor 3—Convenience 1. Is easy to prepare

0.702

15. Can be cooked very simply

0.689

28. Takes no time to prepare

0.608

11. Is easily available in shops and supermarkets

0.575

35. Can be bought in shops close to where I live or work

0.566

(continued)

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Table 2 (continued) Items and questions: Standardised factor It is important to me that loading the food I eat on a typical day:

Internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha score)

Ranking of factors (place and average score)

Factor 4—Sensory Appeal

0.81

1 (3.37)

0.75

6 (2.81)

0.82

4 (3.04)

0.76

7 (2.63)

0.74

8 (2.41)

0.71

9 (2.31)

25. Looks nice

0.735

14. Smells nice

0.688

18. Has a pleasant texture

0.654

4. Tastes good

0.645

Factor 5—Natural content 5. Contains natural ingredients

0.609

23. Contains no artificial 0.591 ingredients 2. Contains no additives

0.556

Factor 6—Price 12. Is good value for money

0.748

6. Is not expensive

0.691

36. Is cheap

0.637

Factor 7—Weight control 17. Helps me control my 0.704 weight 3. Is low in calories

0.647

7. Is low in fat

0.636

Factor 8—Familiarity 33. Is what I usually eat

0.714

8. Is familiar

0.644

21. Is like the food I ate when I was a child

0.549

Factor 9—Ethical Concern

(continued)

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Table 2 (continued) Items and questions: Standardised factor It is important to me that loading the food I eat on a typical day: 20. Comes from countries I approve of politically

0.596

32. Has the country of origin clearly marked

0.585

Internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha score)

Ranking of factors (place and average score)

19. Is packaged in an 0.558 environmentally friendly way All factor loadings are significant at p < 0.001.

food choice factor. Results are congruent with other countries such as The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, New Zeeland, Japan, Ireland, Slovenia, and Serbia, showing that people tend to pay attention to the quality of food and the nutritional component of the items they eat daily (Markovina et al. 2015; Miloševi´c et al. 2012; Prescott et al. 2002). Price and convenience are also important factors when making food choice, at least for the questioned students. As the quality and price balance should meet the requirements of the student’s budget, plus the time resources, they tend to choose food that is easy to prepare to save time (Deliens et al. 2014; Greaney et al. 2009). Natural content and weight control factors can be easily associated with the health factor (Espinoza-Ortega et al. 2016). Familiarity and ethical concern factors are the least important ones for students, consistent with the results from other countries. This result shows a reduced concern for familiar background and great adaptability to new food behaviours, as well as a lack of interest in ethical matters for the environment of the origin of the food. Table 3 shows the inter-correlations between the food choice questionnaire’s nine factors (dimensions). Correlation coefficients are significantly high, with some values exceeding 0.50. Some associations between the factors are emphasized, with the strongest correlation between health and natural content (r = 0.732). Even though it might impose a problem of multicollinearity of the data, similar significant correlations between the factors have been identified in other studies, as concerns about whether the food is healthy or not are strongly related to the natural content of the products (Onwezen et al. 2019; Steptoe et al. 1995). There is also a significant correlation between convenience and price factors (r = 0.625), as students may perceive these two components as being correlated in terms of the price-convenience ratio and mood and sensory appeal (r = 0.612). There are also moderate correlations between health and mood (r = 0.578) and weight control (r = 0.535) and natural content and weight control (r = 0.548).

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Table 3 Correlation matrix between the nine food choice questionnaire factors

Health (H)

H

M

C

S

N

P

W

F

E

1

0.578

0.246

0.427

0.732

0.185

0.535

0.272

0.546

Mood (M)

0.578

1

0.583

0.612

0.432

0.440

0.298

0.447

0.489

Convenience (C)

0.246

0.583

1

0.455

0.177

0.625

0.142

0.502

0.371

Sensory appeal (S)

0.427

0.612

0.455

1

0.307

0.317

0.342

0.354

0.333

Natural content (N)

0.732

0.432

0.177

0.307

1

0.114

0.548

0.303

0.524

Price (P)

0.185

0.440

0.625

0.317

0.114

1

0.152

0.331

0.233

Weight control (W)

0.535

0.298

0.142

0.342

0.548

0.152

1

0.220

0.349

Familiarity (F)

0.272

0.447

0.502

0.354

0.303

0.331

0.220

1

0.538

Ethical concern (E)

0.546

0.489

0.371

0.333

0.524

0.233

0.349

0.538

1

All correlations are statistically significant at p < 0.001 (two-tailed)

The scarcity of scientific research on food choice motives in Romania makes it challenging to compare data on a local scale. The findings of this study reveal that sensory appeal, health, mood, and price are more relevant when making a food choice, which is concordant with findings of other studies conducted in Romania, where the price was considered to influence food choice (Nistor 2014). Furthermore, the ranking of the food choice factors for Romanian students shows similarities with other studies conducted in Romania (Januszewska et al. 2011). This might validate the accuracy of the results showing that regardless of the focus group’s demographic characteristics, the factors’ ranking remains similar. Contrary to expectations, the proximity and availability of items from factor convenience do not significantly impact the analysis. This might indicate that students do not make food choices based on the food offerings they have near or are unaware of the food environment’s influence on their daily dietary choices. Resultingly, future studies that integrate food choice and the influence of the food environment are needed for better understanding.

4

Conclusions

This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the food motives of university students in Romania, using students from the University of Bucharest as a case study. Also, it aimed to evaluate the driving individual and personal factors influencing food choice rather than making a spatial analysis of the food options surrounding student campuses. The application of the Food Choice Questionnaire proposed by (Steptoe et al. 1995) was employed using online channels of collecting data (Google Forms). It engaged 287 students with

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various social and economic characteristics. Most students reported being unemployed, and most declared low monthly incomes. The results show that sensory appeal is the most important factor when making food choices for students, conforming with other cited studies from diverse cultural and national backgrounds. Moreover, mood, health, price, and convenience are among the top five most significant factors for students regarding what they eat on a typical day, showing that students are concerned about the healthiness of food products they include in their diets. Also, students see food as an instrument to enhance their mood status and pay considerable attention to money and time resources. The least significant factors while making food choices for students, or at least for the ones that fill in the questionnaire, are familiarity and ethical concern. This shows that students do not make food choices based on emotional or familial factors and are not concerned about the environmental impact that food might have on the environment or the origin of the food. Correlations between the nine factors show that students might find associations between health, natural content, and weight control as the most correlated factors. This might imply that students tend to adapt their diet healthily and control their weight. Also, correlations between the food choice factors show that improvements in the adaptation of the food choice questionnaire is essential to meet the needs of actual generations of consumers and lower the correlations between the factors, as they are seen as independent variables. Integration of the correlated factors and developing more items from the perspective of “food advertisement” or “food delivery” might return more relevant results. Limitations of this study might be represented by the relatively small number of respondents and the way the questionnaire was delivered, via online channels, so the authors could not control how the questionnaire was filled out. Future research is fundamental to validate the results: additionally, the integration of other relevant data to the analysis, such as spatial analysis of the food retailers, accessibility and availability of food, and integration of other factors related to food delivery and food advertising. Adaptation of the questionnaire and future findings might improve the research quality. Finally, this study aims to serve as an example for public authorities and universities to investigate and pay more attention to the food offers existing on and near the campus. In addition, policymakers and authorities should invest more time in students’ needs and desires regarding food choices.

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Kelli, H. M., Kim, J. H., Tahhan, A. S., Liu, C., Ko, Y. A., Hammadah, et al. (2019). Living in food deserts and adverse cardiovascular outcomes in patients with cardiovascular disease. Journal of the American Heart Association, 8(4). Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Li, J., & Kim, C. (2018). Measuring Individuals’ Spatial Access to Healthy Foods by Incorporating Mobility, Time, and Mode: Activity Space Measures. Professional Geographer, 70(2), 198–208. Lindeman, M., & Väänänen, M. (2000). Measurement of ethical food choice motives. Appetite, 34(1), 55–59. Locher, J. L., Ritchie, C. S., Roth, D. L., Sen, B., Vickers, K. S., & Vailas, L. I. (2009). Food choice among homebound older adults: motivations and perceived barriers. The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging, 13(8), 659–664. Mardon, J., Thiel, E., Laniau, M., Sijtsema, S., Zimmermann, K., & Barjolle, D. (2015). Motives underlying food consumption in the Western Balkans: consumers’ profiles and public health strategies. International Journal of Public Health, 60(5), 517–526. Markovina, J., Stewart-Knox, B. J., Rankin, A., Gibney, M., de Almeida, M. D. V., Fischer, A., Kuznesof, S. A., Poínhos, R., Panzone, L., & Frewer, L. J. (2015). Food4Me study: Validity and reliability of Food Choice Questionnaire in 9 European countries. Food Quality and Preference, 45, 26–32. Marsola, C. de M., Cunha, L. M., Carvalho-Ferreira, J. P., & da Cunha, D. T. (2022). A dataset of food choice motives among adults consumers in Brazil: The use of Food Choice Questionnaire. Data in Brief , 40, 107703. McGuirt, J. T., Pitts, S. B. J., & Gustafson, A. (2018). Association between spatial access to food outlets, frequency of grocery shopping, and objectively-assessed and self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption. Nutrients, 10(12). Miloševi´c, J., Žeželj, I., Gorton, M., & Barjolle, D. (2012). Understanding the motives for food choice in Western Balkan Countries. Appetite, 58(1), 205–214. Nistor, L. (2014). Between Price and Quality: The Criteria of Food Choice in Romania. Czech Sociological Review, 50(3), 391–418. Onwezen, M. C., Reinders, M. J., Verain, M. C. D., & Snoek, H. M. (2019). The development of a single-item Food Choice Questionnaire. Food Quality and Preference, 71, 34–45. Petrovici, D. A., & Ritson, C. (2000). Food consumption patterns in Romania. British Food Journal, 102(4), 290–308. Pohjanheimo, T., & Sandell, M. (2009). Explaining the liking for drinking yoghurt: The role of sensory quality, food choice motives, health concern and product information. International Dairy Journal, 19(8), 459–466. Powell, P. K., Lawler, S., Durham, J., & Cullerton, K. (2021). The food choices of US university students during COVID-19. Appetite, 161(January), 105130. Prescott, J., Young, O., O’Neill, L., Yau, N. J. N., & Stevens, R. (2002). Motives for food choice: A comparison of consumers from Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand. Food Quality and Preference, 13(7–8), 489–495. Roudsari, A. H., Vedadhir, A., Amiri, P., Kalantari, N., Omidvar, N., Eini-Zinab, H., & Sadati, S. M. H. (2017). Psycho-socio-cultural determinants of food choice: A qualitative study on adults in social and cultural context. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 12(4), 238–247. Seliske, L., Pickett, W., Rosu, A., & Janssen, I. (2013). The number and type of food retailers surrounding schools and their association with lunchtime eating behaviours in students. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10, 1–9.

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Steptoe, A., Pollard, T. M., & Wardle, J. (1995). Development of a Measure of the Motives Underlying the Selection of Food : the Food Choice Questionnaire Department of Psychology , St George ’ s Hospital Medical School , London. Appetite, 25, 267–284. Tam, R., Yassa, B., Parker, H., O’Connor, H., & Allman-Farinelli, M. (2017). University students’ on-campus food purchasing behaviors, preferences, and opinions on food availability. Nutrition, 37, 7–13. Tavakol, M., & Dennick, R. (2011). Making sense of Cronbach’s alpha. International Journal of Medical Education, 2, 53–55. Voinea, L., Vrânceanu, D. M., Filip, A., Popescu, D. V., Negrea, T. M., & Dina, R. (2019). Research on food behavior in romania from the perspective of supporting healthy eating habits. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(19), 1–26. Walker, R. E., Keane, C. R., & Burke, J. G. (2010). Disparities and access to healthy food in the United States: A review of food deserts literature. Health and Place, 16(5), 876–884. Wang, Y., & Lobstein, T. (2006). Worldwide trends in childhood overweight and obesity. International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, 1(1), 11–25. Widener, M. J. (2018). Spatial access to food: Retiring the food desert metaphor. Physiology and Behavior, 193(February), 257–260. Williams, B., Onsman, A., & Brown, T. (2012). Exploratory factor analysis: A five-step guide for novices EDUCATION Exploratory factor analysis: A five-step guide for novices. Australasian Journal of Paramedicine, 8(3), 1–13. Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Angelo Andi Petre is a masters student specializing in human geography, with a great interest in geodemography, spatial analysis, spatial statistics, social geography and geography of education resources. His research fields focus on spatial accessibility to essential services, especially educational facilities, as well as foodscape characteristics and the impact on health and population wellbeing. He is also interested in the analysis of human capital and the links between health status and education level on the allocation of human capital. He was an intern at the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection where he focused on social vulnerabilities and access to social services and he is a representative of the University of Bucharest in the CIVIS Student Council. Ioana Alexandra Mirea is a masters student with great interest in the geography of transportation, territorial planning and spatial analysis. Her research fields focus on transport infrastructure development suitability by using multicriterial analysis. Also, she is very interested in spatial connectivity of transportation means and their efficiency for the population to make essential services more accessible.

“We Are Rather the Aesthetes”—(Re)production of Hegemonic Patterns of Interpretation and Evaluation in the Foodscape of Urban Gardening Melanie Mahler and Jakob Stock

Abstract

The transformation of the welfare state into an “activating state” has the consequence of outsourcing responsibilities, which formerly lay with the municipalities, to its citizens. The example of the Kosmos e. V. ‘pop-up community garden’ in Tübingen shows that the engaged organizing of similarly motivated individuals produces a high degree of accumulated capital. A gatekeeper function can be attributed to them, since they are the ones who decide on the degree of participation in the projects, at their own discretion. Even when the responsible groups decide on a high degree of participation, their habitus and the resulting landscape constructions reveal lines of distinction that (re)produce existing hegemonic patterns of interpretation and evaluation, thereby having an exclusionary effect. Keywords

Social constructivism • Power and landscape • Lifestyle types • Urban gardening • Processes of distinction • Neoliberalism • Habitus • Bourdieu • Taste • Foodscapes

M. Mahler (B) · J. Stock Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_10

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Volunteering in the Community as a Neoliberal Strategy1 “Urban gardening is thus a phenomenon that is closely related to current social, political, and urban developments” (Biedermann and Rippberger 2017, p. V).

Urban gardening projects have been increasingly greening urban and suburban spaces in recent years. The term stands for an “adoption of the traditional practice of gardening in the city” (Egnolff 2015, p. 137). Prominently by the media, the phenomenon of Urban Gardening is coined as a “future model and solution approach as well as a need of the actors” (Egnolff 2015, p. 136). At the same time, there exists the view “that it is a lifestyle phenomenon which, as a short-term trend, will not have a lasting impact” (Egnolff 2015). For an adequate understanding, a definition follows below: “Distinguished from other forms or historical antecedents of the practice of gardening in the city, it is characterized by adaptation to contemporary needs of actors, spatial conditions, and diversity of forms, methods, and techniques. The phenomenon is characterized by the heterogeneity of actors, motives and forms. Furthermore, an assignment of content-related charges is characteristic” (Egnolff 2015, p. 137).

The responsibility for these projects does not end with the individuals, but extends beyond municipal policy. Thus, urban gardening follows, among other things, the purpose of enhancing neighborhoods (Müller 2011) and improving the urban climate (Barthel et al. 2015). However, urban gardening projects are also subject to the purpose of selfexpression, as they are often connoted with aesthetic attributions (Rosol 2012, p. 243). Thus, this “creative aesthetic” (Exner and Schützenberger 2015, p. 68) is often expressed in an amalgamation of colorful, minimalist, as well as upcycled objects, such as pallet benches and colorful signs. Rosol (2012) writes of a trend of “outsourcing” (p. 239), which results in a change in the relationship between the state and its citizens which is specifically characterized by a focus on civic volunteering and engagement. This transformation of the welfare state into an “activating state” (Rosol 2012) means these responsibilities are increasingly shifted to citizens. This phenomenon also extends to urban gardening. The fact that German community gardens, compared to community gardens in North America, are not “food gardens” (Rosol 2012, p. 243) created out of an economic impetus places increased attention on a non-economic purpose. However, the practice of urban gardening projects, in their origins, already requires considerable economic capital both for the design as well as maintenance of such gardens. This is because the possibility to deal with aesthetics is already preceded by a high economic capital. This intersection will form the basis of our further approach. Through the neoliberal tactic of shifting responsibilities, the main beneficiaries are those population groups that have gained the upper hand in the struggle for the accumulation of their own varieties of capital—economic, cultural, social, as well 1 Adopted from: Rosol, M. (2012). Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green space

production in Berlin. Antipode 44 (1), 239–257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x

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as symbolic—evoking Bourdieu’s sense (Bourdieu 1996[1979]; Rosol 2012). However, this neoliberalization of the welfare state with the simultaneously explosive growth of the ‘Tafel’ in Germany (Tafel w.y.) shows that although there are increasing numbers of people who would be dependent upon inexpensive food or a self-sufficient production of food, they are not involved in the creation of community gardens (in public space; in this context, see in this anthology: Sedelmeier 2023). Instead of implementing state measures for the greening and upgrading of cities, this responsibility is shifted to the citizens. Because those responsible are therefore specific demographics of the population who appropriate the phenomenon of urban gardening, which was originally intended to be publicly accessible, a process of distinction arises as an outcome in this shift of responsibility, since it becomes consequently a matter of habitus. In the following, we will take a closer look at the question of how negotiation and distinction processes are represented through the example of Kosmos e. V. (e. V.: eingetragener Verein ~ registered association) and its foodscape urban gardening and how thereby—even unconsciously—exclusionary patterns are (re)produced. Effects of this neoliberalization of responsibility thereby become visible. Sociologist Norah MacKendrick’s (2014) definition guides our understanding of foodscapes, as follows: “Consider the places and spaces where you acquire food, prepare food, talk about food, or generally gather some sort of meaning from food. This is your foodscape” (MacKendrick 2014, p. 16). A connection of this definition with the landscape of urban gardening— and its media representations—is therefore obvious (for a contextualization to foodscape research, see in this volume: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). The explicit treatment takes place through a theoretical framing of the landscapes in question being landscapes of power, i.e., through an interweaving of social constructivist considerations and Bourdieu’s explanations of his concept of habitus. The question regarding lines of distinction and their effects in the field of urban gardening is elaborated with the help of a triangulation of methods, consisting of an image and text analysis in combination with a guided expert interview involving the two founders of Kosmos e. V.

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Power Landscapes

In order to be able to conduct an analysis of the aesthetic judgments—and above all their function—of the group of people to be studied, it is necessary to focus on the most important terms and concepts in advance. For this purpose, in a first step, we will deal with our social constructivist understanding of landscape to mark out the rough framework in which this work will take place. In order to elaborate the processes and negotiations that constitute the hegemonic power structures in the landscape of urban gardening, in a next step, we will discuss Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. This will help us to identify lines of distinction based on aesthetic judgments.

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“Taste is at the heart of these symbolic struggles, which go on at all times between the fractions of the dominant class and which would be less absolute, less total, if they were not based in the primary belief which binds each agent to his life-style” (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 310).

A social constructivist understanding of landscape lends itself to our case study, since it becomes possible to make different constructions of landscape tangible, to relate them to each other, and to attempt to explain them with scientific tools of analysis. Accordingly, second-degree construction, as formulated by Schütz, is the focus here (Schütz 1971, p. 68). We see landscape as a social construct that results from patterns of interpretation and evaluation that are socially negotiated and infused with power structures. This results in a “consciousness-internal synthesis of observed material objects” (Kühne 2019b, p. 69). The act of this construction, however, is not to be seen as intentional. Rather, it must be assumed that “one can only speak of conscious action when the action has already been accomplished, has run its course, has thus become an action” (Schütz 1932, p. 65). Furthermore, a landscape is always encountered with prior knowledge, which—unconsciously—influences the perception of this very landscape. This prior knowledge is by no means merely constituted by subjective, individual evaluation categories, but is ‘nourished’ by socially defined interpretation and evaluation patterns that are “imparted to the individual in the process of socialization” (Kühne 2019b, p. 71). Subsequently, the perception of a landscape happens unconsciously and makes use of socially defined patterns of interpretation and evaluation, resulting in hegemonic readings that postulate a ‘correct’ reading about the landscape to be constructed (Kühne 2019a, p. 324). This negotiation over hegemonic readings of particular landscapes is very reminiscent of the “battlefield[s]” (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 581), that is, the social fields introduced by Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 344–345). Concomitant to the multiplication and intensification of negotiation processes by postmodern society, these negotiations seem to be omnipresent in social fields and are steadily gaining in importance (Kühne 2019a, p. 324). It is important to note that already inscribed power relations are not questioned and challenged until alternative interests in the hegemony around the field of landscape are expressed (Kühne 2019a, p. 324 f.; For a more explicit discussion of processes around power and landscape, see Kühne 2008). In our opinion, one example of unquestioned, inscribed power relations is represented by the social field of community gardens in Germany. To differentiate them from North American community gardens, which predominantly serve the function of a “food garden” (Rosol 2012, p. 243), those in Germany are primarily characterized by a high degree of self-promotion with a subordinate interest in the plants themselves (Rosol 2012). As mentioned in the introduction, mostly only people having accumulated the various previously mentioned forms of capital can voluntarily participate in bringing such community gardens to life. In doing so, one can fundamentally speak of a perpetuation of social power structures, since only people possessing these accumulated varieties of capital are given the power of definition and designation by the state. Thus, participation in such projects is tied to the grace of this group of people, who can decide in favor of

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a practice based on participation, but this decision is entrenched in arbitrariness. Furthermore, it can be assumed that even in best practice examples, the habitus of the responsible group of people is established as hegemonic, and thus specific “aestheticizations of material objects by elites contribute to the maintenance of social power structures” (Kühne 2019a, p. 326). As already indicated, in a next step we will introduce the habitus according to Bourdieu, which will serve us in the future as an important analytical tool to be able to make the socially negotiated patterns of interpretation and evaluation, including the resulting power structures, visible in our case study. According to Bourdieu, we understand the habitus as a generative principle that enables classifiable judgments and at the same time assumes the role of the classification system of these practices (Bourdieu 1996 [1979], p. 170). In this context, the appropriation of the habitus is linked to the individual social situation. Ideally, the property is located in homogeneous conditions of existence, which evoke unchanging consequences, which in turn give rise to uniform systems of dispositions, which express themselves in consistent practices with standardized properties (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 101). Thus, the types of capital introduced by Bourdieu—economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital—play a crucial role in the appropriation of habitus (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 13). The “represented social world” (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 170) along with “the space of life-styles” (Bourdieu 1996[1979]) are thereby constituted by the relationship between the two functions—the function of enabling classifiable practices and the function of classifying them through differentiation (i.e., taste). For the functioning of taste, this means that it is expressed through the “objectification of habitus in aesthetic judgments and choices” (Illing 2006, p. 134). This objectification of habitus allows for a connection with our social constructionist understanding of landscape, insofar as a central question in the latter is also “how physical objects are charged with symbolic meaning” (Kühne 2019b, p. 72). As such, taste is an expression of acquired habitus upon a physical object, which in our case study is part of a landscape narrative. The power structure (re)production is determined by the habitus, because in the acquisition of the habitus, the types of capital and their accumulation have an important meaning and the different degrees of accumulation are accompanied by different expressions of the habitus compounded by other landscape narratives that compete with each other. In order to make these considerations fruitful for our approach, we employ methods mixing both image and text analysis of the internet presence of the Kosmos e. V. ‘pop-up community garden’ as well as a guideline-based expert interview with two of the founding persons of the association—and connect it with the theoretical explanations.

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Reality… in the Picture?

Our research primarily focuses on depicted landscape constructions, whereby the visualization of hegemonic interpretation and evaluation patterns of these particular landscape constructions is in the foreground. However, this visualization cannot be achieved by means of an interview, since there is a risk that the persons to be interviewed will orient their answering behavior to a social preconception imagined by them and produce inaccurate answers. Additionally, these constructions take place subconsciously, which would cause them to be unwittingly reflected during an interview. Hence, we would also encounter an interpretation process on the part of the interviewees, which would in turn reflect the subconscious constructions of the interpretation and evaluation patterns in a distorted way. For this reason, we have decided on a picture and text analysis—according to the maxim of Liessmann (1999, p. 113): “Reality begins to be measured by whether it was in the picture or not”—which is supplemented by statements from a guidelinesupported expert interview with the two founding individuals of Kosmos e. V. and serves the purpose of a better understanding and a localization of the project. The guideline-based expert interview allows for a suitable degree of openness as well as structure in order to get all questions of interest answered immediately and to learn more about the individual intentions and interests of the founders as experts. Particularly in view of the increasing presence and significance of visualizations on the Internet, the field of scientific research is also shifting increasingly to the digital world. The Internet media are not understood as neutral mediators but as “shaping influences” (“Prägeinstanzen” Wagner 2014, p. 20), as they are based on a social influence. The formative aspect of media seems particularly interesting against the background of a social constructivist assumption of reality. Considering that no absolute reality exists and constructions are always personal, “the results can neither be judged as wrong nor as right” (Linke 2019, p. 114). Through an image analysis, it also becomes possible to make visible the patterns of interpretation and evaluation of the group of people responsible for the images; after all, they make the choice about what should and should not be depicted and how. As such, their patterns of interpretation and evaluation themselves are foregrounded, even if unconsciously. It is the same with text analysis. Finally, all text fragments come from the association itself, which allows us to frame the landscape constructions more explicitly on the part of the responsible group of people.

4

“We are rather the aesthetes” and Other Lines of Distinction

The images and texts used for this study are taken from the website of Kosmos e. V., specifically the ‘pop-up community garden’ project. The association Kosmos e. V. based in the district of Tübingen, aims to “promote and shape urban culture while keeping the focus on the different needs of an open and diverse urban society” (Kosmos e. V. w.y.b).

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The association undertakes this by means of various concepts and project developments, which include workshops, events, and platforms for community open spaces as well as intercultural encounters. The concept of the ‘pop-up community garden’ project makes use of unused urban spaces with the aim of using them for community gardening. The founders’ intention to start this project is based on the concern that there is either little to no access to community gardens of this form or that access to such is exclusive by design. The founders are volunteers in the project and predominantly people with a high level of education. This is of particular interest when compared with the background of a study of community gardens in Berlin, which points out that a large proportion of those participating have a university degree and are in their early 30 s (Rosol 2006). The website examined in the following is an advertising and information address for the project (Kosmos e. V. w.y.a). In the course of examination, the visualizations and contents of the page are analyzed on the basis of pictures and texts. The written material is also accompanied by a document for a garden bed sponsorship, which is also part of the analysis. The results of the interview permeate the representations of the media content analysis in order to achieve a high degree of transparency coupled with meaningfulness in the interaction of all analysis methods. A total of 17 pictures are available, which mainly document the development process of the project. Without chronological order, both the fallow area and the community garden are shown in its evolving phases of development. When looking at the pictures, one is particularly struck by the orderly staging that runs through the phases of the depicted process. Consequently, the environment always appears clean, even when a large pile of soil is being worked on. Colorfully painted signposts with different fonts also indicate implemented structures of order. This complements the self-proclaimed status as “aestheticians,” as the founders call themselves. The objects depicted appear minimalist as well as inexpensive, as, for example, tree trunks are used as stools, drawers as garden beds, and benches are made from pallets. The interview reveals that these are objects that they either built themselves, were given away, or were contributed by friends and acquaintances. In general, the focus of the image stagings is on activity with moments of creativity being suggested. Thus, almost every picture displays people working and the raised beds are not yet planted, to a large extent. The people depicted are wearing everyday clothes and the compositions of the groups seem to consist of small families as well as young adults. Primarily, the latter are presented in the pictures. The hybrid representation of work and recreation is also interesting. For example, there is often a recreational opportunity available in the background among the participating people which is left unused—even when it appears in the center of the picture. This depicts the possibility of an enjoyable time there, as explicitly intended by the founders for their project but does not show the actual activity of such recreation itself, and so this remains with the imagination of the viewer of the picture. The unused recreational options also suggest that they serve primarily the purpose of decorative staging. Café Malou’s, a cooperation of the project,

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is depicted unvisited and supplementally refers to the mere potential of a recreational opportunity. This deliberate ornamental staging is also noticeable from the sequence of images shown, as the series of images begins with depictions of community, fun, and a later period of creativity. Only the last images show the beginnings of the project with the machines working the wasteland. This depiction is more like a product being offered than a moment of intercultural encounter. The statement of the founders to have jumped on the trend of urban gardening supports this assumption. This is emblematic of an appropriation and reinterpretation of the phenomenon in the sense of a conversion from economic to symbolic capital. ‘Work’ as a fun factor is also often conveyed visually, as the people depicted are often shown doing their job as well as posing for a picture laughing. In one image, a person jumps in the air while machines work the fallow land in the background. The display of teamwork and collaborative work including helping each other is also staged. The term staging is used actively here, as the images often show an intention, for example, when posing for a picture side by side, jumping in the air, or handing over a screw during a craft activity—such acts particularly imply the necessity of holding still for a photograph. Likewise, pictures generally represent only a singular detail, which in turn requires a preconceived decision of what is to be represented and what is not. Ergo, concurrent with the analysis of these images, the intention of the project representation is also analyzed. For a comprehensive text analysis the word cloud below is provided (Fig. 1), which visualizes frequently mentioned words. The size of each term represents the frequency of its mentions. Particularly notable in their frequency are the terms community, cooperation, and hyphenated compound words2 for garden associations. The latter implies a high degree of different connotations with the term garden, such as the community garden already mentioned in the project name, the garden group, and the wandering garden. In addition to nominative complements with the term garden, adjectives are also prefixed as associations such as ‘gardening oneself happy’. In general, the word cloud reveals a large smorgasbord of different connotations arising with the project, through which aesthetic attributions become visible, which in turn results from an objectification of the habitus prevailing in the project. Processes of aestheticization as well as appropriation also become noticeable through the reinterpretation of transferring the greening of urban areas into an “urban feeling in the garden” (Kosmos e. V. w.y.a). The wandering garden is titled by the founders as an idea with innovative character and framed within the concept of uniqueness. Against the background of the community garden as an ‘idea’, it is noticeable that this is also the focus at the same time. Thus, the focus is more on the development process of the project as well as the project itself, rather than the activity of urban gardening as well as the interest in plants. This focus was already evident in the presentation of the images. The term ‘popping’, which is also 2 By this we mean a punctuation mark that links two words together forming a new word, which is

farly common in the german language.

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Fig. 1 Aesthetic attributions made by the project; quantitative count shown as a word cloud. Source Own representation

included in the project name, refers to this process. The popping up of the garden immediately anticipates a coming ‘out of nowhere’ and quite immediately associates suggestions of spontaneity and simplicity as well as the moment of surprise. The formulation that this garden “every year somewhere […] ‘pops up’ anew” (Kosmos e. V. w.y.a) supports the assumption made and also contradicts the actual undertaking of urban gardening. Greening urban areas pursues the goal of permanence by bringing back greenery and working to preserve green spaces. However, popping up such a garden every year implies a more temporary function. It is clear from the interview that the focus of the project in particular is on the temporary aspect of both emergence as well as use. This should enable a high degree of inclusion since with the diversity of places the garden users can also be more diverse. Decidedly, however, this results in a passing on of the evaluation and interpretation patterns of the association as well as the resulting process of distinction. The emphasis on the emergence of a community garden, and the founders’ intention of the garden as an impetus for independent design by the users, conjointly symbolize the effects of neoliberal tactics. In this respect, the project can be seen as a reaction to existing demand, which is negotiated in the form of a product in the market economy. In addition, the past season showed that, at the request of the garden’s users, some raised beds remained in place in exchange for a cost transfer. The project, which was only focused on the process of creation and was designed for the short term, thus resulted

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in a project of urban gardening in the original sense, namely in the permanent greening of urban space. In light of this, it can be said that there has been a renewed exchange of responsibility. In the continuation of the garden, the need for green and usable urban spaces emerge, whereby the project was originally based on a ‘top-down’ process for reasons of neoliberalization, but now shows itself transitioned as a ‘bottom-up’ establishment. That there is a high level of interest in such community gardens, or in general towards the possibility of growing one’s own vegetables, is additionally made clear by the founders’ statement that the number of raised beds was increased at the beginning of the first season in response to the high demand. This is again illustrated by the sporadic influx of people living outside the area of the ‘Alter Güterbahnhof‘ (Old Freight Station). The fact that after the end of the first season only residents of the neighborhood took over the raised beds shows that geographical access is equally crucial for the long-term use of community gardens. Furthermore, the question arises about the decision-making process for the location of the community garden. The concept of’somewhere’ means openness to potential areas of use, but to what extent does the selection being made actually unfold openly? Since the project is only in its second season and the previous season took place in the ‘Alter Güterbahnhof’ neighborhood and thus in the same milieu, this question remains unanswered for the time being. However, the founders point out that the decision-making process will be governed by demand. In the absence of demand, the decision would fall back on the project sponsors. This has two consequences: first, the decision-making process necessarily presupposes existing resources within the neighborhood in the sense of a cooperative and united neighborhood with available unused space; second, in the absence of demand, the decision has a habitual character. This aspect of openness is also accompanied by an emphasis on ‘free’ gardening. Thus, reference is made to the community beds, which are freely available and which advocate individual as well as creative gardening. This suggested freedom contrasts with bed sponsorships, which allow people to cultivate a bed for a flat fee per season. The price varies depending on the size of the bed. Creative and individual design is thus dependent on personal economic resources because the question remains—just how individual the bed planting can become in a shared bed. Moreover, free use stops where the area of the shared bed ends. The founders’ statement that the garden group has taken care of the garden as well as raised beds on their own, without being the sponsor of a bed, only points back to the high demand for gardening opportunities. This puts attention on the shift of responsibility for civic needs and interests and puts the spotlight of responsibility on the municipal as well as state level. In the interview, it emerges that monetary support from the city has occurred, but for the reason that the association won a tender. The concept of support, however, already clarifies the consolidation of the transfer of responsibility to the citizens. Moreover, such a selection process always implies an exclusive community since the interest in such applications for tenders requires capital. The reference of the

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founders to the ‘support of the’ neighborhood at the Old Freight Station for the design of open spaces underpins the statement made. Since the acquired responsibility is also accompanied by a certain pattern of interpretation and evaluation, the question of the actual implementation of inclusion and interculturality also arises. Contrastingly, the habitus of the responsible group of people becomes hegemonically guiding, yet concurrently, access is limited by the resources of the groups of people, which in the case of responsible individuals or small organizations are consequently smaller in comparison to the resources of the city. This necessarily results in a process of distinction—even in instances of ‘best practice’. These following implications and consequence also arise. Volunteer work is a leisure activity and is usually unpaid, this transfer of responsibility entails additional work and a distribution of costs among the beneficiaries. This assumption of costs implies (similar to the concept of solidarity agriculture) the monetary burden of those without sufficient economic capital by those with sufficient capital. Consequently, the assumption of economic capital through a capitalization of communal processes has an exclusionary effect.

5

Conclusion “The aesthetic disposition, a generalized capacity to neutralize ordinary urgencies and to bracket off practical ends, a durable inclination and aptitude for practice without a practical function, can only be constituted within an experience of the world freed from urgency and through the practice of activities which are an end in themselves, such as scholastic exercises or the contemplation of works of art” (Bourdieu 1996[1979], p. 54).

Urban gardening is said to have multiple functions. It is said to help to improve neighborhoods (Müller 2011) and to counteract climate change (Barthel et al. 2015). However, an exclusionary function of community gardens is rarely reported. Nevertheless, this is exactly the function we observed in our research. By shifting the responsibility from the municipality to the citizens, they are now responsible for creating (semi-)public spaces. In our case study, we were able to observe that it is precisely those people who are more successful in the game of accumulating the varieties of capital who are doing the voluntary work. Thus, we were able to make visible processes of appropriation and negotiation thereby declaring them as neoliberal effects. Our social constructionist understanding of landscape enabled us to make tangible different and competing constructions of landscape. We embedded Bourdieu’s explanations of habitus in order to provide us with an analytical tool that makes the patterns of interpretation and evaluation comprehensible on the basis of aesthetic judgments, thus enabling us to make visible the (re)production of hegemonic landscape constructions. The theoretical explanations then enabled a successful embedding of the investigated project. Thus, in view of the negotiation processes of the ‘pop-up community garden’, various constructivist mechanisms emerged among the responsible groups of people. With the transfer of responsibility, the state simultaneously

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transfers the power of definition as well as the power of designation. Since people with high economic capital are more likely to appropriate such projects, this directly results in a transfer to people with accumulated types of capital. This establishment as well as transfer of capital varieties was also visible in the project, for example through aesthetic attributions of objectifications or through the interpretation of urban gardening as a cultural space. Objectivizations of the habitus of the founders of the project under study could thus be shown. As an aspect of the unconsciously effective habitus, it is difficult to break out of the resulting and concomitant, and the exercise of this habitus always has a distinctive effect. The (re)production of patterns of interpretation and evaluation as well as the exclusion of certain segments of the population is a side effect. Correspondingly, the Internet offers a medium for self-representation in a special way: coincidingly, what is shown is necessarily preceded by a decision-making process; concurrently, the media presented performs as a mediation tool resultant from their formative aspect. Relevant to the diverse nature of urban gardening projects as well as the different content-related charges, these results are not exemplary for the phenomenon in a ubiquitous sense, but only represent a partial area of negotiation processes. For further research projects this substantiates not disregarding the manifold dimensions of the urban gardening phenomenon.

References Barthel, S., Parker, J. & Ernstson, H. (2015). Food and Green Space in Cities. A Resilience Lens on Gardens and Urban Environmental Movements. Urban Studies 52 (7), 1–18. Biedermann, A. & Ripperger, A.-L. (2017). Urban Gardening und Stadtentwicklung. Neue Orte für konflikthafte Aushandlungsprozesse um städtischen Raum. Wiesbaden: Springer. Bourdieu, P. (1996 [1979]). Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Egnolff, M. (2015). Die Sehnsucht nach dem Ideal. Landlust und Urban Gardening in Deutschland (Dissertation, Philosophie). Saarbrücken. Exner, A. & Schützenberger, I. (2015). Gemeinschaftsgärten als räumlicher Ausdruck von Organisationsstrukturen. Erkundungen am Beispiel Wien. sub\urban. zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung 3 (3), 51–74. Illing, F. (2006). Kitsch, Kommerz und Kult. Soziologie des schlechten Geschmacks. Konstanz: UVK Verlag. Kosmos e. V. (w.y.a). Pop Up Gemeinschaftsgarten. https://kosmos-ev.com/projekte-events/pop-upgemeinschaftsgarten/. Zugegriffen: 28. Februar 2022. Kosmos e. V. (w.y.b). Unser Kosmos. https://kosmos-ev.com/. Zugegriffen: 28. Februar 2022. Kühne, O. (2008). Distinktion, Macht, Landschaft. Wiesbaden, Germany: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Kühne, O. (2019a). Macht und Landschaft. In O. Kühne, F. Weber, K. Berr & C. Jenal (Hrsg.), Handbuch Landschaft (S. 321–333). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Kühne, O. (2019b). Sozialkonstruktivistische Landschaftstheorie. In O. Kühne, F. Weber, K. Berr & C. Jenal (Hrsg.), Handbuch Landschaft (S. 69-79). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos,

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et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Liessmann, K. P. (1999). Philosophie der modernen Kunst. Eine Einführung. Wien: WUV Universitätsverlag. Linke, S. I. (2019). Die Ästhetik medialer Landschaftskonstrukte. Theoretische Reflexionen und empirische Befunde. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. MacKendrick, N. (2014). Foodscape. Contexts 13 (3), 16–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/153650421454 5754. Müller, C. (Ed.). (2011). Urban Gardening. Über die Rückkehr der Gärten in die Stadt. München: oekom Verlag. Rosol, M. (2006). Gemeinschaftsgärten in Berlin. Eine qualitative Untersuchung zu Potenzialen und Risiken bürgerschaftlichen Engagements im Grünflächenbereich vor dem Hintergrund des Wandels von Staat und Planung (Dissertation, Geographie). Berlin. Rosol, M. (2012). Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin. Antipode 44 (1), 239–257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x. Schütz, A. (1932). Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. Wien: Verlag von Julius Springer. Schütz, A. (1971 [1962]). Gesammelte Aufsätze I Das Problem der sozialen Wirklichkeit. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Sedelmeier, T. (2023). Poverty Foodscapes: Why Food Banks Are Part of the Poverty Problem, Not the Solution. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Tafel (w.y.). Dramatischer Anstieg der Tafel-Nutzer. https://www.tafel.de/ueber-uns/aktuelle-meldun gen/2019/dramatischer-anstieg-der-tafel-nutzer/. Zugegriffen: 26. Februar 2022. Wagner, E. (2014). Mediensoziologie. Konstanz: UVK Verlag. Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Melanie Mahler studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen and investigated gender stereotypes and their discursive negotiation processes for her bachelor thesis. Afterwards she studied human geography at the University of Tübingen and was a research assistant at the Chair of Urban and Regional Development. ([email protected]) Jakob Stock studied sociology and political science at the University of Tübingen and examined the explanatory power of the theory of collective efficacy in an international comparison of cities for his bachelor thesis. Afterwards he studied human geography at the University of Tübingen. ([email protected])

Roman Urban Foodmarket

Urban Food Markets and Community Development Gabriele Lombardi, Cesare Manetti, and Barbara Staniscia

Abstract

Urban food markets and farmers’ markets are firmly linked to Italian cities’ traditions. These are the locations where local rural identity, local food products, and culinary traditions find their physical expression. Moreover, they contribute to making cities more attractive for residents and tourists as well. These markets successfully represent the identities of the place where they are located. Urban food markets and farmers’ markets are able to reflect the mutability implicit in the term identity, by adapting to the changes regarding the people and the geographical spaces modifying the offer of food and goods efficiently sold by their stalls thanks to the relationship between producers and consumers. By hosting different culinary traditions these markets are crucial in driving gastronomic tourism that can exist, indeed, only if products are a direct expression of the region, authentic, original, of high-quality, and symbolic. In order to investigate these dynamics and to better understand the complexities of this particular foodscape, we carried out a study characterized by a multidisciplinary approach in some representative urban food markets in the city of Rome.

G. Lombardi (B) · C. Manetti · B. Staniscia Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] C. Manetti e-mail: [email protected] B. Staniscia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_11

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Keywords

Urban food markets • Farmers’ markets • Authenticity • Rural Development Identity • Gastronomic tourism • Foodscape

•

Italian cities, as well as villages, have a long tradition of urban food markets and farmers’ markets. These markets can be indoors, in dedicated buildings, and have a daily, or weekly frequency; they can also be open-air markets, taking place in the streets and squares of cities and villages, they are important parts of the foodscapes (to contextualize, see in this volume: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). In farmers’ markets, food products are directly sold by the producers; this is not the case—but it can happen—in urban food markets where sellers do not necessarily have to be producers. Both types of markets offer food and gastronomy, and are, more and more, attractive to both residents and visitors. The importance of these markets in Italian culture is linked to their peculiar aspects that can be summarized in the following: i) Expression of local rural identity and authenticity. ii) Expression of local food products and culinary tradition. iii) Contribution to shaping urban landscape, at the local scale, and link with the local social environment. iv) Outcomes of the crossing of different cultures, as the consequence of globalization processes, and multi-ethnicity. Urban food markets and farmers’ markets are testimony and expression of the local identity, both rural (related to the geographical spaces where food is produced), and urban (related to the geographical spaces where markets take place). In rural areas, food products are an expression of the terroir and the territory (network of places). Terroir can be defined as the set of characteristics of the soil, climate, landscape, within the region of production that confer identity to a food and wine product (Halliday 1998; Hall and Mitchell 2002). Territory has been defined as the combination of land and soil, landscape, history, culture, traditions, and local community in a given geographical space (Staniscia 2003, 2022). Identity is dynamic since it evolves over time (Montanari, 2019) and is affected by the changes caused by human mobility, both by permanent flows (migrations in their various forms) and temporary flows (tourism, among others). Therefore, there is not a pure identity in the field of food and gastronomy; there is, indeed, an identity resulting from processes of historical and geographical contaminations. The identity expressed through food and gastronomy—in the urban food markets and farmers’ markets—is a regional and local identity, and it expresses the regional and local diversities of food production and culinary traditions (Hughes 1995). Food products are, therefore, an expression of the culture of local communities, they are specific and distinctive (Pitte 2002). Identity is accompanied by authenticity, guaranteed by the presence of

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the vendors-producers and their direct relationship with the clients-consumers. In many of the urban food markets and farmers’ markets, food products are the result of short supply chains and organic production methods. Short supply chains characterize several marginal areas in Italy, are the result of a rediscovery of traditional production methods, giving back to the region a leading role and allowing to re-establish a relationship between the producer and the consumer (Feagan 2007). Markets represent a way of selling and proposing food and gastronomy that belongs to the Italian tradition. In urban settings, they characterize existing spaces with their presence and contribute to the formation of a distinctive landscape. Products offered on the markets are the expression of local food-consumption habits and local culinary culture. These are constantly evolving also as a consequence of the processes of globalization (Mak et al. 2012) and the increasing flows of human mobility. Markets, therefore, offer, among others, products deriving from the crossing of different cultures, and multi-ethnic products aimed at (new) residents and tourists. The latter visit urban food markets and farmers’ markets as part of their culinary-tourist experience. Gastronomic tourism exists if products are the direct expression of the region (identity), belong to the history of that region (authenticity), are characteristic of that particular region and not of others (originality), are “good” products (quality), have a symbolic value (Staniscia 2008, 2022). This section encompasses the results of the research conducted during the spring and summer of 2022 by a group of students attending Sapienza University of Rome on the topic of urban food markets and farmers’ markets in the city of Rome. The research has been conducted using a common approach and methodology: field-work carried out through non-participant observation. In some cases, the results have been complemented by interviews with key-players, namely directors and staff members of the selected food markets. The research results are presented in the chapters of this section. These chapters investigate several aspects related to some representative urban food markets located in the city of Rome, namely (i) the characteristics of the supply in the Nuovo Mercato Esquilino and the Mercato di Circo Massimo (Spiro, Cianfa, and Prosperi in this book), and (ii) the characteristics of the demand in the Mercato Testaccio, the Mercato Italia, and the Mercato Trionfale (Corsi and Guiducci in this book). Even though the style of the study and the methodologies applied in these chapters are principally those of the social sciences, thanks to the highly multidisciplinary approach and expertise of the participants, some important technical features could be highlighted and evaluated. This is clearly very important for the final purpose of describing a network such as the one studied in the following chapters. In fact, by describing the flows of people that invigorate the markets, the state of the structures, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as peculiarities and limitations from a technological point of view, it is possible to better understand the complexity of this particular foodscape, and is, without any doubt, easier to present well-briefed conclusions and opinions that may be useful to address the interested parties (political and private enterprises) to safeguard these realities and to improve their current state. Thanks to the field-work in the markets, strengths and

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weaknesses, together with other characteristics and entrepreneurial approaches typical of urban food markets in Rome, could be emphasized and brought to the surface. Through pictures and interviews, it is made clear what is the state of the art and some of the necessities of the compound.

References Feagan, R. (2007). The place of food: mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems. Progress in Human Geography, 31(1), 23-42. Halliday, J. (1998). Wine atlas of Australia & New Zealand. Sydney: Harper Collins Publishers. Hall, C.M. and Mitchell, R. (2002). The tourist terroir of New Zealand wine: the importance of region in the wine tourism experience. In Montanari, A. (Ed.), Food and environment: Geographies of taste (pp. 69–93). Rome: SGI-Home of Geography. Hughes, G. (1995). Food, tourism and Scottish heritage. In D. Leslie (Ed.), Tourism and Leisure— Culture, Heritage and Participation (pp. 109–128). Brighton: LSA. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes—a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Mak, A.H.N., Lumbers, M. & Eves, A. (2012). Globalisation and food consumption in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(1), 171–196. Montanari, M. (2019). A taste for diversity. In I. Porciani (Ed.), Food Heritage and Nationalism in Europe (pp. 125–137). Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Pitte, J.-R. (2002). Geography of taste: Between globalisation and local roots. In Montanari, A. (Ed.), Food and environment: Geographies of taste (pp. 11–28). Rome: SGI-Home of Geography. Staniscia, B. (2003). Local development in Europe. Territorial Employment Pacts in a comparative perspective. Rome: Donzelli (In Italian). Staniscia, B. (2008). Local development and eno-gastronomic tourism. Territories, clusters, networks. In Montanari, A., Costa, N. and Staniscia, B. Geography of Taste. Scenarios for Abruzzo (pp. 40–52). Ortona: Menabò (in Italian). Staniscia, B. (2022). Quality food products, new lifestyles and enogastronomic tourism. Alternative development paths in Adriatic regions. In Kimura, J. and Jinnai, H. (Eds.) Territorial development strategies in Italy. Urban-rural relationships (pp. 171–189). Tokyo: Hakuto Shobo (In Japanese). Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Gabriele Lombardi is a Ph.D. student in the environmental and evolutionary biology department of La Sapienza University of Rome. It has a Bachelor’s degree in Viticulture and enology at Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna and a Master’s degree cum laude in Food sciences and technology at La Sapienza University of Rome and University of Tuscia. His research activity is related to the development of the Master’s degree thesis entitled “GC–MS Chemical Characterization of Essential Oils from Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in relation to their Biological Activity”. The activities were held in the CREA—Food and Nutrition research center in Rome. At the present, he

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is working in the EU METROFOOD-RI with a Ph.D. project entitled “METROFOOD-IT: Development & dissemination of innovative analytical methods & models for the assessment of safety, quality, and authenticity in cereal sector products”. Cesare Manetti (Department of Environmental Biology) is Co-President of the Council of Professors of Master’s Degree programme in Food Science and Technology (Sapienza University of Rome—University of Tuscia). Prof. Manetti’s labs are at Department of Chemistry (NMR facilities—NMLab) and at Department of Environmental biology. His research themes are design of electronic devices for biomolecular analysis; studies of biologically active compounds diffusion in polymeric matrices and Food by NMR; studies by 1H, 13C and 31P NMR of cellular systems and metabolic processes in vivo and in vitro / Metabolomics. He was part of the International Group for the Standardization of Metabolomics. Barbara Staniscia has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from LUISS University (Rome, Italy), a Master’s degree in Local Development from Université Sorbonne-Paris Nord (France) and a Ph.D. in Economic Geography from University of Bari (Italy). She currently teaches Geography of Tourism and Human Mobility and Geography of Food and Gastronomy at Sapienza University of Rome. She has also taught Heritage Tourism at American University of Rome. She is Scientific Secretary of the International Geographical Union commission on GLOBILITY Global Change and Human Mobility and P.I. of the Sapienza team of the Horizon Europe-funded project Re-Place Reframing non-metropolitan left behind places through mobility and alternative development. Her research has focused on urban dynamics and local development, spatial effects of EU policies, rural development and geography of taste, environmental conflicts, tourism and migration.

Urban Food Markets: An Analysis of Customer Characteristics and Motivations in the City of Rome Lorenzo Corsi and Ivan Guiducci

Abstract

Studies indicate that local food markets are in decline. In this article we consider a series of international research to understand the dynamics of the markets. An observational methodology was employed producing this original study generating insights involving aspects of the motivations resulting in this decline. Keywords

Urban markets • Local markets • Foodscapes • Rome • Consumers • Shoppers Buyers

1

•

Introduction

The local resale markets in Rome, without roofing structures, characterized by canopies, umbrellas, and steelyards, have a very ancient history. The Campo de’ Fiori market, e.g., was, as today, in the centre of the square, “until the fifteenth century it was occupied by a vast meadow where horses grazed”; the market had no fixed structures, but housed the carts that brought the grascia (provisions) from the countryside to the city; only at the end of the sixteenth century “were built huts with roofs” (Francescangeli and Rispoli 2006). Unfortunately, this trading tradition could risk disappearing. L. Corsi (B) · I. Guiducci Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy I. Guiducci e-mail: [email protected]

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The latest complete census of the Rome’s markets in 2015 and a 2012 survey conducted by the Agenzia Roma (Agenzia per il controllo della qualità dei servizi pubblici locali del comune di Roma 2012) highlight the most significant critical issues. The Municipality is reinvesting the accumulated funds in a shared fund with an operation called #NuoviMercati. To solve these problems, the Testo Unico del Commercio was issued (Regional Law no. 22 of 06 November 2019, Lazio Region, 2019) in which new operational criteria were defined (such as the designation of monthly branches, and the rules on the administration of meals). As highlighted in the aforementioned survey by Agenzia Roma in 2012, the local markets are a business model in regression, characterized by a deeply conservative attitude of the operators that, together with the competition of the large-scale retail trade and the lack of public governance of food, are causing its progressive decline. The predominantly elderly clientele is decreasing, while the younger shoppers prefer to patronize the large retailers that offer more flexible hours and multiple services within a single location. Compared to over 400 large-scale retail outlets, there are about 120 markets with over 4000 stalls (street markets are not included) (Fig. 1). The thirty-three farmers’ markets in Rome, also known as Farmer’s Markets and Farmers Markets, are a system of agricultural markets specializing in the sale of local

Fig. 1 The capillarity of the markets in the Municipality (Comune) of Rome, by districts (Municipi). Source: The relaunch of the markets, 2019

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products originated by the producers themselves. In March 2018, a municipal regulation was approved that prohibits the opening of farmers’ markets within a kilometre of another local market. Other competitors to the local markets are the Solidarity Purchasing Groups (GAS— Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale), autonomous distribution networks formed between citizens and producers; only in the region around Rome, there are fifty-five.

2

Literature Review

The literature review regarding farmers’ markets has identified four recurring themes: • • • •

the the the the

growth and increase in popularity of farmers’ markets. potential benefits of farmers’ markets. profile of buyers of farmers’ markets. purchase motivations of buyers of farmers’ markets.

We have concentrated our attention on the third and fourth themes.

2.1

Individual Characteristics of the Consumers

When trying to define the profile of the typical buyer in farmers’ markets the available studies have highlighted the following common traits: (i) the predominant gender is female, (ii) the family status is married (Fig. 2), (iii) the family income tends to be high, (iv) the customer is interested in food and cooking and has sophisticated consumption habits, and (v) is concerned by nutrition and health issues. Therefore, such a buyer is looking for high-quality food products, although this choice implies premium prices. In addition, farmers’ market consumers shop in groups and interact more heavily than they would in the context of the supermarket. A study by Elepua and Mazzocco derived an analysis of six farmers’ markets randomly selected from the Chicago and Metro East (St. Louis) metropolitan areas and pointed out that most of the selected shoppers were highly educated, middle-aged or older, professional, and white. Females often represent the dominant gender in shopping. This could be related to their primary role in buying groceries in the family structure (Elepua and Mazzocco 2010). According to another study by Cassia and colleagues, conducted in three farmers’ markets (Mantova, Ostiglia, Porto Mantovano) in the Lombardy Region in Italy, the buyers of the farmers’ market are mainly women, they are on average 53.84 years old and have an average number of 2.74 members in their families. Most shoppers visit the farmers’

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Fig. 2 People in Trionfale market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci, 2022

market weekly and live within fifteen minutes of the market. In addition, 50% of respondents use a bicycle to reach the farmers’ market, and another 29.2% walk to the market (Cassia et al. 2012). As regards South America, the organic consumer in Costa Rica, is remarkably similar to those in the US, Canada, and Europe and appears to be generally middle age, with high monthly family incomes, female-oriented but not exclusively, and highly educated. The average family size is between three and four members and they spend approximately one-third of their income on food with between 19 to 15% on fruits and vegetables and seem to have a limit of around 20% in relation to the premium they are willing to pay for organic products (Aguirre 2007). In an effort to help market managers and sellers to target their customers, some studies have been conducted to differentiate buyers in farmers’ markets. Based on buying behaviours in the markets: frequent and infrequent buyers, planned buyers, impulsive (unplanned) buyers, non-planned buyers, and unplanned non-buyers were grouped together (Elepua and Mazzocco 2010). According to the study (Elepua and Mazzocco 2010), buyers can be divided into the following groups: (i) Market Enthusiasts: these consumers consider the cleanliness and the overall appearance of the market as important factors in deciding to come and shop there compared to other consumer segments. They are also concerned about how markets are organized. The presence of exceptionally high-quality products, such as organic products, influences their patronage decisions more than any other group; (ii) Recreational buyers: attribute a higher value to the availability of other retail outlets in the vicinity of the market, and to products and events at the market more than other consumer segments.

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In addition to buying products, these buyers also go to the market to buy other products. They like to treat their purchases as an entertainment event, and they chase a more festive atmosphere at the market than other groups. The purchase motivations of recreational buyers in farmers’ markets corresponded to those of grazers in malls. Grazers spend their time at the mall browsing and eating. Recreational shoppers in shopping malls regarded their shopping at the mall as an escape; (iii) Serious buyers: consider the presence of a variety of high-quality products on the market as more influential in their patronage decision-making than other segments. They are big spenders who spent less time on travel and were not likely to attend the market for recreation; (iv) Low-engagement buyers and (v) Basic buyers: consider the presence of high-quality products in the market more important in their advocacy decisions than other segments and spend relatively more time in the market (Elepua and Mazzocco 2010). According to Gumirakiza et al. (2014) who conducted research in the United States concerning consumer motivations for attending farmers’ markets, the characteristics of the consumer that significantly increase the likelihood of attendance are: (i) the frequency of visits, (ii) the level of education, (iii) concerns about diet or health, (iv) enthusiasm for agriculture, (v) above the average income of the sample, (vi) the primary buyer, (vii) the willingness to join a CSA program,1 (viii) home gardening, and (ix) the status of married women (Gumirakiza et al. 2014). The characteristics of the consumer that significantly decrease the likelihood of attending a farmers’ market mainly for the purchase of products are: (i) the size of the family, (ii) having little time to prepare meals at home, (iii) the importance of the convenience attributes of the farmers market, (iv) having a favourite seller, and (v) being a resident of the area (Gumirakiza et al. 2014). Reliable data on consumer needs and desires are critical for those engaged in developing and hosting markets. There is always a danger, as demonstrated daily in the wider retail community, that market organizers may distance themselves from customers’ demands, while the capacity of meeting what the customer expects from the market is crucial to long-term success. Secondly, and closely related to the previous one, is the fact that this information will serve to support the continuous quality improvement efforts of the market organizers and thus serve to meet the real needs of the support community. Such information could also help farmers and organizers in their efforts to provide a better environment, with high-quality products, improved facilities, infrastructure, and/ or increased availability of locally grown products, including raw, as well as processed products. Finally, this form of feedback can be useful to other communities that may be developing their own farmers’ market or that may strive to improve existing farmers’ market operations (Alonso and O’Neill 2011).

1 Community-supported agriculture (CSA model) or crop-sharing is a system that connects produc-

ers and consumers within the food system by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms.

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Individual and Socio-Cultural Motivations

Moving to the question concerning the purchase motivations, several studies agree that customers who attend farmers’ markets are guided by specific values associated with food choices like sustainability and ethicality. More interestingly, Feagan and Morris (2009) identify three non-economic values (as opposed to the motivations related to monetary transactions) that represent the motivations for buying in farmers’ markets: a) social integration, which concerns social interaction, sense of belonging, knowledge of the sellers, tradition, place, and loyalty, b) spatial incorporation, which is associated with local farms and community support, and c) natural incorporation, which deals with ecological values, organic production and “food miles” (Cassia et al. 2012; Feagan and Morris 2009). Farmers’ markets offer local farmers and small businesses the opportunity to sell directly to consumers, grow a customer base, and test new products and pricing strategies. Farmers’ markets also offer consumers the opportunity to buy fresh, high-quality products (Fig. 3), attend educational events and concerts, and socialize (Gumirakiza et al. 2014). Some studies indicate that consumers visit farmers’ markets to buy fresh, high-quality produce and interact with growers (Gumirakiza et al. 2014). Gumirakiza et al. (2014), in their study, asked a question that provided a list of seven motivations for participation, the question was: “What is your main reason for attending the farmers’ market?” The seven options included: (i) purchasing fresh products, (ii) purchasing packaged foods, (iii) purchasing arts/crafts, (iv) social interactions, (v) attending events/activities, (vi) attending concerts/music, and (vii) purchasing ready-to-eat food (Gumirakiza et al. 2014).

Fig. 3 Vendors in Trionfale market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

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The main motivations for participation in the farmers’ market among the sample consumers are the purchase of products (78%), social interaction (14%), the purchase of ready-to-eat foods (5%), and the purchase of packaged foods, arts, and crafts (3%) (Gumirakiza et al. 2014). McGarry-Wolf et al. (2005) compared consumer motivations through the use of inperson surveys (300 people) conducted in grocery stores and farmers’ markets in San Luis Obispo County, California, and found that consumers perceived products at the farmers’ market as fresher, fresher-tasting, higher-quality, with better value for money, at more reasonable prices being environmentally friendly and traceable to the growers (Wolf et al. 2005). Through the administration of questionnaires, pros and cons were inferred regarding the attendance at the markets. The two most significant characteristics of the product that motivate the visit to and purchase from the farmer’s market were health and quality. Other variables that influence the purchase of organic products are price, average monthly spending on food, average monthly household income, and awareness that the products are organic. On the other hand, when asked about the disadvantages of farmers’ markets, 23% of consumers indicated the distance to reach the farmers’ market, 14% indicated seasonal variations in food availability, and 12% mentioned hours of operation. Another study shows the link between the low consumption of fruit and vegetables among adolescents and the excessive distance of a local market from the adolescent’s family (500 m buffer). No association related to higher road market density was found in the assessed buffers, suggesting that higher density may not be relevant to increased consumption of these foods in this population (Aguirre 2007; Andreatta and Wickliffe 2002; Dodds et al. 2014; Nogueira et al. 2018). It has long been recognized that food availability and cultural factors are dominant in food selection. Cultural influences lead to differences in the habitual consumption of certain foods and preparation traditions, and in some cases can lead to restrictions such as the exclusion of meat and milk from the diet. Food is at the heart of social interaction (Fig. 4), and the consumption of prestige foods can become an index of social status. The supply system, including food production and manufacture, marketing, delivery, and sale, has proven to have a major impact on people. On an individual level, sensory taste, or visual attractiveness, likes and dislikes, and pure habit are all relevant. The growth of environmental awareness over the past two decades has led to concerns about the use of natural ingredients and packaging that can impact purchasing decisions. There is also evidence that stress and negative emotions can affect food selection and consumption (Steptoe et al. 1995). People with less disposable income may not be able to consider taste as much as wealthier individuals and may need to set other priorities. Sensory appeal, health, convenience, and price are the most significant factors on average. For example, the price was the most important factor for the lowest income group, and sensory attractiveness for the wealthiest (Steptoe et al. 1995).

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Fig. 4 People playing inside the market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

Zepeda and Li (2006), take into consideration the kind of products that we define at Km.0 (Kilometre 0). The study begins with a definition of local food defining them as close to (or inside) urban areas. The study, based on interviews involving about 900 users, reveals that income and demographic characteristics are not dominant factors, nor do attitudes or behaviours related to the environment and health significantly affect whether shoppers buy locally. Rather, it is attitudes and behaviours related to food and shopping that significantly increase the likelihood of shoppers buying local food. The implications are strategies that will be effective in promoting local foods (Zepeda and Li 2006). Hunt, in his study, found that the socializing aspect, that is, visiting a farmers’ market as a family event, talking to growers about seasonal products, or simply visiting for fun were factors that positively influenced visitors and served as an encouraging element for shopping at the market. (Alonso and O’Neill 2011; Hunt 2007). Dodds et al. (2014), again highlights the importance of the role of the market in socialisation. The search for local food, in a higher percentage than organic, is however underlined by the importance of the role of a meeting point between people within the market itself (Dodds et al. 2014). Despite the wide spread of the farmer’s market in Italy, the customer still feels the need to get more information about them, the locations where they are organized, etc. At the local level, adequate information on existing farmers’ markets and where they are located is lacking. All interested parties could spread the news about the existence of such markets (Cassia et al. 2012).

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Fig. 5 The Testaccio Market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

3

Presentation of the Case Studies, of the Materials and Methods

3.1

Presentation of the Case Studies

The Testaccio market (Fig. 5) is located on via Lorenzo Ghiberti, with access from via Beniamino Franklin, via Alessandro Volta, via Aldo Manuzio, and via Lorenzo Ghiberti. Legally it is part of Municipality I. It respects the usual opening and closing times that can be found in many other local markets of the capital, from 7:00 to 15:30. The seller counters are of all kinds, from fruit and vegetables to fishmongers, to gastronomy to retail, to textiles. It has turned into a market attentive to tourism and therefore it is possible to find a series of stalls (called boxes) where you can consume ready-to-eat food. On one side of the structure, you can find a bank, some restaurants, and a hotel. The market is also home to the employment department office. The Italia market is located on Via Catania, 70, Municipality II. It has the usual opening and closing times that found in many other local markets of the capital, 7:00 to 14:00, although before the pandemic it used to extend until late afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The vendor counters offer all kinds, from fruit and vegetables to fishmongers, to gastronomy to retail, to textiles. Some stalls host other services such as the CAF2 (Fig. 6). 2 Tax assistance center.

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Fig. 6 Public office in Italia Market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

The market also houses the registry office of the 2nd Municipality town hall. This can contribute to a greater turnout. The market has a President (Fig. 7), stall numbers 51/52, who must authorize everything that can damage the image of the market itself, such as taking photographs. Mr. Roberto, in stall number 37, is responsible for public relations.

Fig. 7 The president’s interview—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

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He has tried in recent years to change the way the market relates and interfaces with its users. He created a website and set up a campaign based on colour variation to make it easier for users to find the product locations that they are seeking. The market could accommodate up to 200 operating licences but that currently only ninety (90) of them are active licences. This involves the presence of numerous abandoned stalls and counters that damage the image and credibility of the market. Most businesses are family-run and hiring staff would be too expensive for the revenues they generate. The licences have also been expanded. This means that the seller no longer specializes in certain products but can sell anything he wants, “from matches to bananas”. The market is self-managed by workers. All expenses are paid with the percentage that the municipality of Rome leaves to the market itself. Roberto, last summer, conceived together with an architect a project for the redevelopment and modernisation of the market. He presented the project to the municipality and won the tender by winning the sum of e 80.000 which, however, he specifies, has not yet been delivered. The project involves the demolition of two unused areas of the market that will be used as socializing spaces with tables, benches, video projectors, Wi-Fi, and study possibilities. This would also allow retaining the student segment which, Roberto admits, is very difficult to attract because it is aware that the opening hours and services of the market are not adequate and suitable for the needs of young students. The market is also equipped with a rooftop that could be exploited, according to Roberto, as a terrace for aperitifs and events and therefore also attract users during the closing hours of the market. There is also an underground garage of about seventy parking spaces which, however, is unusable because it has been seized for a long time due to a concession to illegal operators. The impossibility of using the parking lot is certainly a disadvantage that decreases the catchment area of the market. The Trionfale market is located in Via Andrea Doria, Town Hall I. It respects the usual opening and closing times that can be found in many other local markets of the capital, from 8:00 to 13:30. In the market there are many types of products, from fruit and vegetables to meat (Fig. 8), fish but also housewares, knife grinder, shoe repairer and optician. Unlike the Italia market, there is no CAF or other types of similar services useful to market visitors. As for the Testaccio market it was necessary to interview the president, Mr. Marino Lorenzetti who answered questions and explained the current situation of the market he presides over. He first specified that the Trionfale market is the largest market in Rome, initially established in Via Giulio Cesare, outdoors, then moved to its current location. The president admitted that in recent years, also considering the effects of the pandemic, the flow

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Fig. 8 Stand with traditional non roman food—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

of consumers has greatly decreased, finding greater turnout, especially on weekends, days when consumers have more leisure time and, therefore, are willing to attend the market. He hypothesizes, like most sellers, that the lower turnout is also due to a too massive presence of supermarkets, always open and with very competitive prices. Today the Trionfale market has 270 stable counters and about ten closed because they are owned by the municipality and awaiting a resolution for the licences. The structure is privatised, given in concession for thirty-five years. Sellers pay rent of around e 350 per month for each box. The president, as well as the sellers, complained about the failure to reinvest the money paid to the private individual in projects useful for restructuring and modernising the market. The latter has parking on the lower floors which, however, is subject to a fee, which is also managed by a private individual.

3.2

Non-Participant Observation—Field Surveys

The methodology chosen in this design phase is a non-participant observation which provides for the presence of observers who do not participate actively in the activities observed. This option is used to understand a phenomenon by entering the community or social system involved, remaining separate from the observed activities. To observe means to report as faithfully as possible what was experienced (seen, felt, smelled, touched, tasted) and not the ensuing interpretations or evaluations about it. It therefore means collecting information on behaviours (and from these, used as indicators,

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also opinions, intentions, and attitudes) of subjects by relating them to the environment in which they manifest themselves. The observation is made by trying to modify as little as possible the environmental situation in which the studied behaviours are manifested. The observation process is a three-step funnel, which begins with descriptive observation, in which researchers make a wide-ranging observation to get an overview of the environment, moving on to focused observation, in which they begin to pay attention to a narrower portion of the activities that most interest them, and then the selected observation, in which they investigate the relationships between the elements they have selected as of greatest interest. The observation should end when theoretical saturation ensues, which occurs when further observations begin to add little or nothing to the researchers’ understanding. This usually takes days or months, but, depending on the phenomenon in question, sometimes several years (Liu et al. 2010). Non-participant observation is often used tangentially to other data collection methods and can offer a more nuanced and dynamic appreciation of situations that cannot be easily captured through other methods (Liu et al. 2010). Observing the community without revealing one’s presence, in ethnography and netnography (ethnography on the web) is a practice technically defined as lurking (a particular form of non-participant observation) (Strickland and Schlesinger 1969). Some experts believe that lurking does not constitute observation in the traditional sense and that it does not allow us to adequately understand the dynamics of the functioning of a community, offering only a superficial understanding of the phenomena. Other experts believe that lurking should be the norm of sociological and anthropological research. In fact, it offers a unique opportunity: the possibility of studying the behaviour of users in their natural development, without the risk of any distortions arising from the presence of the researcher or teacher. We decided to use this methodology to observe consumers in the chosen markets (Fig. 9). Following the observations made in the first two markets, we decided to define an observational scheme aimed at quantifying and qualifying the subjects under observation. Scheme: • • • • •

Subject: who buys? Object: what is purchased? Relationship and interaction between buyers & between buyers and vendors How is a product chosen? Emotional attitude

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Fig. 9 The position of the three markets analysed in the municipality of Rome—Ivan Guiducci, 2022

4

Results

4.1

On-Field Visits

Testaccio Market Date and time of visit: 15th June 2022—morning. The visit did not have any kind of obstacle, being a place frequented by tourists. It was therefore easy to take photographs. In this first visit, we observed exclusively with a pure non-participatory observation, noting that the average age of the attending people (not many, perhaps related to the time of the visit) was decidedly high (over 50) with a large group over 70 years of age. The visitors were not only women, even though women were the majority, but there also were men intent on using the place as a meeting point. The structure is recent and visually meets sustainability criteria—made of metal, white, and completely perforated, therefore able to maintain good ventilation and temperature without the need for special interventions.

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In the basement of the market were historical finds from the Roman era (Fig. 10). The market committee periodically organizes guided tours. From a first summary analysis of the market goers, Testaccio market is exceedingly popular with tourists and employees who work in the offices near the market. As an example of the non-participant observation of the visitors at the Testaccio market, two subjects were analysed: the first, a man, was buying a sandwich, without relating and in a detached way towards the seller, without asking for advice, he seemed very bored. He, according to Elepua and Mazzocco (2010) could be inserted into the category of Serious buyers. The second subject was a group of tourists who were looking for typical products to eat and buy (Fig. 11). They interacted often with the sellers to ask for information. Emotionally they seemed happy. They can instead represent the category of Recreational buyers. Italia Market Date and time of visit: 17th June 2022—morning. During our visit, a very rough estimate of the number of users was around seventy to eighty people. The average age was about 55 years, with people also young (30 years) and old (over 80). The visitors were not only women, although women were the majority, however, there also were men and fathers with children. The elderly communicated the need for a shared-book library that is now present within the market (Fig. 12), unfortunately poorly organized resulting from the volunteer effort. There is therefore a lack of adequate space and materials to provide better service. An elderly lady specified that this service would be especially useful since otherwise the nearest shared-book library is in San Lorenzo, far away and not very accessible to users of advanced age. The summary analysis of the Italian market visitors identified the types of buyers who most frequent it as housewives, elderly people, and employees. The consumer non-participant observation in the Italia market focused on the following subjects: a woman who was buying fish, relating to sellers to ask for information on the quality of the products; however, she independently chose the goods to be purchased in a hurry. This type of buyer correlates with the Basic buyers category. Another subject included Fig. 10 logo of Testaccio Market

Testaccio Market

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Fig. 11 Historical objects in the basement of Testaccio Market—Ph. Massimo Attili 2022

Fig. 12 A ready-to-eat place in Testaccio Market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

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two elderly ladies who were drinking two coffees after ordering them indifferently to the waiter; they were in the market to spend time and chatting with each other animatedly. The two ladies fall instead in the Recreational buyers category. Trionfale Market Date and time of visit: 09th July 2022—morning. As for the clientele, years ago, the Trionfale market was a destination for consumers from all over Rome, while today there is the presence of residents, close to the market itself, especially during the week. The scarcity of young people intent on buying is evident and, in this case, both the president and some sellers interviewed declared that they believed the extension of market hours would not be an effective solution to attract this type of clientele. In this regard, responding to the proposal of a socialisation area, which is not present within the market, the president complains about the lack of available spaces for this purpose. In recent years, however, they have been trying to obtain concessions for the administration of cooked products, also taking advantage of the exceptionally large terrace above the market, to organize events, but the municipal bureaucracy is slowing down this request. At 8:30, the time of our arrival for the visit, the turnout was exceptionally low while at 9:25 we saw an increase in consumers. This market, among the oldest in Rome, thanks to its proximity to the Vatican City, is frequented by tourists as with the Testaccio market. The type of customers most present are women, often with young children, aged thirty-five to seventy. In this market, four subjects were observed. The first was an elderly lady who was choosing fruits and vegetables, detached and unsociable towards the seller. Emotionally he seemed indifferent. The lady seems to be part of the Basic buyers. The second subject were two young women who took pictures and bought fruit and vegetables trusting the seller’s suggestions. They were probably return customers since they went directly to this seller ignoring others during their journey. This type of buyer is part of the Recreational buyers. The third subject was a father with his son presumably less than three years old as he was sitting in a stroller (Fig. 13). He was also buying fruit and vegetables, also in this case relying on the seller for details concerning the choice of products. He seemed hasty, perhaps he was headed to work. Most likely, the man is part of the group of serious buyers. The last subject was a family of four, probably tourists, who visited the market asking questions about the products and buying some items. However, they bought independently and inquisitively observed the goods on display. They can be included in the Recreational buyers, too (Figs. 14, 15 and 16).

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Italia Market

Fig. 14 A free library inside the market for share old books—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022 Fig. 15 logo of Trionfale Market

Trionfale Market

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Fig. 16 Trionfale market—Ph. Ivan Guiducci 2022

4.2

SWOT Analysis

Taking the SWOT analysis as a reference, we tried to define a further scheme that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the individual markets, seen from the consumer’s point of view. Specifically, we have verified the presence of: • • • • • • •

exclusive parking (P) opening time (OT) public transport stops less than 1 km away (T) ancillary services (municipal offices, etc.) (S) ready-to-eat locations (E) aggregation centres (A) tourist attraction (TA)

And these were the results:

Testaccio

P

OT

T

S

E

A

TA

Yes (payment)

7:00 to 15:30

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Italia

No

7:00 to 14:00

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Trionfale

Yes (payment)

8:00 to 13:30

Yes

No

No

No

No

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Conclusions

The current objective conclusions, that we confidently assert confirm the decrease in the traffic of consumers because: • new generations are less and less attracted to local markets, shifting their interest to supermarkets and malls, for specific reasons, primary being market opening hours, inflexible and unsuitable for a modern lifestyle where the whole family is working and the traditional role of the stay-at-home housewife hardly exists anymore. • within these locations, directly accessible delivery points (ready-to-eat food, etc.) are increasingly sought after, but only some markets are adapting in this regard. • there is a lack of elements of attraction (non-food) that could attract young people and adults (there are few occurrences that incorporate useful services or aggregation centres in the market).

References Agenzia per il controllo della qualità dei servizi pubblici locali del comune di Roma,. (2012). I mercati rionali comunali a Roma. Roma Capitale. Aguirre, J. A. (2007). The farmer’s market organic consumer of Costa Rica. British Food Journal, 109(2), 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1108/00070700710725509 Alonso, A. D., & O’Neill, M. A. (2011). A comparative study of farmers’ markets visitors’ needs and wants: The case of Alabama: Farmers’ markets’ vistors’ needs and wants. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 35(3), 290–299. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00931.x Andreatta, S., & Wickliffe, W. (2002). Managing Farmer and Consumer Expectations: A Study of a North Carolina Farmers Market. Human Organization, 61, 167–176. https://doi.org/10.17730/ humo.61.2.a4g01d6q8djj5lkb Cassia, F., Ugolini, M., Bonfanti, A., & Cappellari, C. (2012). The Perceptions of Italian Farmers’ Market Shoppers and Strategic Directions for Customer-Company-territory Interaction (CCTI). Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 58, 1008–1017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro. 2012.09.1081 Dodds, R., Holmes, M., Arunsopha, V., Chin, N., Le, T., Maung, S., & Shum, M. (2014). Consumer Choice and Farmers’ Markets. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 27(3), 397–416. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-013-9469-4 Elepua, G., & Mazzocco, M. A. (2010). Consumer Segments in Urban and Suburban Farmers Markets. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 13(2), 18. Feagan, R. B., & Morris, D. (2009). Consumer quest for embeddedness: A case study of the Brantford Farmers’ Market. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 33(3), 235–243. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2009.00745.x Francescangeli, L., & Rispoli, O. (A c. Di). (2006). La memoria dei mercati: Fonti e documenti sulla storia dell’annona e dei mercati di Roma. Nuove tendenze – Roma.

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Gumirakiza, J. D., Curtis, K. R., & Bosworth, R. (2014). Who Attends Farmers’ Markets and Why? Understanding Consumers and their Motivations. International Food and Agribusiness Management Associati, 2, 18. Hunt, A. R. (2007). Consumer interactions and influences on farmers’ market vendors. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 22(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170507001597 Liu, Feng, & Maitlis, S. (2010). Non-participant observation. In Albert J. Mills, G. Durepos, & E. Wiebe (Eds.) Encyclopedia of case study research (Vol. 2, Pagg. 610–612). SAGE. https://www. worldcat.org/title/encyclopedia-of-case-study-research-volume-2/oclc/811140520 Nogueira, L. R., Fontanelli, M. D. M., Aguiar, B. S. de, Failla, M. A., Florindo, A. A., Barrozo, L. V., Goldbaum, M., Cesar, C. L. G., Alves, M. C. G. P., & Fisberg, R. M. (2018). Access to Street Markets and Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables by Adolescents Living in São Paulo, Brazil. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(3), 517. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph15030517 Steptoe, A., Pollard, T. M., & Wardle, J. (1995). Development of a Measure of the Motives Underlying the Selection of Food: The Food Choice Questionnaire. Appetite, 25(3), 267–284. https:// doi.org/10.1006/appe.1995.0061 Strickland, D., & Schlesinger, L. (1969). «Lurking» as a Research Method. Human Organization, 28(3), 248–250. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.28.3.t056036u16021201 Wolf, M. M., Spittler, A., & Ahern, J. (2005). A Profile of Farmers’ Market Consumers and the Perceived Advantages of Produce Sold at Farmers’ Markets. Journal of Food Distribution Research, 10. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.26768 Zepeda, L., & Li, J. (2006). Who Buys Local Food? Journal of Food Distribution Research, 37. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.7064

Website references: http://www.mercatoditestaccio.it https://www.mercatoitalia1950.it/ https://www.mercatidautore.com/mercati/ https://mercatidiroma.com

Lorenzo Corsi 22 years old, recently graduated with honors in Science, Culture and Gastronomic Policies for Wellness at Sapienza University. Entrepreneur in the tertiary sector, always passionate about food, people and their history. Ivan Guiducci 56 years old, informatic technician and gastronomist, graduated with honors in Food and Wine Sciences and Cultures at RomaTre University, with interests in the field of nutraceuticals and interactions between food and humans.

Urban Food Markets in Rome: A General Overview from the Vendors’ Perspective Danilo Spiro, Loredano Cianfa, and Rosanna Prosperi

Abstract

Urban food markets have been widely analysed from the consumers’ point of view, while the vendors’ perspective is generally understudied. Starting by outlining the differences between North American farmers markets and Italian food markets, this study aims to shed light on who the vendors are and what motivates them to work in some of the most famous local food markets in Rome. The results show the daily struggle of vendors in the context of a general crisis affecting traditional markets, while also highlighting the success of a new type of venue, epitomised by the Campagna Amica market. As a matter of fact, this happens to be the place where consumer’s needs and high quality products are at the heart of the business, which may be key to withstanding the deep crisis brought on mostly by competition from large distribution chains. Keywords

Urban food markets • Farmers markets • Vendors • Producers • Local food markets Crisis • Large distribution • Rome

1

•

Introduction

Many studies have analyzed urban food markets from the consumers’ perspective, less common are those that have also considered the vendors’.

D. Spiro (B) · L. Cianfa · R. Prosperi Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_13

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Studies on the topic have mostly focused either on customer satisfaction and how it affects the market structure or on identifying consumer characteristics and purchasing habits (Wolf 1997; Kezis et al. 1998). As Hughes and Mattson (1992) note, however, “although customer satisfaction is important and helpful in structuring a market, two other parts of the equation are overlooked: the vendors and the organization of the market.“ According to these two authors, for the market to flourish and be successful, it is necessary that the vendors are satisfied. Hence the need to understand who the vendors are first, and then examine their expectations and motivations.

2

Literature Review

Differences and Similarities Between Farmers Markets and Urban Food Markets in Rome It is important to say right away that the literature focuses primarily on farmers markets. Local urban food markets are a typical reality in Italy and in Rome, with some aspects found in other European countries. The majority of the landmark studies on the ‘farmers market’, on the contrary, are from the United States, and they have focused on their own locations and aspects. Hughes and Mattson (1992) noted that in the United States, farmers markets have increased by over 453% nationwide during twenty years, from 342 in 1970 to 1890 in 1989. Taylor et al. (2022) recorded that by 2019 the number had reached 8140. Farmers markets can be defined as a “public gathering of two or more farmers and their representatives at a common, recurrent physical location to sell agricultural products and other items they produce, directly to customers” (Taylor et al. 2022). However, it is a recurring finding in United States studies that the vendor figure in farmers markets often does not match the farmer figure (Hunt 2007; Hughes and Mattson 1992). For example, it was already clear in those markets analyzed by Hughes and Mattson (1992) in the state of Kansas that more than 80% of the vendors were retired people or professional working people, to the extent that the authors concluded that instead of titling these as ‘farmers markets’ it would be more correct to refer to them as ‘community markets’. This is a particularly important aspect that could link the United States scenarios to the Italian ones since there is a difference in Italy between farmers markets—where vendors are necessarily also producers—and urban food markets—where vendors are not farmers. Nevertheless, for the purposes of the article, the reader may find that ‘farmers’ is used as a synonym for ‘vendors’.

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183

Demographics: Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Education

Few studies specifically examine the demographic characteristics of farmers market vendors (Taylor et al. 2022). In one of these, perhaps the most relevant on the subject, Hunt (2007) analyzed the profiles of eighty-one farmers market vendors in the state of Maine. He found that the vendors were generally younger and more educated than other farmers in the area. Campbell (2014), on the other hand, in his study of 125 farmers market vendors in South Carolina, found that 57% of the farms represented at the markets were run by men. This finding, however, is inconsistent with the 62% of female vendors analyzed by Mohammad et al. (2019) in farmers markets in Texas and Arkansas. The results therefore cannot provide a reliable trend, and the percentages may change—even by a large amount. In the Michigan-based study by Taylor et al. (2022), there is also a focus on the ethnicity of the vendors: their research found that of the seventy-nine farmers markets studied, on average, approximately 79% of the market’s vendors were white, and almost 18% were people of color. The result is consistent with Allen (2004) and Payne (2002) who analyzed farmers markets in California and with that of O’Hara et al. (2022) who studied farmers markets in the Washington, D.C. area.

2.2

The Local Factor

As brilliantly pointed out by Hunt (2007), local food markets have thrived despite globalization. Many consumers around the world have relied on large retailers to find their favorite products during any season of the year. Nevertheless, users increasingly prefer urban food markets, which provide products with a well-defined, seasonal, and locally related identity. The high quality of the products, along with a sense of authenticity and territoriality are the characteristics that would orient consumers to choose to buy at markets (Hunt 2007). In this scenario, vendors have influence. Therefore, the fact that vendors live in the same territory as the consumer allows the consumer “to identify visibly with the farmers/vendors as being part of the community and its physical landscape.“ Hunt’s study, for example, found that 85% of farmers market vendors lived no more than fifty miles from the market site and that “producers and products are thus linked to place, the value of which is signaled to consumers through product freshness, conversations with the producer, and (some) production methods” (Hunt 2007).

2.3

Vendors’ Motivations: Economic and Social

The literature has then wondered what vendors’ motivations are and what benefits they seek through their participation in food markets. What are the reasons that lead them to

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prefer markets for selling products? What makes them different from other sales channels? Certainly, economic motivation is one of the most popular among the producer/ vendor, as they seek the opportunity to increase the source of income and hold revenues comparable to those from other outlets (Bubinas 2011; Govindasamy et al. 1998; Hughes and Mattson 1992; Hunt 2007; Lyson et al. 1995). Hunt (2007) found that the most recurrent motivations among vendors were “to have a direct relationship with customers (62%), more profit (36%), independence and control of their business (27%), and ‘other’ (27%) of which promotion and proximity of the market to their farm were the most frequent responses.“ The motivations are closely related to the vendors’ sources of income. Montri et al. (2021) for instance, surveyed vendors at farmers markets located in low-income areas of three Michigan cities and asked them what their source of income was. They divided the results as follows: (i) farming as a primary livelihood strategy, (ii) farming as a business opportunity, (iii) farming as recreation, and (iv) farming as a social mission. Economic motivations were predominant in the first two cases, while social motivations prevailed in the last two (Montri et al. 2021). Along the lines of Hunt’s findings, however, Hughes and Mattson (1992) had already identified several motivations not exclusively related to the economic factor, termed ‘social’. Prominent among them was the possibility of meeting people, advertising their products, networking, and simply that of an interest in the community aspect.

2.4

The Importance of Feedback

Undoubtedly, the importance of social interactions that occur within the market between consumers and vendors is a interconnecting finding in the farmers market literature (Andreatta and Wickliffe II 2002; Govindasamy et al. 1998; Griffin and Frongillo 2003; Hughes and Mattson 1992; Hunt 2007; Lyson et al. 1995; Tsai 2019). It is also interesting to note that, in line with what has just been stated, through the direct interactions typical of this type of market, the producer/vendor can receive feedback on products and develop personal ties with customers (Roth 1999; Gilman 1999). The social interactions that occur in the market, therefore, become key, on one hand, to the consumer’s spending choice and, on the other, in influencing the vendors’ production and sales techniques. For instance, avoiding the use of pesticides and using environmental issues to better attract clients are directly correlated with a farmer’s willingness to change their products to meet consumer demands (Hunt 2007).

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The Impact of the Pandemic

Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020—and is still not fully over—has put a strain on the social nature of food markets, as well as causing considerable economic damage. The Taylor et al. (2022) study focuses, among other things, precisely on the impact of the pandemic on this type of setting. In the spring of 2020, Michigan farmers markets were canceled and the opening of summer farmers markets was delayed. The late start impacted markets in urban clusters and urbanized areas more than rural markets. While 17.6% of rural markets delayed their start, 56% of the non-rural markets had to defer the beginning of their markets. Almost 23% of the markets reported that the size of their staff was reduced: two-thirds of the markets reported fewer vendors in 2020 than in previous years, an impact of Covid-19. This decision was motivated by the fear of contagion for those most at risk, both among vendors and consumers. Other measures to prevent contagion were taken, signs of this could be found in 37% of the markets urging customers to use masks. A fifth of the markets reconfigured the layout of market stands to create greater distance between vendors. Markets also installed hand sanitizing stations. Staff and vendors were required to wear masks in 16.7% of the markets (Taylor et al. 2022).

3

Methodology

The research methodology adopted in our study was qualitative, we relied on nonparticipant observation. The research was conducted in two different markets located in Rome, the Esquilino market and the Circo Massimo market. The objective of our visits was to identify the problems related to the local economy, products, sales and new technologies that vendors are facing. The visits were mainly conducted between the 8th of June and the 15th of June 2022, and from those, materials such as pictures and little interviews were recoiled and elaborated in the results of this research. The questions that were mainly posed were related to the difficulty of working in a market during this century, which is mainly characterized by the evolution of technology and globalization.

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4

Results

4.1

Introduction

The state of markets in Rome is not flourishing, on the contrary, they are experiencing a deep and generalized crisis. Urban food markets are constantly trudging along to keep from permanently losing the vital role they have always played in the lives of consumers. Large retailers and new ways of shopping have certainly thrown a sector with inherent weaknesses into this crisis. However, as our research revealed, this crisis can present itself with different intensities depending on the target market. To fully understand the current state of markets in Rome, it is essential in our opinion to undertake the experiences of those who invigorate these markets daily with their work and who measure themselves every day with the problems related to the sector’s decline: the vendors.

4.2

The AGS System

In the markets visited, it was found that among the vendors there is a sense of helplessness mixed with resignation. It is the result of a deficiency, or at least a marked lack, of an overall business strategy which can make the market emerge as a single organism with its own coherence and well-defined mission. By informally speaking with vendors, a generalized disappointment in the way markets are managed has emerged, and in response to the inaction of politicians, many markets have for decades chosen the path of self-management, constituting the so-called Associazione Gestione Servizi—AGS (Association of Service Management), which allow them to retain a percentage of the fee paid by vendors for the management of the market itself and the remainder accrues to the municipality, which allocates it to a fund for structural maintenance. This makes the opinion of those who work in and manage markets even more relevant. At times, the establishment of AGS has allowed vendors to protect markets from private commercial aims. One historic market in Rome, Mercato Metronio, located in Via Magna Grecia in the San Giovanni area, managed to block a project to change the use of the building and the adjoining parking lot, only thanks to the stubbornness and pride of the vendors. It should be remembered that the Metronio market, in addition to its optimal location in one of Rome’s most beautiful neighborhoods, also boasts architectural interest since engineer Riccardo Morandi designed it. The AGS has progressively shifted from dealing with the practical management of the market (use of common areas, cleaning, guard services) to developing a coordinated strategy that can provide a sense of unity and belonging to their market, also an added value as

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compared to its natural enemy—large retailers. A particular case in Rome, where competition from large-scale retail has been felt a great deal by the sector, is that of the market Mercato Latino in Piazza Epiro. Here, in addition to the problems already mentioned, vendors have been dealing in recent years with the appearance of a new supermarket built within a historic neighborhood parking lot on the adjacent Via Licia, which not only took away a portion of consumers but also indirectly created problems for those arriving at the market by car. However, according to the vendors we spoke with, the development of this coordinated strategy was not successful at all. Of course, there are exceptions: for example, the Campagna Amica market, discussed extensively below, is an example of a farmers market that has been able to intercept the needs of discerning consumers by offering additional services and focusing on product quality with unquestionably positive results for both the individual vendors and the market itself.

4.3

The Empty Stalls Issue

Perhaps the most obvious and most visually impactful issue when visiting markets in Rome is that many stalls are empty. This situation is principally seen in peripheral markets or markets located in improper locations. Here it is difficult to adapt the stalls to the new regulations, and the cause, in addition to a lack of customers, is rooted in bureaucracy. One example is the market in Via Orvieto, which despite being one of the markets identified as one to be redeveloped in the Municipality VII, is still losing parking spaces. As stated by the president of the Esquilino market, where he also owns a stall for selling shoes, too much bureaucracy slows down the allocation of sales stalls. This is obviously a detriment both to the market, which loses potential customer attraction while creating an uninspiring sight for patrons, but also to the customers themselves, who have less choice concerning their purchases. In addition, it was noted that the criteria for assigning stalls should be reviewed, to favor a meritocratic approach that is aimed at giving more space to young vendors.

4.4

Lack of a Common Business Strategy: A Hurdle for Development

An additional concern that emerged from the informal interviews is the lack of a business strategy applied evenly by the vendors. One of the most evident effects is the struggle to set opening hours for the public that can balance vendors’ personal commitments with the need to better capitalize on the flow of customers. In fact, even when planning a visit to the market, one quickly notices that the opening hours are in most cases limited to the morning. This is a deterring factor for those who

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would like to go grocery shopping but are unable to since they either work in the morning or have other duties to take care of. All vendors agreed that extending the opening hours to the public in the afternoon could attract a greater flow of customers. However, according to several interviewees, this lack of a shared strategy can be blamed on a degree of individualism among vendors. Such single-mindedness is rooted in the need to look after one’s own business, but it is a major obstacle to the creation of common business strategies.

4.5

The Structural Issue

Moreover, it should be mentioned that there have always been structural problems among markets in Rome, such as the lack of refrigerated storage places, which inevitably affects the opening time directly: the vendor buys in bulk at night and sells at the market in the morning. Disconcertingly, one of the most obvious critical issues walking through markets in Rome is their structural deficiency: many are not in harmony with the context of, and sometimes even cause disruption to, the decorum of the cityscape. In fact, only in a few cases, attempts have been made to integrate the market into the surrounding urban context, an example of which is the Testaccio market. In most cases, though, they have resorted to functional structures, called equipped stalls, which certainly do not contribute to the decorum and beauty of the city of Rome.

4.6

Relocation: An Ineffective Strategy

The aesthetic point of view is not everything: an attempt to redevelop the market sector was pursued through a process of relocation. The idea was to make the offer more homogeneous for Roman citizens and place the markets even in areas that are not as central. However, although a laudable intention, this project has exacerbated the discontent of a great many vendors in those markets that have been relocated. The general complaint is the significant reduction in the number of customers, especially among elderly people, essentially because the markets are only reachable by car. However, there has been no shortage of initiatives to mitigate the problem, such as home deliveries or the possibility of e-commerce shopping. The vendors though said that these were by no means sufficient to bring significant and lasting changes (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 Map of the main urban food markets in Rome. Source: Google Maps

5

Nuovo Mercato Esquilino

The new Esquilino market takes up the legacy of the much older market in Piazza Vittorio. Reports say that at the beginning of the last century, concentric affluence to the square took place with old carts overflowing with the peasant harvest destined to supply a public that went far beyond the boundaries of the district (Fig. 2). Built in the late nineteenth century, being close to Termini station, it was a major transit site. After an initial arrangement in 1913, the market continued to thrive during fascism and survived the war and the black market being conducted under the arcades.

Fig. 2 Nuovo Mercato Esquilino sign on Via Giolitti. Source: author’s personal archive

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Fig. 3 Nuovo Mercato Esquilino seen from the street. Source: author’s personal archive

In the meantime, the neighborhood increasingly became a multi-ethnic community, and the market began to be infused with new colors, fragranced with new scents and, above all, offered new flavors: from the most penetrating spices to the most bizarrely shaped vegetables. The Piazza Vittorio market moved to the former Pepe military barracks and the adjacent former Sani military barracks from October 2001 with the food section and from May 2004 with the non-food section, respectively, and the market was renamed Nuovo Mercato Esquilino (Figs. 3 and 4). The move was performed, prompted strongly by the local population, to allow the urgently needed redevelopment of the square. The market operators through their cooperative financed the project, which also included other works amounting to approximately five billion of the old Italian liras (approximately 2.6 million e). After moving to the new location between Via Turati and Via Giolitti, several issues emerged that are still not fully resolved today, which ranged from inadequate sewage management to inadequate paving, from an inefficient air conditioning system to numerous leaks in the water pipes. The market is also poorly functional resulting from the lack of space for unloading and storing goods. Furthermore, the original plan included rooms below the current market for warehouses and refrigerated storage, but the discovery of archaeological sites did not allow it to be completed as planned. The new Esquilino market is certainly the most multi-ethnic market in Rome. There are about 180 stalls ranging from fruits and vegetables to footwear or clothes. The Asian community is particularly represented in the fruit and vegetable sector, the Romanian community in the butcher shops, the Egyptian community in the seafood sector, and the Chinese community in the trade of a variety of goods. Multiethnic merchants for a

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Fig. 4 A glimpse of the market’s life from the inside. Source: author’s personal archive

multiethnic clientele. Behind the counter one can find people born in faraway places who have learned to live together. It is easier to find customers buying their favorite delicacies at their fellow compatriot vendor, but it is also amusing to observe people of different ethnicities shopping together in a kind of a beautiful melting pot of customers (Fig. 5). The new Esquilino market has all the characteristics to become a market like those in other European capitals. It could replicate the models of major markets such as Barcelona’s Boqueria or Madrid’s San Miguel.

Fig. 5 Some of the delicacies sold: grains and legumes. Source: author’s personal archive

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Campagna Amica market at Circo Massimo

The Campagna Amica market at Circo Massimo is an example of a farmers market that has been able to successfully incorporate the demands of caring consumers. It is managed through an RT (Rete d’Impresa, i.e., a business network), which is a contractual instrument of collaboration and cooperation between entrepreneurs with the aim of individually and collectively increasing their competitiveness in the market (Art. 3 paragraph 4-ter DL n 5/09 conv in L. n. 33/09). Campagna Amica is an Italian foundation that seeks to reconnect consumers with local farmers by bringing farmers into the cities to sell directly to the urban population. Established by Coldiretti—the federation of Italian farmers—in 2008, in 2009 the market was launched in Rome’s Circo Massimo location (Fig. 6). A modern market that started with twenty stalls selling fruits, vegetables, olive oil, and other delicacies. The format of this type of farmers market clearly appealed to the Roman public, so much so that to date there are more than seventy stalls—with no room available for more (Fig. 7). The philosophy of the market is “Km 0” which designates that products come from areas not far from the market and are sold directly by the people who produce them. In the case of Lazio, the region of which Rome is the capital, products come from areas not more than 150 km away. More than sixty farms are involved with zero-mile, guaranteed, safe, quality products for direct sale, grown or raised directly by the same producers behind the stalls. The result is that the “woman who is cutting your cheese” knows what kind of milk was used, and the “man slicing your porchetta (a whole roasted pig, an Italian delicacy)” can tell you how it was prepared. Located close to the Roman forum

Fig. 6 The entrance of the Campagna Amica Market in Via San Teodoro, 74. Source: author’s personal archive

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Fig. 7 Selling stall of wine, oil and beer. Source: author’s personal archive

and open only on weekends, the market regularly attracts residents and tourists to buy Lazio’s regional delicacies. Inside the market, the visitor may find the “Campagna Amica Seals” signifying products saved from extinction thanks to the work of farmers such as the Atina cannellini bean, Pontecorvo bell pepper, Onano lentil, and Columella cauliflower. In the market there is a wide selection of fruits and vegetables, cheeses and dairy products (Fig. 8), fish (Fig. 9), bread and baked goods, cereals, flours and pasta, fresh fruit, legumes, wine and oil (Fig. 7), fresh and cured meats, honey, preserves, fresh milk, plants and flowers, and much more. Every Saturday and Sunday the ‘Peasant Chefs’ offer new dishes cooked according to tradition. You can eat in the outdoor courtyard where food trucks prepare typical street food: fried fish, vegetable soups, porchetta sandwiches, and barbecued meat. In addition, the Campagna Amica market offers activities oriented to both children and adults, with educational workshops, cooking presentations, tastings, and exhibitions of typical foods. The Campagna Amica network now includes more than 1200 markets, 170 stores and 1500 agri-tourism farms. At the Campagna Amica market at Circo Massimo one does not find everything as in supermarkets or local markets that have adapted to consumer demands, but the shopper surely finds quality products and, more importantly, finds the farmer behind the counter, not just any retail vendor. Unlike other urban markets, operated by vendors who buy in bulk from the farms and bring the products to the city to sell, these farmers markets eliminate the ‘middlemen’ and bring the producers directly found at the stalls. Indeed, this market is open on Saturdays and Sundays so that farmers can work during the week and bring fresh produce to the market without the intermediate step providing multiple benefits in quality.

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Fig. 8 SEQ Figure \* ARABIC Selling stall of meat and dairy products. Source: author’s personal archive

Fig. 9 SEQ Figure \* ARABIC Selling stall for fish. Source: author’s personal archive

Farmers come into direct contact with consumers and can explain their activities, and suggest products, recipes, and pairings. The Circo Massimo market located on Via di San Teodoro is not large, however it has an adjoining outdoor area often used for events with workshops for adults and children, presentations of cooking techniques, and various tastings of typical products. From various discussions with vendors, it has emerged that individual activities since their access to the Circo Massimo market have increased sales

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and diversified production. In addition, the market is marked by the presence of operators who are also quite young, which bodes well for a generational change of individual farmer’s businesses but also for young people approaching the sector for the first time.

7

Conclusions

The journey through the markets in Rome highlighted the deep crisis they are currently struggling with, even though there are interesting exceptions. As Hughes and Mattson (1992) clearly pointed out, studying the reality of markets also means analyzing the perspective of those who work in it, the vendors, while also understanding how the market is structured. Therefore, first, it should be remembered that in the Italian context, there is a sharp difference between ordinary urban food markets, where sellers are often not producers, and farmers markets, in which those who sell also made the product. The data from Hunt (2007) and Hughes and Mattson (1992) can hence provide an association with the Italian reality. The finding of this research on the exponential growth of the Campagna Amica market, the only true farmers market in Rome—and thus the only comparable with the markets described in the literature—is in fact consistent with the massive growth trend shown in their research. Evidently the consumer, especially in a large and chaotic metropolis like Rome, values the possibility of buying top-quality products directly from farmers. The Campagna Amica market is therefore an exception in the Roman context. The state of the other markets, on the other hand, does not bode well. Certainly, as in the Taylor et al. (2022) study of United States markets, the Covid-19 pandemic has given an additional blow to the already precarious market system in Rome. While remaining an important center of social life in the city—thus consistent with other research, from Andreatta and Wickliffe’s (2002) to the more recent Tsai’s (2019)—there is a general decline in the relevance of urban food markets in consumer’s choices. This is related to the lack of a common commercial strategy and thus, for example, failing to keep markets open in the afternoon, as well as structural failures and the ill-advised relocation strategy. The matter of fact is that many stalls are empty, and no policies are on the horizon to counter this phenomenon. The aggressiveness of the GDO is certainly a strongly negative factor, which does not help the vendors’ satisfaction with their job. This is also perhaps why there has been a bitterness among vendors, despite attempts at self-management with the AGS system, which confirms Hughes and Mattson’s (1992) assertion about the fundamental role played by the satisfaction of those who work in markets in ensuring its success. A potential answer to this crisis might exist within the experience of the Campagna Amica farmers market. Despite the awareness of the substantial differences that make this market atypical, it is believed that one could draw winning features and good practices from it and these would certainly be beneficial if replicated in other markets. That is,

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creating a dynamic environment, in step with the times and in line with consumer expectations and needs—such as, keeping the market open in the afternoon—could be the key to averting a definitive collapse of the system. Furthermore, valuing local businesses and selling the highest quality products could be a common practice extended to other markets, also providing an advantage over the offer of products from the large-scale retail trade.

References Allen, P. (2004). Together at the table: Sustainability and sustenance in the American agrifood system. Penn State Press. Andreatta, S., & Wickliffe, W. (2002). Managing farmer and consumer expectations: A study of a North Carolina farmers market. Human Organization, 61(2), 167–176. Bubinas, K. (2011). Farmers markets in the post-industrial city. City & Society, 23(2), 154–172. Campbell, J. (2014). Cooperate or compete: the relationship of strategic orientation and firm performance for farmers’ market vendors. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 27(1), 27–42. Gilman, S. (1999). Direct marketing options: farmers markets, restaurants, community supported agriculture and the organic alternative (No. 1443-2016-119106). Govindasamy, R., Zurbriggen, M., Italia, J., Adelaja, A. O., Nitzsche, P., & VanVranken, R. (1998). Farmers markets: Consumer trends, preferences, and characteristics (No. 1326-2016-103597). Govindasamy, R., Zurbriggen, M., Italia, J., Adelaja, A. O., Nitzsche, P., & VanVranken, R. (1998). Farmers markets: producers characteristics and status of their businesses (No. 36725). Rutgers University, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics. Griffin, M. R., & Frongillo, E. A. (2003). Experiences and perspectives of farmers from Upstate New York farmers’ markets. Agriculture and human values, 20(2), 189–203. Hughes, M. E. (1992). Farmers’ markets in Kansas: A profile of vendors and market organization. Kansas State University, Agricultural Experiment Station. Hunt, A. R. (2007). Consumer interactions and influences on farmers’ market vendors. Renewable agriculture and food systems, 22(1), 54–66. Kezis, A. S., Gwebu, T., Peavey, S. R., & Cheng, H. T. (1998). A study of consumers at a small farmers’ market in Maine: Results from a 1995 survey. Journal of food distribution research, 29(856-2016-56751), 91–99. Lyson, T. A., Gillespie, G. W., & Hilchey, D. (1995). Farmers’ markets and the local community: Bridging the formal and informal economy. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, 10(3), 108–113. Mohammad, Z. H., Yu, H., Neal, J. A., Gibson, K. E., & Sirsat, S. A. (2019). Food safety challenges and barriers in southern United States farmers markets. Foods, 9(1), 12. Montri, D., Chung, K., & Behe, B. (2021). Farmer perspectives on farmers markets in low-income urban areas: a case study in three Michigan cities. Agriculture and Human Values, 38(1), 1–14. O’Hara, J. K., Dutton, N., & Stavely, N. (2022). The influence of farmers markets’ characteristics on vendor sales. Agribusiness, 38(2), 295–311. Payne, T. (2002). US Farmers Markets–2000 A Study of Emerging Trends (No. 1470-2022-283). Roth, M. (1999). Overview of farm direct marketing industry trends (No. 1443-2016-119119). Taylor, D. E., Lusuegro, A., Loong, V., Cambridge, A., Nichols, C., Goode, M., ... & Pollvogt, B. (2022). Racial, gender, and age dynamics in Michigan’s urban and rural farmers markets:

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reducing food insecurity, and the impacts of a pandemic. American Behavioral Scientist, 66(7), 894–936. Tsai, B. K. (2019). Determinants of consumers’ retention and subjective well-being: A sustainable farmers’ market perspective. Sustainability, 11(22), 6412. Wolf, M. M. (1997). A target consumer profile and positioning for promotion of the direct marketing of fresh produce: A case study. Journal of food distribution research, 28(856-2016-56989), 11– 17.

Danilo Spiro is a 24-year-old student, majoring in International Cooperation and Development at Sapienza University of Rome. He currently lives with his family in a small town north of the capital. His various interests include a passion for high-quality local food products and a curiosity for the history of his city, which led him to this study on urban food markets in the city of Rome. Loredano Cianfa is a working student, married with two children, and graduated in ‘Viticulture and Oenology’ from the Marche Polytechnic University with a thesis entitled ‘Wine authenticity, current situation and future prospects’. He is currently also a student in ‘Food Science and Technology’, an inter-university master’s degree course between the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Tuscia. He is passionate about food and wine, in particular the fight against food fraud and the search for food authenticity. Rosanna Prosperi is a bachelor’s degree student enrolled in the International Cooperation and Development course at Sapienza University of Rome. Her interest in this research on urban food markets stems from a passion for history and an interest in how markets have always been deeply affected by social relations.

Urban Food Markets in Rome Gabriele Lombardi, Cesare Manetti, and Barbara Staniscia

Abstract

Urban food markets and farmers’ markets in Rome, currently offer food and non-food products that can mainly be defined as authentic. They also host several public services for resident customers. Most of these markets are declining, showing resistance to necessary changes and a scarce ability to adapt their offer to a more dynamic demand. Besides management-related motivations, structural obstacles which feed the losing managerial choices in a vicious circle exist. As evidence of this, it has been noticed that the most successful markets are those offering experiences (i.e. immersive purchase experience, street-food availability) different from the ones proposed by their direct competitors (i.e. the large-organized distribution). In order to reevaluate the urban food markets of Rome – taking into consideration their ubiquitous distribution and the importance of the vendors as expression of the local traditions – we foresee the need to run several activities that can animate the markets during times when they are not being used today, involving different groups of potential users, for instance for educational purposes. Another needed action for the thriving of urban food markets is the process of digitalization; this would help in making the information more transparent for clients and in widening the relationship G. Lombardi (B) · C. Manetti · B. Staniscia Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] C. Manetti e-mail: [email protected] B. Staniscia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_14

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between vendors and customers over the physical space represented by the walls of the structure. Keywords

Urban food markets • Farmers’ markets • Foodscape • Education • Dissemination Innovation • Digitalization

•

Current Situation The five markets analyzed in the chapters of this section can be considered as representative of the urban food markets and farmers’ markets in the City of Rome. Several of them offer food, and other items (i.e., clothing, linen, house-related items, and local crafts). The common characteristic of non-food items is that they are not mass-produced and are often locally designed and produced. Several markets also offer services—i.e., public services linked to the municipality such as the register office, employment consultancy services, libraries, post offices. Since not all the analyzed markets are farmers’ markets, food products may originate from different places, including locally produced food characterized by short supply chains. Urban food markets in the city of Rome are declining, and this is an outcome of several factors linked to the “conservative” approach of the entrepreneurs in terms of supply and opening hours (reduced to morning only, mostly on weekdays), the harsh competition with large retailers and online shopping, plus the lack of adequate public governance and business strategy. They fail in satisfying the needs of a more dynamic clientele such as that of the numerous workers who reside in the capital—a de facto acquiescence to the large-organized distribution monopolistic position—and of the young consumers and young families. They are trying to attract this part of society—especially the younger segments—through the organization of events and the supply of street-food and recreational spaces. The structures that host the urban food markets in Rome are, in most cases, old, deteriorated, inhospitable, and unfunctional. A clear example of this is the total deficiency of spaces used as storage and refrigeration to preserve fresh food in the majority of the analyzed markets. The absence of storage and refrigerators also implies that the vendors must buy daily the products they are going to sell while being careful not to over purchase, in order to reduce the risk of food loss and the consequent loss in profit as well. By doing so the choice of reducing the opening times of the stalls seems obligated, preventing them from planning the sales of products in a more market-oriented way, the result is an amplification of this vicious cycle. The outcome of these operations is a stagnant situation where proactive approaches that upcoming younger entrepreneurs could eventually bring to the urban food markets are strongly discouraged. Another aspect that emerges from our study is the vivid distinction between those markets that somehow can offer their visitors experiences that overcome the simple purchasing of goods and those that cannot. For example, some of the most successful markets in Rome rely on the availability of ready-to-eat meals such as street food and/or trendy foods for the clientele. Another key success factor is the potentiality for the market to represent a meeting place for residents and visitors; in order to make it happen the markets should have some

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leisure-oriented space made available to anyone who can attract a target clientele. This ability to attract people can be summarized in the ability of the market to offer something different from the competitors as represented by the large-organized distribution. This ability can be of different types, but it cannot be discerned by the overall experience of the shopper that goes to the market. As it appears from our study, this necessity is well known among the actors of the markets, but the process is made difficult by the tangled bureaucracy (i.e., the mazelike legislation that has to be complied with regarding the administration of food and drinks), and the scarce ability to access the financing necessary to make the spaces suitable and attractive for these purposes. Future Perspectives Urban food markets in Rome, thanks to their geographical distribution, could potentially represent a system of dissemination of knowledge related to food. Beyond the ubiquitous distribution, the schedule of these markets can be well adapted to the activities held in schools and universities throughout the capital, offering students opportunities to get in touch with local products and a physical location to establish direct relationships with the producers, promoting visits to the agri-food companies. Food education and tourism promotion are the natural issues to be dealt with in the market with initiatives designed to involve a large number of citizens going to fill the structures during times when they are not being used today. But for the promotion and active participation in these activities, which go beyond commerce, linked to the space and time characteristic of the different structures, it would be desirable to create a digital counterpart that could cohabit asynchronously, covering the themes of all potential users, and exceeding the limit of the physical space. The issue of digitalization of sales activities, which has helped some markets survive the pandemic crisis, should not be limited to an expansion of the volume of business linked to product sales, but should rather be a pretext for increasing citizens’ awareness and willingness to attend these structures. ´ The aspiration is to recreate through roman markets the concept of agorà (gr. ¢γoρα) distributed through the territory and connected through the digital projection of the individual structures, where one can see each other, get to know each other after having established relationships, having interacted by purchasing remotely or having benefited from remote education experiences related to the agri-food chain. The market’s digital counterpart should not limit itself to increasing and completing the information on the label (for instance, by ensuring the traceability of the product by exploiting the most sophisticated technologies to guarantee data, like Blockchain technology), but should create—in line with the philosophy of information distribution and data interoperability behind this technology—groups of stakeholders (i.e., neighborhood schools’ classes, associations that operate in the region) and individual citizens, to favour the connection with each other as well as with producers and vendors who have their own businesses in the market. It should also promote the interaction with universities, research institutions,

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and other organizations, individual experts or entrepreneurs who can share their knowledge and, at the same time, identify the needs of the parts involved, energizing the market during normal hours or during alternative time periods by sharing initiatives. This should not be confused with the transfer of the urban food market to the Multiverse—a tridimensional virtual reality basically repurposing a new technology for product promotion; it should supply the local markets with a physical ¢γoρα´ corresponding to different instances of the Fediverse, in which individuals get to know each other and enrich one’s opportunities. The Fediverse (= federated “interconnected” + universe) puts users associated with the same server (instance) on the network. In this context, which is by now as widespread as traditional social networks, it is the user who chooses with whom to get in contact and tighten a relationship by having access to the content shared by others, rather than just undergoing the choice of an algorithm based on sponsored pushes. Each market can take the form of an instance that unites citizens, who come into contact with other people from other instances, which can be schools, universities, research institutions, companies, and individual citizens. In the virtual world, the instances (servers) connect to each other because they share the same communication protocol, making the connection between users belonging to different instances possible; in the ¢γoρα´ urban market, this knowledge can be created or deepened, expanding the spaces and times that characterize the current realities, contrasting the decline while highlighting the great opportunities reported in the former chapters. As a non-exhaustive example of what can be done to animate the market through the Fediverse, with the contribution of a Technological Hub (“innovation desk” perhaps enlivened by university students of different disciplines), one could think of food education linked to the promotion of the Mediterranean diet and all related products found in the market itself, or to food safety linked to the methods of preparing and storing food, or to circular-economy paths, the limitation of packaging materials, and the fight against food waste. Open education—which becomes the equivalent of the free communication protocol –, and the direct relationship between all stakeholders (from sellers to citizens)—which has supported the survival of local markets since their beginnings—should be the guidelines of the proposed process. Conclusions If properly managed, urban food markets in the city of Rome have a big potential to become attractive for new customers, namely: i) workers for their lunch breaks and for ready-made and take-away food; ii) local visitors for their special architecture and historical value of the buildings they are located in; iii) tourists in search of authentic experiences and motivated by the aspiration of “living like locals”; and iv) they can represent the physical place where innovation and tradition get in touch bringing ideas to life and where education may spread within the community.

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Gabriele Lombardi is a Ph.D. student in the environmental and evolutionary biology department of La Sapienza University of Rome. It has a Bachelor’s degree in Viticulture and enology at Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna and a Master’s degree cum laude in Food sciences and technology at La Sapienza University of Rome and University of Tuscia. His research activity is related to the development of the Master’s degree thesis entitled “GC–MS Chemical Characterization of Essential Oils from Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in relation to their Biological Activity”. The activities were held in the CREA—Food and Nutrition research center in Rome. At the present, he is working in the EU METROFOOD-RI with a Ph.D. project entitled “METROFOOD-IT: Development & dissemination of innovative analytical methods & models for the assessment of safety, quality, and authenticity in cereal sector products”. Cesare Manetti (Department of Environmental Biology) is Co-President of the Council of Professors of Master’s Degree programme in Food Science and Technology (Sapienza University of Rome—University of Tuscia). Prof. Manetti’s labs are at Department of Chemistry (NMR facilities—NMLab) and at Department of Environmental biology. His research themes are design of electronic devices for biomolecular analysis; studies of biologically active compounds diffusion in polymeric matrices and Food by NMR; studies by 1H, 13C and 31P NMR of cellular systems and metabolic processes in vivo and in vitro / Metabolomics. He was part of the International Group for the Standardization of Metabolomics. Barbara Staniscia has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from LUISS University (Rome, Italy), a Master’s degree in Local Development from Université Sorbonne-Paris Nord (France) and a Ph.D. in Economic Geography from University of Bari (Italy). She currently teaches Geography of Tourism and Human Mobility and Geography of Food and Gastronomy at Sapienza University of Rome. She has also taught Heritage Tourism at American University of Rome. She is Scientific Secretary of the International Geographical Union commission on GLOBILITY Global Change and Human Mobility and P.I. of the Sapienza team of the Horizon Europe-funded project Re-Place Reframing non-metropolitan left behind places through mobility and alternative development. Her research has focused on urban dynamics and local development, spatial effects of EU policies, rural development and geography of taste, environmental conflicts, tourism and migration.

Tübinger Foodmarkets

Analysing the Tübingen Weekly Market: Concepts of Regionality and Alternative Food Networks Carmen Christina Grupp and Felix Gschwender

Abstract

Within the renewed demand for alternative and shorter supply chains in food distribution, we draw on the concepts of Regionality and Alternative Food Networks to examine the weekly market of Tübingen, a southwestern German city, as the starting point for investigations on its related foodscapes. We conduct semi-structured interviews with thirty-five vendors to determine their origin, their relationships with offered products, the geographic locations their products are sourced from and the underlying networks of supplied food. Our research indicates a consistent spatial reference of regionality defined by vendors. We understand the vendors themselves as well as value and supply chains represented by vendors at the weekly market in Tübingen to be diverse in their backgrounds. Consumers are offered a broad range of regional food, either directly produced or within short supply chains. Additionally, trans-regional supply chains enrich the food diversity on offer. We request further research to understand the benefits of advanced integration of weekly markets in the concepts of Regionality and AFNs. The authors are both students of Human Geography at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and obtained their B.Sc. in Applied Geography and Geo-ecology, respectively. Their educational and personal backgrounds play a pivotal role for choosing an issue of regionality and sustainability on behalf of the research project on Foodscapes. C. C. Grupp (B) · F. Gschwender Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Deutschland e-mail: [email protected] F. Gschwender e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_15

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Keywords

Weekly Markets • Food Geography • Alternative Food Networks • Regionality • Short food supply chains • Foodscapes

1

Introduction

Regarding local links between food production, its distribution, and its origin in cultural landscapes as a form of foodscapes, these connections have faded, especially within highly industrialised countries. Consequently, alternative food supply chains are becoming increasingly popular in recent years in Germany and in other countries of the Global North as producers and consumers criticise established food regimes including supermarkets and discounters for various social, economic, and environmental reasons (Borsellino et al. 2020; Forsell and Lankoski 2015). Geographically, concepts such as Foodscapes (Sedelmeier et al. 2021; in this anthology: Kühne 2023, Yasmeen 2023) and Alternative Food Geography (Sarmiento 2017; Wiskerke 2009), including the transdisciplinary term of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) are focusing on new and innovative ways of food distribution. Still, one of the implicitly local and alternative forms of food distribution is considered as traditional and historically grown, namely ‘weekly markets’, which are popular also in southwestern Germany. These can be understood as transformative economic and supply structures in food geography, which can be seen as part of a political-social expression of activism or self-realisation and thus often as a counter-movement to conventional production and commodity chains (Rosol and Strüver 2018). However, the practical organisation and structure of the weekly market itself and the vendors represented there have since received little consideration against this background, even though weekly markets can provide important impetuses for urban marketing and regional development beyond functional food distribution (Elsäßer et al. 2006; Wiskerke 2009). As a counter concept to the conventional food supply system, the weekly market can enable traders to distribute local food. For weekly markets, however, the literature points to heterogeneous vendor structures consisting of both direct marketers and intermediaries, which can offer both local and supraregional products (Lienert and Blattert 2012). The geographical reference area of the weekly market plays a role here, which historically consists of rather small farms in southwestern Germany because of the topographical and climatic diversity of the high altitudes in the Black Forest, the Odenwald, the foothills of the Alps, and the Swabian Alb and the valley and basin locations of the Upper Rhine, Neckar, and other rivers, which provide a high variance of agricultural crops as well as favourable conditions for fruit cultivation (MLR BW n. d.). Based on this background we use the weekly market in the southwestern German city of Tübingen as an access point to these foodscapes and to investigate on a micro level the

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spatial relationships between the market and its vendors, the products offered, the related value chains, and the supply chains behind the food.

2

Weekly Food Markets

Weekly markets have a centuries-old tradition in many cities, also in southwestern Germany, and offer traders, producers, and consumers the opportunity to exchange goods, which in the twenty-first century stand for traceable supply routes, high-quality and fresh products away from supraregional, conventional, and anonymized retail food chains (Elsäßer et al. 2006; Goodman et al. 2012; Wille et al. 2019). As an alternative form of food distribution, weekly markets have recently been revisited in research by considering markets as a small-scale alternative to local food supply (Engelhardt and Keck 2017; Lienert and Blattert 2012), although being a traditional institution. Weekly markets and other markets for the distribution of local products are culturally embedded in urban areas, including and especially in the marketing of cities themselves, as it has previously been analysed for Tübingen among other southwestern German cities (Elsäßer et al. 2006; Wiskerke 2009). In the context of this study, we consider the spatial and organisational relationships of the food offered. The term of regional food in this study is defined as regionally grown, produced, and/or processed food—similar to the definition of Engelhardt and Keck (2017) where local food does not have to represent a cultural value for the region per-se. The definition of what regionality is from the perspective of vendors is hereby part of the research question.

2.1

The Concept of Regionality

The term ‘regional’ itself is neither defined in science nor in everyday interactions and there is a lack of clarity among consumers as to what is meant by it (Heinze and Gebhardt 2012; Warschun et al. 2013). From a consumer’s perspective, regional food is increasingly favoured, with slight variations depending on the product category (BMEL 2021). As derived from several official government publications, academic research, and studies undertaken by consulting agencies underline, regional food origin and support for regional farmers, environmental and climate protection, and cultivating consumer-producer relationships is rated as more important in the purchasing behaviour of consumers than purchasing organic products (BMEL 2021, 2022; Warschun et al. 2013; Wiskerke 2009). According to the literature, consumers would like to see a greater variety of regional fruits and vegetables among other regional food (Warschun et al. 2013).

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Producers, especially small to medium-sized enterprises, are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their products out of the price pressures of large food retailers. According to Wille et al. (2019), agricultural marketing of food sold directly from the producer to the consumer provides an important function to increase the profit margin of the products and thus enable producers to get fairer prices that cannot be achieved with conventional food retailers. Engelhardt and Keck (2017) list weekly markets alongside farm stores, pickyour-own, farmers’ markets, farmers market halls, street sales and additional delivery services as an important form of direct agricultural distribution. So-called short food supply chains, in which only one intermediary is involved in the distribution of products, but at a short distance, also promise similar success (Wille et al. 2019). However, it is equally difficult to say what is defined as short physical distance here. In her report, Heinze and Gebhardt (2012) compiled various approaches to defining regionality that refer to a variety of delimiting features such as natural spaces, historical areas, cultural contexts, economic interdependencies, political-administrative boundaries, or consumer-implied terms and definitions. The concept of regionality can also be divided into objectivist-subjectivist and collectivist-individualist dimensions. Finally, according to her, products can be differentiated according to the geographical principle or the value chain principle (Heinze and Gebhardt 2012).

2.2

The Concept of AFNs

Direct distribution is considered relevant in the approach of AFNs for breaking global food regimes (Corsi et al. 2018; Goodman et al. 2012). AFNs are increasingly addressed as part of Alternative Food Geography (Wiskerke 2009), but primarily within an interdisciplinary approach. In the thematic issue edited by Rosol and Strüver (2018), various theoretical aspects to the conceptual classification of AFNs can be found, including systemic critiques and calls for the application of Environmental Economic Geography, among others. AFNs require an interdisciplinary approach that invariably includes the geographic dimensions of the space of producers and consumers (Corsi et al. 2018), although this is often not considered in its entirety. Forsell and Lankoski (2015) refer to AFNs as an umbrella term, as these networks represent various forms of spatial and social interactions. According to Corsi et al. (2018), these diverse forms of food distribution deviate from the conventional norm of global wholesale trade. Wiskerke (2009) characterises these norms as disconnected, disembedded and disentwined supply chains which are usually distinguished by having few or no intermediaries from producer to consumer or are characterised by a low number of “food miles” that food is required to travel through its supply chain from production to consumption (Forsell and Lankoski 2015; Wiskerke 2009). Corsi et al. (2018) emphasise the immaterial value gained by AFN products through their reference to region and through traceability of production and the role of social networks. The

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focus of the networks on local food is therefore also called Local Food Networks (Goodman et al. 2012). These networks are thus not limited to weekly markets, but frequently engage in innovative forms of food distribution, such as community garden projects as well as food boxes and vending machines (Corsi et al. 2018). Contrary to their narrative, according to research, AFNs are by no means to be understood as entirely opposed to conventional food systems; rather, forms of alternative distribution often also draw on conventional network structures, and the dichotomy between alternatively and conventionally traded goods must be overcome, according to Goodman et al. (2012) and Corsi et al. (2018). This results in diverse and various forms of food distribution being discussed via the term AFN or similar food networks—which in turn are interdisciplinary, cannot be delimited by continuous interpretations of the structures, and do not share a single definition. Linckh (2012), for example, also speaks of self-defined small-scale systems of food supply that, in addition to regionality and locality, serve to describe reference spaces between producers and consumers.

3

Analysis of the Weekly Market in Tübingen

Tübingen weekly market represents a certain diversity numbering fifty advertised traders and yet is a manageable size unit for a city of about 90,000 inhabitants. Deducing from literature findings, we assume that the provided food at the weekly market is offered for sale to consumers without excessive intermediaries. Considering the weekly market in Tübingen as a form of an AFN, the research aims to dive deep into the relationships of vendors and their offered food and the spatial territories and networks. Therefore, the spatial origins of the individual vendors as well as the food origins are explored along with their interactions with the offered food in the value chain and the organisational structure of purchased products. The research results present the perspective of food vendors at the weekly market in Tübingen and provide insights into their views concerning the aforementioned issues.

3.1

Method

The research commenced with internet representation analysis on the organisation and structure of the weekly market in Tübingen (https://www.tuebingen.de/wochenmarkt), which takes place Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the marketplace (Marktplatz) and the nearby “Holzmarkt” in Tübingen from 7 am to 1 pm, and at Saturday around the Saint Jacobs Church (Jakobuskirche) from 8 am to 1 pm. We then continued with nonparticipatory observation of vendor and customer interactions at the weekly market, as well as inspection of offered products. To conclude the empirical research, vendors were

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asked to participate in qualitative, semi-structured interviews addressing the aforementioned research aim. These interviews were conducted to elaborate insights into structures of food production and supply, with the vendors being considered as key informants on the issues of their enterprises, their networks, and their product relationships. Interviews were held with vendors at the Tübingen weekly market during market hours in times of low or no customer traffic. For this purpose, the Tübingen weekly market was visited on 5 days within 2 weeks in July 2022 in order to use all market days for empirical purposes. All vendors present were willing to provide us with information about themselves, their company, and the goods they offered, resulting in a total number of thirty-five interviews. Only customer contact and the urgency of dismantling market stalls prevented the traders and us from (continuing) the interviews. According to the rush of customers, the market activity, and depending on the openness of the vendors to provide further information, time available to conduct the survey varied. Nevertheless, traders could be identified who responded very frankly to our questions and also provided us with a lot of information about their knowledge and experiences at the weekly market. These interviews fluctuated more frequently between forms of semi-structured questioning and forms of informal conversations in which interviewees more openly expressed their thoughts, concerns, and desires. The latter form of interviews was deliberately encouraged rather than prevented and considered a valuable source of deeper insights into the daily practices of vendors, direct-producing gardeners, and small agribusinesses. These interviews generated further insights of which the study benefited. Results were categorised based on inductive findings and transferred to a table for quantitative analysis using QGIS and Tableau to visualise frequency patterns. Interview notes served as a qualitative resource to understand underlying behavioural reasons of vendors.

3.2

Overall Findings

Through the website of the city of Tübingen and the information provided on the weekly market, it can be determined that the admission of market vendors takes place after prior application by the public administration. Contact persons are named for this purpose, including the market manager. Vendors can apply for regular attendance at the market, or use shorter application periods for infrequent presence at the weekly market. The regular market vendors are listed on the Internet on a dedicated page for the weekly market, whereas during our study there were also market vendors who only offer their products seasonally (e.g., during the harvest time of certain fruits and vegetables) and about whom no further information is available. These vendors were mainly direct marketers with a smaller range of products. On the other hand, not all traders who were listed on the

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internet as regularly participating traders could be found on the specified market days at the weekly market in Tübingen. Furthermore, it can be generally stated that the diversity of trader backgrounds at the Tübingen weekly market is high. In our study, we found a wide range of business types among the thirty-five vendors, including self-producers with home vegetable gardens who declare the sale of their own harvest as a “hobby,” and equally entrepreneurial vendors who either have traditional family businesses or are part of supraregional organised vendor networks, especially in the specialty food business, and focus on selling food rather than producing it. Nevertheless, there is also a broad spectrum of vendors who, with their independent production of food, are dependent on the sale of their goods via the weekly market in Tübingen. The regionality of the products is indicated with a radius of about 100 kms around Tübingen. Other spatial references for regionality are the federal state of BadenWürttemberg and, in one case, the neighbouring French region of Alsace. Most vendors employ none to a few employees or, in case of fruit and vegetable producers, additional seasonal student minijobbers to sell food at the weekly market in Tübingen. Through the thirty-five vendors surveyed the following occurrences were found for various product categories: • • • • • • • • •

15× Fruits and Vegetables 5× Processed Fruit Products (jam, juice, syrup, liquor, vinegar, etc.) 5× Bakery Products and Pasta 5× Meat Products 5× Dairy Products 2× Eggs 2× Fish 2× Honey 2× Mushrooms* *(including collected, non-cultivated wild berries)

3.3

Mapping Spatial Relations

The survey allowed a QGIS map (Fig. 1) of the spatial origin of the vendors and some food to be created, which also shows—although without any claim of completeness—the documented additional supply sources of products sold by the vendors at the Tübingen weekly market. The vendors are shown on the map with green (producing) and orange (non-producing) icons; other supply sources through which a purchase of vendor goods takes place are shown with blue icons. The map shows a red border as the base area of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg and in ochre colour croplands as identified

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by the ESA WorldCover data (grey areas are community areas). The choice of the ESA WorldCover as the background layer was made to be able to take natural conditions into account. At the same time, however, it is important to note that the Cropland layer represents only an indeterminate portion of the possible food origins. The illustration by the layer is thus limited if, for example, vegetables are grown in greenhouses, which are shown as settlement areas in ESA WorldCover, or in the case of fruit grown on typical regional meadow orchards (these are also shown as grassland or forest areas in ESA WorldCover). In addition, a circle with a 100 kms radius marks the area to which the vendors refer regarding the designating area of regionality in food. The map depicts the spatial allocation of vendors in the surrounding area of Tübingen, but also shows vendors who undertake longer journeys to the weekly market. Tübingen is an important centre for merchants in nearby regions of the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb. Distances of up to 100 kms or considerably further (one trader from the region around Nuremberg) can also be identified on the map, but are rather unusual. Nine of these traders are also present at multiple (four plus) weekly markets across the region, but most are only operating in Tübingen itself (fourteen vendors) or additionally in Reutlingen (nine vendors), which is only a few kilometres away. A comparatively small number of three vendors are represented at two other weekly markets in addition to Tübingen. The supply sources of products shown in the map, which are distributed via the vendors from other producer sources at the weekly market in Tübingen, reveal diverse spatial

Fig. 1 Vendor and food origins at the Tübingen weekly market (own representation)

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relationships, which are named by the vendors as locally and spatially connected to them. The map highlights some suppliers that are not located within a 100 kms radius of the Tübingen weekly market. These producers include fruit and vegetable producers from the Upper Rhine Valley (Freiburg/Alsace), though their distance to the vendor is shorter than to the Tübingen weekly market. In addition, these manufacturers include cheese producers who are geographically concentrated mainly in the Allgäu region and who also have shorter distances to their market representatives than to the weekly market in Tübingen. Finally, the wholesale fruit market (Obstgroßmarkt) in Eriskirch and a wholesale fish market, both located at Lake Constance, are important sources of the respective foods. The visualisation of supply sources is limited to spatially definable and geographically localisable producers, i.e., extended supply sources of vendors via the international wholesale market in Stuttgart cannot be included in the map.

3.4

Value Chains

Since individual vendors sold several product categories at the weekly market in Tübingen, the number of existing combinations of vendor and product category results in forty-three individual vendor-product relationships (VPRs), which were examined for the value-added shares of the vendors in the final product. The field of analysis was inductively defined from the answers of the vendors and is subdivided into the above-mentioned categories. It should be noted that fruit and vegetables do not require any processing for the end product available on the market, and production and processing processes are thus treated equally in the illustration of Fig. 2. In order to determine the share of vendors in the value chain of the final products, the production of the product or its ingredients as well as the processing of the final product was evaluated and food was divided into four categories according to the value chains found for all VPRs at the weekly market: 1. not produced—not processed, 2. not produced—processed, 3. partly produced—processed and 4. produced—processed. According to the categories, the foods were assigned a colour to reflect the share of vendors along their value chain. For the largest group of fruits and vegetables, the majority of VPRs at the weekly market rely on self-production parts of their goods themselves, on family-run farms or in family-run nurseries, with few to no additional employees. Of those vendors who are partial producers, an estimated portion of 30–60% of fruit and vegetable products is purchased to expand the product range and to be competitive alongside the weekly market vendors who are not self-producing, and also to be customer friendly in the pallet of products offered. These products mainly include fruits that are not grown in Baden-Württemberg (or in the surrounding area of Tübingen) or which are not seasonally available. In the fruit and vegetable trade, there are only a few vendors at the weekly market who almost without exception sell what they produce themselves. In addition to smaller

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Fig. 2 Production and processing based on VPRs (own representation; * incl. non-cultivated wild berries)

fruit farmers who exclusively sell their products during the harvest season of various fruits from their meadow orchards, there is only one trader who produces close to Tübingen and enriches the product range of locally/regionally produced groceries with a remarkably broad assortment of products, which, in addition to the usual suspects such as lettuce varieties and carrots, also includes chard, various potato and tomato sorts as well as other vegetable sorts that have become rare. On the other hand, two vendors for fruits and vegetables only interact as merchants at the weekly markets and obtain all their products from the wholesale market. Vendors who sell ‘Processed Fruit Products’ are strongly integrated into the value chain of their products, as three of five vendors produce all needed fruits, while the other two partially produce the ingredients needed and purchase additional ingredients mostly from befriended producers. ‘Bakery Products and Pasta’ sold by the vendors at the weekly market in Tübingen are mainly produced by the vendors themselves. Grain and flour for these products are only partly produced by the vendors. Concerning animal products (meat, dairy products, eggs, fish, and honey), only honey is self-produced by all corresponding vendors. For meat products, livestock is held by only two of the five vendors, with one of them participating along the whole value chain of the product. Furthermore, two of the three vendors not holding livestock process the

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meat themselves. As such, only one vendor is left who is completely detached from the value chain of his meat products. Dairy products are produced and processed in a value chain outside the vendor’s influence in three of five cases. Of these three vendors, two are cheese merchants focusing on specific and international products while the third sources products from befriended organic farmers and supplies the product range with additional international organic cheese. Two vendors focus mainly on the production of cheese and therefore participate within the whole value chain. Of the two egg-selling vendors, one vendor keeps the hens that lay the eggs, the other sources them from befriended neighbours. Meanwhile, vendors who sell fish are the only vendor type found on the weekly market that are exclusively not self-producers, while one of the two stores some live fish before their processing to fish products. Of the two mushroom vendors, one vendor expressed collecting a part of the mushrooms (and non-cultivated wild berries) himself and is hence at least partially integrated into the value chain of his products, while the other only operates as a merchant within an international speciality business.

3.5

Supply Chains

Here, the database consists of the twenty-five VPRs relying on the purchase of products or product ingredients according to Fig. 2, as the dark green VPRs did not require any additional purchasing for the product offering at the weekly market. Still, four of these VPR were additionally included, as vendors relied on specific networks to produce their products (e.g., accessing land for bee keeping). Each VPR can draw on several possibilities from the categories of supply sources as illustrated in Fig. 3, resulting in a total of forty-one different designations. The categories of supply sources are likewise derived inductively from the interviewees’ frequent responses: the ‘Wholesale Markets’ (Stuttgart, Eriskirch, Hamburg Fish Market, and Paris were mentioned depending on the product), ‘Organisations’ (private enterpriseintern structures and cross-company collaborations), and ‘Personal Relations’ (befriended, well-known, and neighbouring farmers). The majority of the VPRs that require purchasing through additional supply sources are based on the wholesale market, which is of importance here mainly for the category of fruits and vegetables. The majority of the vendors state that they purchase fruit and vegetables from established relationships with third-party producers via the producer market in the wholesale market halls in Stuttgart-Wangen. They provided us with names of sellers and/or recounted personal invitations and visits to the production sites. Thus, quality and taste play an important role for many vendors at the weekly market. Most traders, who include the producer hall of the wholesale market in their sources of acquisition for fruit and vegetables, visit it between two to three times per week. One vendor who is exclusively a seller leaves it open whether the products are sourced via the producer’s

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Fig. 3 Supply sources, not limited to one category (own representation; *incl. non-cultivated wild berries)

hall or through the (international) halls of the wholesale market. Other wholesale market structures are mainly found for ‘Bakery Products and Pasta’, ‘Dairy Products’ and ‘Fish’, which are sourced from dedicated product suppliers. A fruit and vegetable trader, who also offers poultry products and eggs, obtains his goods from company-owned farms located in the surrounding area of Tübingen, Freiburg, and in the French Alsace area of the Upper Rhine, about 110 kms from Tübingen. This company supplies other weekly markets in Baden-Württemberg in addition to the one in Tübingen, but is constrained from expanding its business by a shortage of truck drivers and salespersons. Organisational structures, that are often referred to here as well-known butchers, are particularly evident in the case of meat products. The weekly market in Tübingen includes vendors who focus primarily on specialties, such as dairy products and cheese or mushrooms. These products, which are mostly focused on high quality and specific characteristics, are supplied by supraregional seller networks that stretch across Europe. The vendors of the market thus act as intermediaries for these products without operating their own production. The sale at the weekly market in Tübingen results from their local

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residence, partly in connection with local stores, which are operated in addition to the sale at the weekly market, but according to the statement of a corresponding vendor, they play a subordinate role compared to the sale at the market. Similar organisational structures are found for one vendor who focuses on organic agriculture and is thus in frequent exchange of own-produced goods with other organic farmers. Friends and acquaintances play as equally an important role as an internal company or external organisational structures, but they are more common among vendors who exclusively use this form of additional supply source and offer a smaller range of food products even from their own production. Some of the vendors who sell products such as eggs and cheese at the weekly market in Tübingen obtain them from well-known personal relationships.

3.6

Role of the Weekly Market

In an overall sense, vendors did not experience a decrease in demand for their products or in their sales. Frequently, the first lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 was described as a special episode in which the shopping behaviour of consumers changed in favour of the weekly market vendors. Some of the vendors suggested that, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, despite supermarkets being open in Germany, uncertainty about the virus led people to prefer to do their shopping in the outdoor weekly market. However, demand for the vendors’ products remained consistently high, primarily because of a large proportion of steady customers. As a result, vendors were also mostly satisfied with their ability to sell products at the weekly market. Most traders did not consider increasing the volume of trade or production, as this was not feasible because of the size and character of their family businesses. Changes in consumer behaviour were noted, for example, by a fruit farmer who observed a decline in the per capita sales volume of cherries. She explained this by a decline in further processing steps of the consumers, for example, that they in comparison to former times rarely made jam or the like from purchased fruit themselves. The vendors of the weekly market, who expressed their views on future assessments of their business situation, predominantly cited the sharp rise in energy costs in summer 2022 and associated uncertainties as a cause for concern. The discussion about the security of energy supply in the winter of 2022 and 2023, which is widespread in politics and the media at the time of the survey, worries producers as well as intermediaries. One producer in particular conveyed the potential for high financial and material losses that could result from an increase in the cost of heating that would prevent greenhouses from operating in the autumn and winter causing major damage to plants that are already growing. Another merchant draws on the war in Ukraine and related global grain shortages, as well as the farmer protests taking place in the Netherlands at the time of the survey (because of higher environmental regulations), without elaborating on her position in this regard,

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to illustrate the dependence on supraregional supply chains, and especially for food. She anticipates the possibility of a continuing supply shortages with Dutch and French fruits and vegetables, and calls for greater independence by regional agriculture. According to this merchant, this would mean investing more resources in growing fruits and vegetables instead of producing resource-intensive meat products and bringing fallow land back into cultivation in the future.

4

Discussion

As the map concerning the distribution of vendors and regionally supplied sources of products illustrates (Fig. 1), all but one vendor and a fair share of their (supplied) products come from within a 100 kms radius of the weekly market in Tübingen. This fulfils the selfdefined individualistic-objective understanding of regionality (Heinze and Gebhardt 2012) or the understanding of regionality defined by political-administrative regions limited by the federal state border of Baden-Württemberg, to which most vendors refer. Additionally, this overlaps with the large-city-consumers definition according to Bubenheimer and Gebhardt (2012). Depending on the type of vendor, the Tübingen weekly market captures some of the introduced concepts of regionality and AFNs. For one, informed consumers have the possibility to buy products directly from self-producers integrated within regional short supply chains. Combining the sixteen of thirty-five vendors that produce exclusively themselves and a majority of twenty-two vendors producing at least parts of their offered products, the general trend points towards food which is produced regionally and finds its way into the consumer’s basket within short supply chains. Simultaneously the direct marketing from vendors to consumers reduces the anonymity of said products. Attributable to the given frame of the paper, the discussion will primarily focus further on fruits and vegetables. This is especially the case for vendors of fruits and vegetables, as 13 of 15 vendors at least partially produce their products themselves (Fig. 2). Consequently, consumers are offered a broad range of regionally self-produced fruits and vegetables. However, it must be emphasised that some vendors who are exclusively self-producing from their meadow orchards are only present at the market during harvest season (often referred to as “from cherries til’ apples”). In a similar vein, larger vendors who partly produce themselves stated that, while during the time of our study in summer their self-produced stock is high, there is a bigger dependency on external sources during autumn and winter. We notice a high quantity of fruits from Spain, France, and Italy being supplied by vendors through the wholesale market, as they state the fruits are not available in Baden-Wurttemberg. Nevertheless, one vendor offers these fruits from self-production in the climatically privileged Upper Rhine Valley, which is admittingly of greater distance than most vendors at the market, but still within the 100 kms radius. Conclusively, results show a strong

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seasonal dependence and therefore the number of self-producers present and the share of self-produced products available may fluctuate seasonally. The additional purchase of food by most of the regular and established fruit and vegetable vendors via the Stuttgart wholesale market must be considered separately. Most vendors refer especially to the producer’s hall included within the wholesale market in Stuttgart as an important source of products (Fig. 3). The producer’s hall is provided by the Stuttgart wholesale market as an alternative space, in which regional producers (‘region’ not explicitly defined here) can sell their products. The networks and organisational structure of the Stuttgart wholesale market could not be considered further. Yet, according to our research, products from larger fruit and vegetable farmers in various parts of Baden-Wurttemberg reach the weekly market in Tübingen via the producer hall and can be found here as regional products together with self-produced foods on offer at the market stalls. Particular attention can be paid to the fact that these products of large farmer-companies are also sold to supermarkets and discount stores as a contribution to the product range for regional brands. Other products, such as exotic fruits offered at the weekly market in Tübingen, are also indistinguishable from products available at conventional food stores. This observation supports the Goodman et al. (2012) assessment that the boundary between ‘alternative’ and ‘conventional’ food systems are highly vague as vendors and discounters alike compete to fill these marketing niches. On the other hand, the weekly market offers a space in which to sell fruits and vegetables which do not conform to conventional marketing standards and thus playing its part in sustainability practices. As one vendor recalled, these marketing standards are set by the European Commission and categorise the products by visual quality, ripeness, size, and set standardised labelling rules. She concluded that a tremendous number of products are already disregarded before they reach consumers as a result of these set standards. She further referred to the wholesale market saying that it declined buying the harvest because the products did not satisfy the necessary standards, even though “there was nothing wrong with it other than the size”. As such, the weekly market in Tübingen offers a platform on which such food waste can be tackled, supports small-scale farmers, and ultimately conserves the maintenance of meadow orchards through small family-owned businesses. At the same time, other product types must be separately discussed in front of the background of AFNs. Some vendors also offer products on the weekly market, which are characterised by transregional supply chains in the speciality business or further outsource value-adding steps—applying to the majority of ‘Dairy Products’, ‘Meat Products’, and ‘Mushrooms’. Here, few conclusions can be drawn regarding the initial producers involved, and the vendors adopt the role of a trusting person. Statements of well-known organisational structures could be viewed critically against the background of social desirability.

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Conclusion

Conclusively it can be summarised, that the amount of regionally produced fruits and vegetables among other food offered by small-scale dairy and meat producers, bakeries, and others, is high at the Tübingen weekly market. However, our research indicates this is highly dependent on seasonality. The weekly market further supports food distribution of direct producers, which are often small family-run businesses or owners of meadow orchards. Apart from direct production, the wholesale market and producer’s hall in Stuttgart function as a significant source for fruits and vegetables to enrich the range of products on offer beyond what is regionally or seasonally available. These, however, are often indistinguishable from the regional products sold in conventional systems. Other vendor types and product types all have their own, unique supply structure on which they rely—from sourcing products from well-known relations to company internal and trans-business organisations. Drawing onto the concepts of regionality and AFNs and its implicated benefits for consumers in traceability of food and related environmental benefits, further research is required to understand the impacts of diverse supply and value chains on weekly markets. As our research has demonstrated, producing and value-adding food distributors correspond to regionality and AFNs; and transregional supply networks, especially seen for speciality foods, may indicate an enrichment of local food accessibility. Additionally, the weekly market itself gives vendors a chance for higher urban presence in contrast to more rural marketing forms such as farm stores or online marketing. Further, the intensifications of regional food availability could be considered in view of desired benefits of AFNs, supporting local production, advancing local supply chains, social networks, and the entanglement of the weekly market within overall local food geographies. These enhancements may contribute to overall transformative patterns in conventional systems, and thus influence the shape of foodscapes.

References BMEL Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (2021): Deutschland, wie es isst. Der BMEL-Ernährungsreport 2021. BMEL Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (2022): Öko-Barometer 2021. Umfrage zum Konsum von Bio-Lebensmitteln. Borsellino, V., Schimmenti, E., & El Bilali, H. (2020). Agri-food markets towards sustainable patterns. Sustainability, 12(6), 2193. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12062193 Bubenheimer, A., & Gebhardt, B. (2012). Empirische Untersuchung der Bedeutung und Entwicklung regionaler Lebensmittel im Biomarkt aus Sicht des Lebensmitteleinzelhandels in Stuttgart. In B. Gebhardt (Ed.), Akzeptanz und Erfolg kleinräumiger Systeme der Lebensmittelversorgung im urbanen Umfeld am Beispiel Stuttgart: Empirische Untersuchungen von Verbrauchern und Unternehmen (Vol. 22, pp. 69–83). Stuttgart: Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre.

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Corsi, A., Barbera, F., Dansero, E., & Peano, C. (Eds.). (2018). Alternative food networks: An interdisciplinary assessment. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland/Palgrave Macmillan. Elsäßer, A., Benner, E., & Becker, T. (2006). Marketing auf Wochenmärkten. Hohenheimer Agrarökonomische Arbeitsberichte (Vol. 13). Stuttgart: Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.98634 Engelhardt, H., & Keck, M. (2017). Regionale Nahrungsversorgung im Raum Göttingen. In M. Keck, H. Faust, M. Fink, M. Gaedke, & T. Reeh (Eds.), Transformationsräume: Lokale Initiativen des sozial-ökologischen Wandels (pp. 156–170). Göttingen: Göttingen University Press. https:// doi.org/10.17875/gup2017-1067 Forssell, S., & Lankoski, L. (2015). The sustainability promise of alternative food networks: an examination through “alternative” characteristics. Agriculture and Human Values, 32(1), 63–75. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9516-4 Goodman, D., DuPuis, E. M., & Goodman, M. K. (2012). Alternative Food Networks. New York: Routledge. Heinze, K., & Gebhardt, B. (2012). Regionale Lebensmittel im Handel. In B. Gebhardt (Ed.), Akzeptanz und Erfolg kleinräumiger Systeme der Lebensmittelversorgung im urbanen Umfeld am Beispiel Stuttgart: Empirische Untersuchungen von Verbrauchern und Unternehmen (Vol. 22, pp. 19–27). Stuttgart: Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes—a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Lienert, A., & Blattert, S. (2012). Empirische Untersuchung der Akzeptanz kleinräumiger Lebensmittelversorgungssysteme aus Sicht der Verbraucher in Stuttgart. In B. Gebhardt (Ed.), Akzeptanz und Erfolg kleinräumiger Systeme der Lebensmittelversorgung im urbanen Umfeld am Beispiel Stuttgart: Empirische Untersuchungen von Verbrauchern und Unternehmen (Vol. 22, pp. 43–67). Stuttgart: Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre. Linckh, S. (2012). Kleinräumige Systeme der urbanen Lebensmittelversorgung. In B. Gebhardt (Ed.), Akzeptanz und Erfolg kleinräumiger Systeme der Lebensmittelversorgung im urbanen Umfeld am Beispiel Stuttgart: Empirische Untersuchungen von Verbrauchern und Unternehmen (Vol. 22, pp. 11–18). Stuttgart: Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre. MLR BW Ministerium für Ernährung, Ländlichen Raum und Verbraucherschutz BadenWürttemberg (n. d.). Regionale Vielfalt. Vielfältige landwirtschaftliche Produktion. Retrieved July 15, 2022, from https://mlr.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/unsere-themen/landwirtschaft/region ale-landwirtschaft/regionale-vielfalt/?print=1&type=98&cHash=b2c9cf922a55472c82d9d427 88b96a7b Rosol, M., & Strüver, A. (2018). (Wirtschafts-)Geographien des Essens: transformatives Wirtschaften und alternative Ernährungspraktiken. Zeitschrift Für Wirtschaftsgeographie, 62(3–4), 169–173. doi:https://doi.org/10.1515/zfw-2018-0005 Sarmiento, E. R. (2017). Synergies in alternative food network research: embodiment, diverse economies, and more-than-human food geographies. Agriculture and Human Values, 34(2), 485–497. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-016-9753-9 Sedelmeier, T., Kuhne, O., & Jenal, C. (2021). Foodscapes/Nahrungslandschaften: Eine Bestandsaufnahme. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Warschun, M., Rucker, M., Glusac, S., & Günther, D. (2013). Lebensmittel: Regional ist gefragter als bio. (A.T. Kearney report).

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The Characteristics of the Local Food Environment: The Case of Urziceni Municipality Alexandra-Cristina M˘argarit, Ioana-Georgiana Zafiu, and Elena-Valentina Z˘ah˘ar˘achescu

Abstract

The purpose of the article was to analyze the distribution of the food points based on the categories and the level of accessibility of the population to them. For this, multiple methods such as observation, cartographic and statistical methods were used, each of them contributing to the final results. A field investigation was carried out based on the non-participative observation followed by the creation of the illustrative support using QGIS Software, which was analyzed in the interpretative stages. This process included quantitative and qualitative data, which were presented using visual support, represented by multiple maps, and also by the analyses of the spatial indicators such as density and travel time. There are thirty-six food points which were classified into seven categories according on the type of products sold. Among these, the largest category is that of restaurants, followed in order by mini-markets, pastries, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, and one agro market. Findings show that there is an unequal distribution of the food points across town, most concentrated in the southeastern part, which reflects the current situation of the food system. Visible effects can be seen in the outskirts area, where the density has minimum values, which may determine the formation of a ‘food desert’ zone future. A high value of the density was registered A.-C. M˘argarit (B) · I.-G. Zafiu · E.-V. Z˘ah˘ar˘achescu University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] I.-G. Zafiu e-mail: [email protected] E.-V. Z˘ah˘ar˘achescu e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_16

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in the central part of the town, which has become ‘a hot-spot zone’. This irregularity can be seen even in the values of the travel time, where the average travel time by car is considered optimal, being within four to six minutes, in comparison with the one registered to the average travel time by walking, more than twenty to thirty minutes to the food points. All the disparities may be resolved by correlations between the spatial planning process and evaluations regarding the residential area expansion trend with the location strategy of the food points. Keywords

Local • Food environment • Food • Travel time • Density • Accessibility • Categories

1

Introduction

Evaluating the food environment at local scale has become a current topic, because of the multiple factors which contribute or, on the contrary, affect the development of a food system by the characteristic of the urban space (Eckert and Vojnovic 2017). Thus, each urban zone developed its own food system, which should not be evaluated by comparison but as a single entity that manages to contribute to the national food system. The food system plays an important role in daily life, representing an indirect factor that influences the welfare of the population and which affects the way society develops. For this, the food system depends on the geographical aspects but also the sociodemographic ones, which, according to the studies in the field, shows the relationship that exists between humans and the natural factor. The current situation regarding the food system in the urban areas is caused by some political factors from the past but also the influences from the more developed states. In the recent decades, Romania went through significant political, economic, and social changes regarding the transition between communism and liberalism, which led to a series of changes even in the food field. Thus, with the release of totalitarian restrictions, the food system benefited from a diversity of food products, and the development of the means of production but also took over the western policies of presentation and expansion in terms of food chains. The development in the mainstream food system has been accompanied by growth in local food systems to maintain homogeneity. All of the above can be considered general issues which will be analyzed through the chapters, but, along with this, the food system should be seen also at a microstructural level outcomes of the multiple differences between regions. To approach the topic in as much detail as possible, it was necessary to choose a narrower area of analysis that could satisfy the criteria. This paper focuses on a particular case, more specifically, the case of Urziceni Municipality, located in Ialomit, a County. The aim of the article was to analyze the distribution of the food points based on the categories and the level of accessibility of the population to

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them. The study will materialize through a realistic and synthetic analysis of the current situation in the chosen area. To achieve this purpose, it is particularly important to take into consideration a series of characteristics of the local food environment such as mapping, classifying and spatial distribution of the food points. Indices such as travel time and density were used to estimate the grade of accessibility depending on the localization of food points, the population residence, and the distance between those two. Also, from the very beginning, it was necessary to establish the ideas during the course of the chapters, as well as keywords and concepts that together broadly define the theme. These keywords are ‘foodscapes’, ‘local’, ‘food’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘environment’. The concept of ‘foodscapes’ has been widely used to describe how the daily practices of accessing food among the urban poor are embedded in “complex and contradictory negotiation of both sites of encounter and care, and also exclusion and regulation.” (Miewald and McCann 2014). The notion of foodscape is used to describe our food environments and to assess the potential impact on food choice and food behavior (Mikkelsen 2011; in this volume, see concerning this context: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). On a spatial scale, an efficient food system depends on the grade of accessibility which is especially important in the process of satisfying primary needs. The geographical accessibility of food services refers to the access of food options in a specific location that is available in an area (Bao et al. 2020). Another definition describes accessibility to food as the capacity to obtain services from the providers (Dai and Wang 2011). Besides the location aspects, accessibility also refers to the type of food services that are found and the optimal location relative to the strategic placement (Bao et al. 2020). In the absence of a strategic location for food outlets, disparities in access many results within an urban area (Bivoltsis et al. 2019). Another definition says that there are three factors that can describe the access to food represented by preference, affordability and allocation (Capone et al. 2014). Turning back to the microstructural level, the term ‘local food’ reveals the aspects that are presented throughout the article which should always be in harmony in order to have a quality food system. Researchers have defined local food based on spatial (food travel distance, driving hours, geographic boundaries, marketing distribution channels, and social regional specialties elements) (Zhang et al 2022). In this case, the keyword ‘local’ has a geographical connotation, referring to spatial accessibility, though it can be understood the impact of distance, position, and the density of food points on the residence of each consumer (McFadden 2015). Local food is about distance and researchers found that it represents a fairly small area around where the consumer lives or purchases the product (Hingley and Boone 2010). The integration of all these previously exposed components can be distinguished as a food environment that presents the basis of the research theme. Local food environments “comprise the foods available to people in their surroundings as they go about their everyday lives and the nutritional quality, safety, price, convenience, labeling and promotion of these foods.”

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FAO (2016) Food environments refer to the physical, economic, political, and sociocultural contexts in which consumers engage with the food system to make their decisions about acquiring, preparing, and consuming food (Global Nutrition Report 2020). This kind of environment is in continuous change, because of urbanization, trade liberalization, and distinctive factors for each urban food system. Thus, at the end of the study, it is necessary to have an answer to the questions of “WHY/HOW/WHAT determined the current situation in the municipality?”. During the analysis, the previously mentioned terms and the connection between them becomes clarified and also an understanding of the local factors that managed to determine the definition of today’s food system within the Urziceni Municipality. The preceding concerns are general issues which will be analyzed through the chapters, but, along with this, the food system should be seen also at a microstructural level because of the multiple differences between regions.

2

Study Area

The Urziceni Municipality is a city of rank II in Romania, according to law 315/2001 art. 2, regarding the development plan of the national territory—IV Section -The network of urban and rural localities. It is located in the southeastern part of the country, in the B˘ar˘agan Plain, the subdivision of the Romanian Plain (General Urban Plan—Urziceni Municipality 2000). According to the General Urban Plan of Urziceni Municipality, the area is part of Ialomit, a County (Fig. 1), located in the eastern part of the territorial administrative unit, closer to the limit with Buz˘au County. The total administrative surface of the municipality is about 5.404 hectares, from which the town has 662 hectares. It borders to the south with Cos, ereni, on the west with Arm˘as, es, ti and B˘arbules, ti, on the eastern part with Manasia, on north-east with Gârbovi commune and the north-west with Ciocârlia. The Urziceni Municipality is located at the intersection of the road E85 (Bucures, ti—Buz˘au) with E60 (Ploies, ti—Constant, a). An important aspect that should be noted is represented by the population which in our evaluation represented the main consumer that determines the development of some processes such as competitiveness, diversification, and promotion. According to the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics, the municipality population was 16259 inhabitants in 2021, being in a declining process in comparison with the previous statistic. The majority age group is the adult population, followed by the elderly population in the case of which a phenomenon of demographic aging is progressively developing.

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Fig. 1 The localization of the study area

3

Methodological Approach

In the process of highlighting the characteristics and the population’s access to the food environment from Urziceni Municipality, in the initial phase, an approach plan was elaborated and, concretized in the form of work stages. It is based on field investigation and statistical analysis of the food option categories and their different characteristics. The first stage is represented by the process of choosing the study area, taking into consideration multiple factors such as the characteristics of the town (typology, localization, infrastructure) and easy mapping because of the restricted territory, with high development potential. To obtain relevant results, in the first step, two hypotheses formulate this study: 1. “The food points are spread heterogeneously in Urziceni Municipality.” 2. “The resident population from the outskirts travel longer to the food points in comparison with the one from the city center.” These two hypotheses were evaluated applying analysis of the cartographic support and the values obtained during the office stage. Given the complexity of the topic, this study

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focuses more on the objective data such as localization, accessibility, and proximity rather than qualitative values which requires the subjective perception of the population and the quality of the products (Penney et al. 2015). In order to access food options, is important to take into consideration the economic and physical components, which are the base of food and nutrition security (Capone et al. 2014). The following stage evaluates the topic by reading several scientific articles which approach the topic of interest as the main one. For this, the Science Direct search site, provided bibliographic materials which were used, located using the keywords ‘local’, ‘food’, and ‘accessibility’. After this stage, a field retrospection was necessary, using the observation method to track the food point localization in space and the traffic of the consumers who are accessing the food options. The observation method is linked to observations as basis for what is known can be explained and examined Chelcea (2001). Non-participative observation evaluated the habits and the preferences that consumers have in terms of the typology of the item preferred and the traffic level throughout the day. The advantages of this method are, in the first place, the superiority in comparison with the investigation or documentary study nonverbal behavior is studied. The remarked observations were noted and used in the next stages to assess as accurately as possible at the level of the whole city (Chelcea 2001). Regarding the food environment, Urziceni city has a complex system based on multiple categories of food points, which are described through a set of criteria such as size, opening hours, and the availability of fresh organic products. Thus, the food types were divided into six categories represented by agromarket, restaurants, supermarket, minimarket, fast-food restaurants, and pastry. Using the information from the field stage, the satellite images, vector, and raster data, the cartographical method generated suggestive maps for our study theme. Geographic information systems mapping facilitated the research, highlighting the spatial factors on a detailed basis (Mark 2014) Thus, QGis Software (3.22.3- Białowie˙za) in which was inputted a series of layers including OpenStreetMap (Word Map) and the vector data type: line, point, and polygon. After this, its data set ran through the vectorization process of the town streets, using Vertex Tool, which was saved as a new layer called “Street plot”. After this, it was necessary to create a layer that highlights the contour of the urban area also using the Vertex Tool. The next step was to localize the food points to geocode them using point vector type, realizing a classification of them depending on the typology. Thus, there were six types of food points, represented by: supermarkets, minimarkets, restaurants, agromarket, pastries, and fast-food restaurants. Furthermore, the Buffer function determined the zone around food points within 1 kilometer. Using this function, we may see the accessibility of people to supermarkets and an agromarket. The distance of one kilometer was chosen as an indicator because it is considered the optimal travel distance for the population to do their food shopping (The Committee for People’s Council Issues 1986). After the cartographic stage, it was necessary to calculate the density to see if the location of the food points is an optimal and homogeneous one. The Kernel method was

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selected for this, a nonparametric approach highly used in the statistical analysis of data to determine the shape of the weighting function (Botev et al. 2010). The density is calculated based on the number of points in a location, with larger numbers of clustered points resulting in larger values. Using this method, each food point is represented on the map (Fig. 3) surface by a cone (kernel) and the radius. The map result was modified using ‘Geoprocessing Tools—Dissolve’ to be easier to understand; also, the function ‘Contour’ was used to highlight each cell. Thus, the cells near the cone center receive higher values of service capacity and those near the periphery of the cone receive little (Trembosova and Jakab 2021). Additionally, the ‘Contour’ function highlighted each cell. After this process, the resulting values were reclassified into seven classes using the tool ‘Reclass’. Subsequently, these classes were divided into three intervals that justify the ranking of the results (minimum value—0-5.0, median value 5.1-15, maximum value 15.1- 21.0) (Trembosova and Jakab 2021; Botev et al. 2010). Next, it was necessary to calculate the travel time of the population to the food points to know the proximity. As a definition, travel time is an indicator that highlights the effort that people are willing to expend in order to obtain food (Athira et al. 2016). In this stage, the web service Google Maps was used to see how long it takes for a citizen to travel on foot and by car to each food location using the shortest route. The obtained information is presented in the Sect. 3.2 together with a graph that highlights the current situation regarding the distances. All the data obtained were analyzed and interpreted, thus creating an overview of the current situation in Urziceni Municipality regarding the attributes of population accessibility to the food environment.

4

Results and Discussions

4.1

Accessibility to all the categories of food establishments

The evaluation of the food shops distribution from Urziceni needs to be correlated with the geographical aspects, which show the living population density and development trends of housing spaces over the years. In the recent decades, in Urziceni Municipality, a development in the northern area exists that is separated from the rest of the city by a railway. In 2012, the total area of Urziceni Municipality was exactly 318.247 square meters, and every year the town has grown significantly, reaching in 2016 a value of 322.566 square meters (General Urban Plan—Urziceni Municipality 2000). In general, food locations mean the places where edible foods are available to consumers, but in this case, taking into consideration also restaurants and fast-foods options, where the meal is prepared on the spot. The necessity of the homogeneous distribution of food points is indispensable

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and the implementation of these modifications can bring improvements to the heavy traffic but also the high flow of customers from the already existing supermarkets. 1. Pastries. There were five food points of this category in the Urziceni Municipality during 2021. Regarding the spatial aspects, they are located along the main artery, named Calea Bucures, ti, an area with a high housing population density and a high flow of customers. At the macrostructural level, these in the south of the urban settlement, where there are a variety of food establishments, in comparison, the northern part has a deficiency of pastry shops. Therefore, some town areas are not included in the buffer zone which, is considered optimal for the distance from home to the food point which represents a failure for the Urziceni Municipalities food system. 2. Fast-food restaurants. Another category found in Urziceni which is frequented recently by the population because of ease, rapidity, and taste. In Urziceni Municipality, there are four fast-food restaurants, located on the main road, in the southeastern part of the city. These food points manage to create a toxic zone, because of the products they are promoting and the effects these can have on the consumer’s health. Using the buffer function on a 1 km area, it was observed that there are areas in the northern and eastern parts of the city where the population needs to travel a considerable distance to arrive at the nearest fast-food restaurant The placement of these units is not homogeneous in the town but it is arises as a concentrated zone of food points between 500–1000 m one by another. 3. Restaurants. In Urziceni, the restaurants have the highest density of all the analyzed categories, numbering eleven (food points) both in the city radius and in the proximity of Urziceni (Fig. 2). Regarding localization, these are spread in multiple zones, however, with easy access to the leading artery. Over 70% of the consumers walk 1 km or less than 1 km to the nearest restaurant. However, the problem remains with the population from the north and northeast, in a small percentage, walking more than 1 km to the restaurant. A large number of restaurants in Urziceni and peri-urban areas can be attributed to the increased consumer demand. The restaurants offer mostly the same type of menu, one with a relatively wide variety of dishes, and offer quite affordable prices for the mass consumers. It is also worth mentioning that the development of these businesses is because all have implemented the home delivery service, which has increased their attractiveness to the population. As mentioned, some of the restaurants are located in the peri-urban area of Urziceni, along DN2 / E85, which provides to them a much higher profit, because of the influx of consumers in transit who stop to eat. 4. Agromarket. In Urziceni, the only agromarket is located in the center of the study area. One can discuss a strategic position, related to the central localization and the proximity of the main artery. Through the buffer function of 1 km, it can be noticed again the fact that the concentration zone includes a small part of the outside study territory (Fig. 2). The northern and western parts are anew disadvantaged because of the

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Fig. 2 Study area showing the location of the restaurants and the agromarket

high distance from the point of purchase of food. Also, in this case, the travel time to the reference zone is longer for the consumers situated in the north and west, compared to the ones who live around the hot spot. The municipality agromarket is composed of a precinct with an area of 647.86 square meters, where the local distributors operate their marketing activities with fruits and vegetables. In addition to the mentioned precinct, there are illegal stalls, which surround the area within a radius of fifty meters. It is noted that although there is a single agromarket in town (Fig. 2) this can satisfy the demand and the number of the population. Regarding the marketed products, it offers diversity, in comparison with those found in supermarkets. Although the quality of products from the agromarket is superior, being grown by local producers (S. W. U. 2010). 5. Mini-markets. The distribution is relatively homogeneous, the food objectives managing to satisfy the needs of almost the entire municipality within a radius of 1 km. In the Northeastern area of the city regarding food points, there is only one minimarket, which represents a disservice of the food system. The higher concentration of minimarkets is on either side of the main traffic artery. The number of these types of store chains is seven. Because of the presence of such a food objective in the southeastern part of the study area, the resident population in the aforementioned area has easy and

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Fig. 3 Kernel density of food points in the Urziceni Municipality

fast access to food. The presence of minimarkets is indispensable for citizens so that the daily and primary requirements of customers are met. Access to this type of store must be characterized by ease and speed. The continuous tendency of expansion of the area and implicitly the progressive increase of the population density in this area makes the flow and the demand increase, the minimarket type food point not being able to satisfy the needs of the flow of consumers. 6. Supermarkets. Numbering four, they are situated in the center and southeastern study area, on both sides of the main road. Using the buffer function of 1 km area, a vast coverage extends towards the south-eastern zone, and also, in this area, there are included areas outside the study domain.

4.2

Spatial Distribution - Kernel Density

It was necessary to apply the mathematical method, in order to gain quantitative data, which is very important to define the report between the number of consumers and the ones of total food points.

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Thus, the density of food points was calculated using the Kernel method, which highlights the core and layers around it. “In econometrics, Kernel density estimation is also known as the Parzen- Rosenblatt window method.” Zambon and Diaz (2012) Kernel density estimation is a technique that helps to estimate the probability density of the vectors. The process was based on the spatial localization of all of the food points presented through the line-type vectors (Weglarczyk 2018). To determine this indicator, it was necessary to complete the following steps to justify the final result. In the first step, the vectorization of the food points was required using the QGis Software (3.22.3—Białowie˙za); this process was facilitated by the use of a basic map from OpenStreetMap. Subsequent phases consisted of unloading and the use of the Heatmap plugin, for calculating the density for all the food points in the Urziceni Municipality. Heatmaps allow easy identification of hotspots and clustering of points. After that, the resulting map was adapted to be able to easily interpret the values and to have an accurate presentation of the situation analyzed. To do the custom coloration „Single-band pseudocolor” highlighted the central core and all the layers around it according to the density criterion; layers were pointed also by the contour lines. The layers of the map include the neighboring areas, the streets, and the food points based on which the density was calculated. It is particularly important to point out that the vast majority of food points are found inside the urban area, but there are also points from outside, that is part of the city’s influence area. Figure 3 illustrates the location of all types of grocery stores, thus highlighting areas with varying degrees of satisfaction correlating the products they offer (Mark 2014). There were chosen seven classes of values that represent the intervals and the cells that surround the central core. Mapping the location of all the food points from the urban area revealed that the food system is characterized by disparities attributable the lack of expansion of food points at the same pace with and in the areas where there is a tendency to develop residential space (Eckert and Vojnovic 2017). In Urziceni municipality, there are several thirty-six food points of which the highest density is registered in the southerneastern part of the town, where the central core is formed. Besides this, the localization of the core in the central part can be justified through the ease of access, in comparison with other areas. Therefore, to these zones, access is easy, because of the main road but also the connection with the bypassed artery. According to the map (Fig. 3), there is a trend of delocalization of the core to the southwest part where, in recent decades, there are new food points, on the main road. On the other side, the lowest density is located in the peri-urban area, with a value of 2.0 food points per square kilometer. These characteristics show that there is a heterogeneous spread of food points in Urziceni Municipality, therefore the first hypothesis is verified. The phenomenon of localization of the food points in the central and semi-central parts of the city leads to the definition of a hot-spot zone. This area is influenced by the high daily flow of consumers, because of the multifunctionality and the age of the area. Thus,

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there is a high degree of habitation, which decreases progressively to the peri-urban area, directly proportional to the degree of accessibility (Trembosova and Jakab 2021). According to Law No. 58/1974, regarding the systematization of urban and rural localities, housing constructions are built up from the central part of the town to the peri-urban area, ensuring an increased density to concentrations and development of the twenty continuous built areas. This phenomenon largely addressing historical causes has created the neglect of the peripheral areas that are undergoing notable changes that determine the increase of the urban areas of the city. The lack of space in the central area of the city influenced the development of new residential spaces in the peripheral area. It is a failure regarding the peripheral areas (N, NE, and S) of the town, where the development of the neighborhoods in the recent decades lead to discussion regarding the problem of travel time. The economic potential of these areas should be highlighted to achieve a proper dispersion of the food points.

4.3

Spatial Accessibility - Travel Time

Travel time was used to measure spatial accessibility to supermarkets and to agromarket for Urziceni Municipality. To calculate the travel time for this study, the Google Maps platform function “Directions” established the routes. The most frequent way of measuring the accessibility to food points is by throwing physical distance and spatial elements which should calculate how people can easily access the food points. An important thing to point out is that consumers do not necessarily go shopping at the closest food point, even if they do not have a personal vehicle (Carson and Boege 2020). In this situation, having available transportation is a necessity, especially in an urban area, where the distance between home and store can increase substantially (Kihlstrom et al. 2018). Thereby, a series of streets were chosen from different zones: North, South, West, and East. As food points the city market and three supermarkets were chosen: Agromarket, Lidl, Profi and Penny. The shortest route was calculated automatically via this web platform to arrive at the destination both by car and on foot (Fig. 4). According to the analysis, there is a need to build supermarkets and agromarket food points to the extremities to meet the needs of the population living there. These time intervals represent the maximum number of minutes spent by citizens to procure food from the mentioned food points. The closer we get to the range of these supermarkets the shorter time. An important aspect to consider is the lack of public transport which is one of the main factors that influences the travel time, more exactly, it affects the accessibility and also the quality of housing in Urziceni Municipality. The absence of a public transport system can be identified as a barrier for a certain population, especially for the elderly or those who might not have a personal vehicle. Public transportation could support food access, especially for those with no transportation, although routes would need to be convenient and reach neighborhoods with food

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Fig. 4 Accessibility to the food points on foot and by car (in minutes)

points (Carson and Boege 2020). This impediment may force the population to choose the closest store even if it is not the one that promotes healthy food or the products they want. Costs are added to these, with high prices for transportation being correlated with the phenomenon of affordability, the ability to purchase enough safe and nutritious food. In this case, there is an inversely proportional relationship between those two, prices being a factor of influence on the food habits of the population. Within Romania, there is no legal framework regarding the accessibility to proximity services, the last normative act regarding the planning of the proximity shopping centers being the one from 1986. According to Law No. 58/1974 on the systematization of the territory and urban and rural localities, the importance of a judicious organization of the territory of the localities, including the location of social (socio-cultural) facilities based on location studies, systematization details, and the needs of the population from the respective locality are defined. The Normative Act of 1986 was repealed on December 26, 1989, together with the entire legislation regarding planning. However, at present, it is considered that the optimal time to travel to local services should not exceed fifteen minutes (The Committee for People’s Council Issues 1986). As may be seen in the graphic (Fig. 4), in terms of travel by car, travel time is optimal, being within four to six minutes, regardless of the area from which the starting point is chosen. The situation changes in the case of travel time by walking. This time there are problems for consumers living in the north,

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south, and west areas of the city, they travel more than twenty minutes to the food points mentioned. Based on this analysis, the second is verified therefore the resident population from the outskirts travel longer to the food units in comparison with the one from the city center. In general, travel time represents a method by which it is measuring the time spent on the route, consisting of a starting point and one or more points of arrival. The reason why there are two types of transportation is that some people prefer walking and others prefer a means of transportation. In the case of the agromarket, which has a central position within the municipality, there is a long travel time from the northern and western areas to the food unit. Travel time on foot is estimated between twenty-one and twenty-four minutes and by car is estimated between five-ten minutes. Because of the area’s there is a greater distance from the agromarket of these areas compared to the south and east of the city, where the walking time is between ten-fifteen minutes, and by car, it takes four minutes. Supermarkets are also located towards the city center, on either side of the main road. Extreme points specific to each mentioned area were again chosen and it is observed that the eastern area is the most advantageous in terms of accessibility to supermarkets. The population in this area travels between eight-eleven minutes to the Penny, Lidl, and Profi stores, and by car, the time is shortened to two-four minutes. The extreme points of the north, south, and west areas face lower accessibility, with the population being forced to walk between twenty-two and twenty-eight minutes. Again, this phenomenon is result of the configuration of the area. By car, travel time is reduced to five-six minutes.

5

Conclusion

The article aim was to analyze the distribution of the food points based on the categories and the level of accessibility of the population to them. This purpose was accomplished by verifying the hypotheses from the beginning which were confirmed. The first one, “The food points are spread heterogeneously in Urziceni Municipality”, was confirmed by calculating the Kernel Density and by the interpretations of these values. The second hypothesis, “The resident population from the outskirts travel longer to the food points in comparison with the one from the city center” was also confirmed by calculating the travel time. In conclusion, the accessibility from Urziceni Municipality can be improved especially in the outskirts zone where there is a deficit of food points. Findings show that the distribution of the food points is unequal, being concentrated along the main road which crosses the city. All of this analysis demonstrates that the development of the food accessibility system needs to be correlated with urban policies, to increase sustainability and to implement the right rules to improve the quality of life (Fore et al. 2021). In the urban space, there needs to exist an interaction between all the elements which characterize a town, especially in terms of food, which is considered an indispensable substance for life (Diez et al. 2016; Trembosova and Jakab 2021).

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References Athira, I. C., Muneera, C. P., Krishnamurthy, K., & Anjaneyulu, M. V. L. (2016). Estimation of Value of Travel Time for Work Trips. Elsevier,17, 116–123. Bao Yang, K., Daoqin, T., David, A. P., Ph. D., & Buechler, S. (2020). Urban food accessibility and diversity: Exploring the role of small non-chain grocers, Elsevier,125, 1–10. Bivoltsis, A., Trapp, G., Knuiman, M., Hooper, P., & Ambrosini, G. (2019). The evolution of local food environments within established neighborhoods and new developments in Perth, Western Australia. Elsevier, 57, 204–217. Botev, Z. I., Grotowski, J. F., & Kroese, D. P. (2010). Kernel Density Estimation via Diffusion. Brisbane: University of Queensland. Capone, R., El Bilali, H., Debs, P., & Cardone, G. (2014). Food economic accessibility and affordability in the Mediterranean region: an exploratory assessment at micro and macro levels. Journal of Food Security, 1, 1–12. Carson, J., & Boege, S. (2020). The Intersection of Food Availability, Access and Affordability with Food Security and Health. New Hampshire: New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation. Caspi, A., C., Glorian, S., Subramanian, S., V., & Ichiro Kawachi (2012). The local food environment and diet: A systematic review.Elsevier, 18, 1186–1187. Chelcea, S. (2001). Sociological Research Techniques. Bucharest: University of Bucharest, 143–146. Dai, D., & Wang, F. (2011). Geographic disparities in accessibility to food stores in southwest Mississippi. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 38(4), 659–677. Diez, J., Usama, B., Cerbecos, A., Buczynski, A., Robert, S., L., Thomas, G., et. al (2016). Understanding differences in the local food environment across countries: A case study in Madrid (Spain) and Baltimore (USA). Elsevier, 89, 237–244. Eckert, J., & Vojnovic, I. (2017). Fast food landscapes: Exploring restaurant choice and travel behavior for residents living in lower eastside Detroit neighborhoods. Elsevier, 89, 41–51. FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2016). Influencing food environments for healthy diets through food safety. Rome: FAO. Fore, H., Beasley, D., & Gilbert, H. (2021). Food Security and Nutrition in the World, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Available online: https://www.fao.org/, (Accessed on 2 August 2022). Hingley, M., & Boone, J., (2010). Local Food Marketing: Factors for Growth of Small Agri- food Businesses in the UK, Department of Business Management and Marketing , 49, 14–15. Kihlstrom, L., Dobbins, J., Burris, M, & McGrath, Emily. (2018). Food Insecurity and Health Related Quality of Life: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Older Adults in Florida, U.S. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 1–23. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes—a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Law no. 58/1974 - Regarding the Systematization of the Territory and Urban and Rural Localities. Available online: https://legislatie.just.ro/ (Accessed on 18 July 2022). Law no. 315/2001 - Regarding the Development plan of the national territory. Available online: https://legislatie.just.ro/ (Accessed on 15 July 2022). LeClair, M. S., & Aksan, A.-M. (2014). Redefining the food desert: combining GIS with direct observation, Springer, 1–11. McFadden, D. T. (2015). What Do We Mean by “Local Foods”?. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, 30(1), 1–6.

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Mikkelsen, B. E. (2011). Images of foodscapes: Introduction to foodscape studies and their application in the study of healthy eating out-of-home environments, Perspectives in Public Health,3, 1–3. Miewald, C., & McCann, E. (2014). Foodscapes and the geographies of poverty: sustenance, strategy, and politics in an urban neighborhood. A Radical Journal of Geography, 2, 537–556. National Institute of Statistics (2022). Indicator. Available online: http://statistici.insse.ro:8077/ tempo-online/. (Accessed on 4 July 2022). Penney, T. L., Maguire, E., Brown, H., & Kuhn I. (2015). Local food environment interventions to improve healthy food choice in adults: a systematic review realist synthesis protocol, BMJ Open, 5, 1–6. Pinho, M. G., Mackenbach, J., Charreire, H., Oppert, J., Bardo, H., & Rutter, H. et al. (2018). Spatial access to restaurants and grocery stores in relation to the frequency of home cooking. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 15:6,1–9. Science, W. U. (2010). Problems of World Agriculture. Warsaw: Warsaw University of Life Sciences Press. Steve, M. (2010). Local Food Systems. Economic Research Report, 97, 3–4. The Committee for People’s Council Issues (1986). Norms Regarding the Judicious Dimensioning of Urban and Rural Localities. Available online: https://press.un.org/en/2022/ngo930.doc. htm (Accessed on 20 July 2022). Trembosova, M., & Jakab, I. (2021). Spreading of Food Deserts in Time and Space: The Case of the City of Nitra (Slovakia), Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 13, 1–13. Urziceni Municipality (2000). General Urban Plan - Urziceni Municipality. Available online: http:/ /www.primaria-urziceni.ro/files/ (Accessed on 4 July 2022). Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Victoria Transport Policy Institute (2019). Transport Cost and Benefit Analysis II- Travel Time Costs, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 1–26. Weglarczyk, S. (2018). Kernel density estimation and its application, Proceedings of 23th ITM Web of Conferences,23, 31–115. Zambom, A. Z., & Diaz, R. (2012). A Review of Kernel Density Estimation with Applications to Econometrics. International Econometric Review, 1–23. Zhang, T., Chen, J., & Grunert, K. G. (2022). Impact of consumer global–local identity on attitude towards and intention to buy local foods. Elsevier, 96, 1–10. Zucchini, W. (2003). Applied Smoothing Techniques - Kernel Density Estimation, Hefei: University of Science and Technology of China, 1–20.

Alexandra-Cristina M˘argarit is a final year student in geography, specialized in territorial planning. She is passionate about carrying out geographical analyzes regarding the phenomena that take place in terrestrial space. Cristina participates in the events that take place in the framework of the Territorial Planning Scientific Circle, she was part of the geography students’ association, having active involvements and is open to any activities that involve the field of geography. She is also interested in observing dysfunctions in different areas of interest and identifying the premises of a sustainable development within a territory.

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Ioana-Georgiana Zafiu is a final year student in geography, specialized in territorial planning. She is passionate about spatial distrubution of geographic phenomena related to urban planning and development and events that occur in terrestrial space. Georgiana took classes on smart health as part of the Civis ProgramShe participated in extracurricular activities at the University of Bucharest in the Geographic Students Association.. Georgiana now takes part in events organized by the Territorial Planning Scientific Circle. Besides that, she has a keen interest in spatial analysis and aspects of the foodscape that influence the population’s accessibility to food services. Z˘ah˘ar˘achescu Elena-Valentina is a final year student in geography, specializing in territorial planning, with interest in spatial accessibility. She is passionate about the education system and the phenomena which include human health. Valentina participates in the events of the Civis Program which include the health system, in the events that take place in the Territorial Planning Scientific Circle, and also in the geography students’ s associations events. She is also interested in foodscapes and their impact on human society for multiple services.

Normative Approaches

Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Its Impact on Consumption Habits Cristiane da Silva Lopes do Nascimento

Abstract

This study aims to examine the impact of a sugar-sweetened beverage tax on the consumer. To this end, it analyses the main characteristics and forms of implementation of such a tax, as well as investigates the reasons for its success and failure, based on the analysis of its application in various countries in Europe and the Americas region, with special emphasis on the Catalan tax, in order to better understand the variations in results from one country to another. Keywords

Tax on sugar sweetened beverages • Taxation • Fiscal policies • Obesity

1

Introduction

Rising rates of obesity and overweight have become major health problems worldwide. Among the main factors that contribute to obesity and overweight, we can highlight a poor diet comprised of excessive consumption of fat and salt, as well as the consumption of sugar, which is found in an inordinate amount in sugary drinks such as sodas, industrialised juices, and energy drinks. Faced with this situation, the World Health Organisation recommended the imposition of taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages as a fiscal policy to combat obesity. Many countries

C. da Silva Lopes do Nascimento (B) Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_17

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have implemented types of specific tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, some with quite positive results and others having lesser success. This study aims to analyse the main aspects of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, the possible ways of implementation and its effects on consumers. This analysis is necessary because there are many doubts about the effectiveness of this type of tax since the results of its implementation vary drastically from one country to another. To this end, we will first analyse the main characteristics of this tax, the types of rates applicable and the possible tax bases, and then study the elasticity that this tax should have. This is followed by an analysis of the results found in different countries in Europe and the Americas region, with a special section on the tax implemented in Catalonia. Finally, a reflection is made about the best way to apply this type of tax and its potential alternatives.

2

Why Implement a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages?

According to studies conducted by the WHO on 9 June 2021, since 1975 obesity has tripled worldwide. In 2016, about 39% of the adult population was overweight, and 13% were obese. Childhood obesity also holds frightening statistics: forty-one million children under the age of five are overweight or obese, while more than 340 million children and adolescents between the ages of five and nineteen suffer from the same problem (WHO 2021). Multiple causes have made obesity a global concern, such as socio-economic factors, food shortages, lack of physical activity and a more sedentary lifestyle, but above all one of the main factors is undoubtedly the change in people’s eating habits, which have shifted towards consuming a greater amount of ultra-processed foods or ‘junk food’. These foods are often high in fat, sugar, and sodium, containing artificial ingredients that are unhealthy and lack the nutrients needed by humans. Obesity and overweight have disastrous consequences for health, primarily because they are risk factors for the development of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, joint diseases, cancers such as breast, prostate, and colon cancer, and cardiovascular diseases such as stroke. The chances of suffering from one of these non-communicable diseases increase if the person is overweight or obese. The WHO also states that obesity in childhood increases the likelihood of obesity in adulthood, premature death, and disability, and that obese children are more susceptible to respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and are more prone to suffer from fractures (WHO 2021). As we know, public policies, such as subsidies and taxation, can have a strong influence on consumption. Taxation of unhealthy foods—e.g., foods containing too much sugar, sodium, or ingredients harmful to human metabolism—if properly implemented and applied in conjunction with other fiscal policies, such as subsidies for the purchase of fruits and vegetables, can create a powerful system reducing non-communicable diseases.

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This is because, to the extent that subsidies are offered, either by lowering taxes, offering facilities to produce fresh foods, or offering vouchers for the purchase of healthy foods (such as fruit and vegetables), people tend to change their shopping habits and switch to eating healthy foods more frequently thereby replacing ultra-processed foods. The same happens when unhealthy foods are taxed, as consumers tend to change their habits, either by decreasing their consumption or by looking for healthier substitutes. This also has a powerful side effect on the food industry, as with increased consumption of healthy foods and decreased consumption of ultra-processed foods, the industry is forced to adapt and increase the production of fresh food, as well as seek a substitution for unhealthy food. As a last direct consequence of the implementation of these fiscal policies, a decrease in risk factors for non-communicable diseases, such as obesity and high cholesterol, can be observed in both the long and short term (WHO 2016, pp. 12–13). Presently, the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages arises as a possible response to the problem of obesity and other non-communicable diseases. This tax aims to change consumer eating habits by redirecting the purchase of high-sugar beverages to healthier beverages. In addition, taxing unhealthy foods, such as sugary drinks, has the benefit of generating revenue for the state, which can also be used to better resolve the problem, such as imposing a system of prevention and improving the primary care system for non-communicable diseases. It is a method to help deal with the externalities caused by the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, particularly obesity and other non-communicable diseases that represent a considerable cost to the entire population (e.g., the cost to public health). Therefore, this type of taxation allows to ‘internalise’ those costs associated with excessive sugar consumption, making people who decide to continue consumption pay a higher price for this type of product (López Casasnovas 2013, p. 542). Taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages can take the form of an increase in the VAT rate (Value Added Tax), the creation of an excise tax, or a combination of both. The main difference between both taxes is that VAT takes the form of ad valorem tax, that is, the tax is made based on the value of the product (a percentage of the value of the product is the amount of the tax), while the excise tax can be ad valorem or specific, when taxation is made on the basis of product size or amount. In the latter case, in addition to the collection capacity, taxation also has an extra-fiscal purpose, as with the implantation on products such as tobacco or alcoholic beverages, whose extra-fiscal purpose is to discourage the consumption of certain products because of the harm caused to health. Specific excise taxes are often more effective, as they have a greater ability to influence consumer behaviour by directly taxing one type of product or ingredient. With this type of taxation, the incentives for consumers to switch to a cheaper and equally harmful option are reduced, as the price increase occurs in the same way for all such products affected by the tax. For example, a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages that is calculated based on the amount of sugar promotes differentiation between beverages with a high sugar content and those with a lower amount of sugar in their formula, which incentivises the consumer

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to choose the healthier option (which will not be taxed). This taxation, which is based on the nutritional content of the products, also has a strong influence on manufacturers who are compelled to adapt their products to a healthier version to not lose customers (WHO 2016, p. 19).

3

Considerations on the Effectiveness of a Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Price Elasticity of Demand

To implement this type of tax policy efficiently, it is necessary to analyse how the quantity demanded of the good changes as its price changes as a consequence of imposing a tax: this is known as the price elasticity of demand. The price elasticity of demand measures the level of response of the demand for a good resulting from a change in its price. The demand for a good is considered elastic if the quantity demanded primarily depends the change in price; in contrast, demand is inelastic if changes in price have an insignificant effect on the demand for the good. In other words, the price elasticity of demand measures how willing consumers are to pay for a good as its price rises (Mankiw et al. 2012, p. 90). Understanding the responsiveness of consumers to the imposition of a tax on sugarsweetened beverages is essential to identify the best way to implement this type of tax policy, as well as to achieve its extra-fiscal objectives. When the product being taxed can be easily substituted by consumers, consumer response to the price increase will be greater, so that the more the price rises, the less the consumer buys the product (inverse proportional logic). When a 10% price increase leads to a fall in the quantities consumed of less than 10%, demand is deemed inelastic, which may be good in terms of revenue, but does not produce the expected health effects (reduction in obesity and the incidence of non-communicable diseases). Conversely, if a 10% price increase leads to a drop in consumption of more than 10%, demand is considered elastic and, even if it does not lead to significant revenue for public finances, it means that taxation is fulfilling its extra-fiscal objectives, as it lowers consumption of the product that produces the harmful health externalities (Ortún et al. 2016, p. 6). In most cases, demand for food and beverages is not very elastic, which is not to say that implementing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is not an appropriate fiscal policy to fight obesity. What a state should do when implementing such a policy is to ensure that it imposes a sufficiently high tax rate to reduce consumption of the taxed products, so that significant health effects result (WHO 2016, p. 19). Accordingly, the study of the price elasticity of demand allows us to see that for an effective implementation of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, two issues must be contemplated.

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The first is that when applying this type of tax policy, attention must be focused on the substitution possibilities of the taxed product, since not all substitutions are desirable. This may lead to thinking about a better design for the tax, such as a change in the type of ingredient or product that is taxed. A good example is to tax not only sugary drinks, but also those containing artificial sweeteners that can be just as harmful to health. This serves as a mechanism to guide consumers to change their habits towards consumption that is healthier and not merely towards an equally harmful alternative. The second issue is that the imposition of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages cannot have as its main objective to raise revenue, otherwise the tax loses its purpose. Generating revenue for the state must be a secondary consequence of this tax, which must fulfil its extra-fiscal purpose of combating obesity. Moreover, for the tax to make sense, the amount collected must be earmarked for other policies that also have the fight against obesity as their objective, such as subsidies for healthy food, prevention programmes, and the improvement of the health system, as mentioned earlier.

4

Effects of the Implementation of the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax in the World

Taxation of foods and beverages that contain an elevated level of fat, sugar, salt or other extremely unhealthy ingredients is not a novelty. Many countries have implemented this type of tax policy. More than 38% of WHO member countries have reported implementing a form of taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages. In Europe there is no harmonisation of such taxation policy and currently the tax is applied in the Spanish region of Catalonia and in twelve other EU member states: Ireland, Finland, Portugal, France, Latvia, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Netherlands, Estonia, and Croatia (European Commission 2022, p. 55). On the American continent, about 60% of countries have a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in force. According to a study conducted by the Pan American Health Organization, twenty-one countries had instituted a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Suriname, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and Mexico. In addition, seven US jurisdictions had also implemented such a tax: Seattle (WA), Albany (CA), Berkeley (CA), San Francisco (CA), Oakland (CA), Boulder (CO), and Philadelphia (PA). As in Europe, there is no homogeneity in the application of the tax in the Americas region, where the tax base and tax rates vary. Regarding their design, fifteen are specific selective taxes, such as in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Bolivia, and eleven are ad valorem selective taxes, such as Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. There are countries having a mixed system in relation to the application of the tax on energy drinks: Mexico applies an additional ad valorem tax and El Salvador applies an additional specific tax on these products. Dominica and Ecuador

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have a combined design, so that certain products are taxed at the ad valorem rate, while others are taxed at the specific rate (PAHO 2021, pp. 18–19). For the present study, we are interested in analysing the aspects of taxes implemented in the following countries: Hungary, France, Denmark, Mexico, and USA (Berkeley and Philadelphia), in addition to the tax implemented in the region of Catalonia (Spain), which will be discussed in the next section.

4.1

Hungary

Hungary has one of the most effective cases regarding the implementation of unhealthy food taxes. The public health product tax (PHPT) was introduced in 2011 and taxes non-basic food products containing unhealthy ingredients, such as packaged products containing an elevated level of sugar, snacks containing an elevated level of salt, condiments, fruit preserves, sugary drinks, and energy drinks. The first study of the impact generated by the tax indicated a reduction of between 26 and 32% in the consumption of the products taxed by the PHPT, a direct consequence of the increase caused by the imposition of the tax. In addition, the impact has also been shown to be significant among producers of the taxed products: 40% made some modification to the formulation of their products, 30% went so far as to completely eliminate the harmful ingredients from their products and 70% went so far as to reduce the amount of the harmful ingredient in their products (WHO 2016, pp. 15–16). A second study on the impact of the tax was published by the WHO in 2016, with the aim of analysing the continued effects of the PHPT. It was found that between 59 and 73% of consumers continued to reduce their consumption of the products taxed via PHPT. Between 19 and 36% still reduced their consumption of taxed products, while only a small proportion, between 0 and 12%, increased their consumption of products taxed by the PHPT. It also showed that, although the price increase directly influenced the decrease in consumption, more than half (54%) of the people admitted having changed their consumption habits regarding energy drinks and sugary soft drinks because they became aware of the harm these products have on their health (WHO 2016, pp. 6–7). Consequently, Hungary has become an example for other countries to follow. Its fiscal policy has achieved public health objectives: the policy has succeeded in redirecting the consumption habits of the population towards healthier ones, with a significant reduction in the intake of foods that are demonstrably harmful to health, as well as influencing the behaviour of manufacturers who have been forced to reformulate their products in search of healthier alternatives. Furthermore, this fiscal policy was able to generate significant tax revenues, which have been applied to improving public health (Sánchez 2018).

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4.2

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France

In France, the tax on sweetened beverages, also known as a ‘soda tax’, came into force in January 2012, with a rate of 7.16 cents per litre before VAT, or a rate of 7.55 cents per litre at the retail level where VAT of 5.5% is applied. It is one of the taxes with the broadest tax base, as it taxes not only sweetened beverages, but also beverages containing sweeteners, as well as fruit drinks, vitamin water, and flavoured milk (Thow et al. 2022). The tax is paid by manufacturers, processors, and importers, which is ultimately paid by the end consumer. Studies on the impact of the tax at the household consumption level indicate that the impact on consumption habits was not very significant, generating a very small reduction in the purchase of soft drinks: an estimated 10 millilitre reduction in weekly purchases of soft drinks, approximately a 3% reduction compared to the average of 2011 (the year before the law came into force), and considering a price increase of 5%, this translates into a price elasticity of demand of −0.60. However, the impact is slightly higher when assessing the behaviour of large buyers: an estimated reduction of around 10% if compared to the levels before the implementation of the tax, therefore, an elasticity of around 1.2, considering the CPI estimate of a price increase of 8.2%. The impact on both consumer groups corresponds to the tax rate, which if higher would surely have a more significant impact on the consumption of the taxed beverages (Capacci et al. 2019). France also invests in other types of public policies to curb the consumption of sugary drinks, such as the free-refill ban imposed by decree on 18 January 2017, a measure in accordance with the law for the modernization of the French health system. According to this legislation, it is prohibited to offer unlimited sweetened beverages, free or at a fixed price, in establishments in the hospitality sector such as restaurants and bars, as well as in educational establishments such as school canteens. The measure applies to all beverages containing added sugars or artificial sweeteners in their composition, such as flavoured carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, sports and energy drinks, and fruit, vegetable, and similar nectars (García-Abadillo 2017).

4.3

Denmark

Another example of taxation that deserves emphasis is the case of Denmark. This country was one of the first to institute excise taxes on sweets, ice cream, and soft drinks, which Scandinavia implemented in the 1920s and 1930s with the initial aim of increasing tax revenues. However, considering that among Danes the consumption of foods and beverages with excessive sugar content had significantly increased, the Danish government decided in 2012 to increase the tax on carbonated soft drinks by 46%, while taxes on sweets and chocolates were increased by 33%, with the extra-fiscal aim of decreasing the

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consumption of these products and their negative health consequences. The tax on carbonated soft drinks was among the highest in Europe, at twenty-two cents per litre (the tax on diet drinks was eight cents). However, in July 2013 the tax rate on sugary drinks and diet drinks was halved and on 1 January 2014 the tax ceased to apply. Recent studies on the impacts of the tax indicate an estimated price elasticity of carbonated soft drinks of −0.3, which means that a price increase of 10% would lead to a reduction in sales of only 3%. The results regarding the substitution of sugar-sweetened beverages were not encouraging either: a 10% increase in the price of carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages would represent a 7% increase in consumption of diet beverages (Buch-Andersen et al. 2020, pp. 581–582). There are several explanations for the failure of the Danish sugar-sweetened beverage tax. Its low tax rate is responsible for the limited consumer response to the imposition of the tax. This is because, although the Danish tax on sugar-sweetened beverages has become one of the highest in Europe, this increase only lasted for six months (between July and December 2013), and subsequently ceased to exist (Buch-Andersen et al. 2020, pp. 581–582). As mentioned above, this type of tax must represent an increase of at least 20% in the price of the product, and must persist over time, otherwise it is possible that no significant changes in consumer habits will occur. Furthermore, in the case of Denmark, problems of tax evasion were also observed: around 38.9 million euros in VAT resulting from the illegal sale of sugar-sweetened beverages, since, in order to avoid taxation, many people moved to neighbouring countries to buy these products, as in Germany, which had lower prices (Aroca Gamero 2018, p. 295).

4.4

Mexico

Mexico is one of the countries that suffers the most from obesity, with overweight affecting 71% of adults and 30% of children and adolescents, and the incidence of non-communicable diseases is also high (e.g., diabetes, 9% of the adult population). Responding to these worrying figures, the country implemented a one peso per litre tax on sugary drinks in 2014, with the aim of reducing the negative effects of sugar-sweetened beverages consumption. The tax represents about a 10% increase in price and levied not only on beverages sold in ready-to-drink format, but also on concentrated and powdered formats (WHO 2016). Different studies have indicated the effects of the implementation of this tax on sugarsweetened beverages: decreases of between 6 and 9% in the consumption of taxed beverages were found in the first year of the tax’s implementation. These values vary according to the socio-economic level of the consumers: low-income consumers showed a reduction in consumption of 6.1%, medium income consumers showed a reduction of 5.5%, and high-income consumers showed a reduction of 5.6%. Additionally, the decrease in consumption persisted during the two years following the implementation of the tax,

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with a reduction rate of 7.5%. On the other hand, a 5.2% increase in consumption of non-carbonated water was also documented in 2014 and 2015 (PAHO 2021, pp. 26–27).

4.5

USA (Berkeley and Philadelphia)

In the USA, it is important to emphasise the effects of taxation in two of the seven localities that levy a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages: Berkeley (CA), which implemented the tax on 1 March 2015, and Philadelphia (PA), which implemented the tax on 1 January 2017, both with a specific selective tax rate that taxes beverages containing sugar or sweetener in their formula. In Berkeley, three years after the taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages, consumption decreased by 52.3% between 2014 and 2017. In addition, there was a 25.1% increase in water consumption compared to other cities. On the other hand, in the city of Philadelphia, two months after the implementation of the tax, the probability of daily consumption of sugar-sweetened soft drinks decreased by 40%, while for energy drinks the reduction was 64%. The probability of daily consumption of bottled water increased by 58%. Moreover, the imposition of the tax has not generated excessive tax evasion, as the transit of consumers to neighbouring cities was not significant, which confirms the effectiveness of the tax’s implementation. (WCRF 2020).

5

Case Study: The Tax on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Spain.

Obesity and overweight are also serious problems in Spain, which has high rates: according to the European Survey of Health in Spain, obesity affects 16.5% of men and 15.5% of women, while overweight affects 44.9% of men and 30.6% of women (INE-MSCBS 2020). According to studies enacted by the European Statistical Office on the frequency of consumption of sugary drinks, people in Spain consume sugary drinks as follows: 6.4% consume them daily, 20.1% consume them between one and three times a week, 3.6% consume them between four and six times a week, and 70% consume them occasionally (Eurostat 2019). To combat overweight and obesity plaguing the Spanish population, the region of Catalonia instituted a specific tax on packaged sugar-sweetened beverages through Law 5/ 2017 of 28 March. For the purposes of this legislation, sugar-sweetened beverages are those containing caloric sweeteners, such as sugar, honey, fructose, sucrose, corn syrup, maple syrup, nectar, agave syrup, and rice syrup, among others. According to Article 72 of this law, the types of beverages that may be taxed are the following: soft drinks or sodas, fruit nectar and fruit juices, sports drinks, tea and coffee, energy drinks, sweetened milk, milk alternatives, milkshakes, milk drinks with fruit juice, vegetable drinks, and

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flavoured waters. Excluded from the levy are natural fruit or vegetable juices (concentrated, reconstituted, or combined), milk or milk alternatives containing no added caloric sweeteners, yoghurts, fermented milk, products for medical use, and alcoholic beverages. The remitter to the government of the tax amount is the vendor supplying the taxed product to the final consumer, but the tax charge must be passed on to the final consumer, as the purpose of the taxation is primarily extra-fiscal (it seeks to reduce the consumption of the taxed beverages). The rate of taxation varies according to the amount of sugar contained in the drink: ten eurocents per litre for drinks with a sugar content of between five and eight grams per 100 millilitres; or fifteen eurocents per litre for drinks with a sugar content of more than eight grams per 100 millilitres. Soluble preparations are also taxed at the same rate based on their composition. Regarding its acceptance, Catalonia’s tax on sugary drinks was not well received by the dairy industry in Spain, which has argued that the levy would reduce the consumption of dairy products, which should be consumed daily and are extremely important to achieve a balanced diet, especially for the health of children and adolescents (Sánchez 2018). However, the fact that dairy products are important for health cannot be used as an excuse to put products on the market with excessive amounts of sugar which, as has already been proven by numerous studies, have a very negative impact on people’s health. The aim of the tax is to reduce the consumption of drinks with excessive sugar, and the industry must adapt and offer healthier alternatives to consumers. The effects of the imposition of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Catalonia are very satisfactory. The tax was cited by the 2022 Annual Report on Taxation as an example of fiscal policy addressing the growth of obesity and diabetes (European Commission 2022, p. 55). Studies conducted to measure its impact after the first year of implementation indicated a reduction of about 39% in consumption of the taxed beverages. The study was conducted by comparing the cities of Barcelona (which applies the tax) and Madrid (which does not apply the tax), involving people between the ages of twelve and forty. The main reasons given by consumers for the reduction of this type of beverage were higher prices and increased awareness of the harmful health effects of its consumption (Royo-Bordonada et al. 2019, pp. 2–6).

6

What Can We Improve and What Alternatives Do We Have?

To improve the implementation of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax and to succeed in its extra-fiscal purpose, it is necessary to follow some parameters. Before implementing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, a series of studies must be conducted examining its social and economic effects, as well as the best way to implement it. A good study on the impact of the tax should be engaged by scientists and specialists;

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it is essential to give a voice to health professionals and organisations that aim to fight non-communicable diseases, such as obesity and diabetes. One relevant aspect that a good study should cover is the possible impact on the price and consumption of the taxed products: as already mentioned, the WHO states that, to achieve the extra-fiscal objectives, the tax should represent a 20% increase in the price of the taxed products. This is directly related to the effect on consumption: the effectiveness in reducing the consumption of the taxed beverages, which groups of consumers will be most affected, and individual variation of the incidence of NCDs according to gender, age and economic status. Because, if the problem is not well understood it will be difficult to combat the problem effectively. The imposition of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages without prior and proper analysis of the impact on price and consumption is unlikely to achieve results other than potential tax revenue increase. Low taxation can be easily absorbed by the industry, which can reformulate the size of its products to avoid price increases. Similarly, it is important to bear in mind that consumers in economically developed countries do not tend to respond to small tax increases, as they have greater purchasing power. As an example, we can cite the ‘soda tax’ in France, which, as we have presented, has not had the expected effects, since the price increase was not significant enough to change the consumption habit of sugar-sweetened beverages. Another relevant aspect that should be considered is the substitution of taxed products, since a poor implementation of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages may lead consumers to substitute the taxed products with other products that are equally harmful to health. It is therefore important to follow the example of regions such as Catalonia (Spain) and Berkeley (USA), where the tax is levied on strategically-chosen products and according to their content, to avoid undesirable substitutions, such as the substitution of beverages containing sweeteners for the sugar-sweetened beverages. In the same vein, taxation of unhealthy food, such as foods rich in saturated fat and salt, is also recommended. The potential methods of tax evasion should also be studied prior to the implementation of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, to prevent the population from moving to a nearby region to buy the taxed products and avoid taxation. As an example, Finland suffered huge losses from such tax evasion resulting from years of taxation for purely revenue-raising purposes. Tax design is also an essential feature for the effectiveness of this type of tax policy. For example, in countries with a strong tax administration, imposing a specific tax based on nutrient content, such as sugar, may be more effective, as it promotes differentiation between products based on their content and incentivises producers to reformulate their products. Conversely, taxation based on volume sold is a simpler taxation system that may be a better alternative for countries with a weak tax administration (WHO 2016, p. 19). It is also necessary to keep in mind that the imposition of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages cannot be considered as a sole and sufficient solution to reduce consumption and the incidence of NCDs. The tax must be accompanied by another type of fiscal

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policy, which can also function as an alternative in cases where a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages is not possible or inappropriate. Some measures that can be implemented in conjunction with a tax on sugary drinks include: taxing other foods containing high levels of fat and salt, such as pastries; reducing the taxation of healthy foods; offering subsidies for the purchase of fresh foods, such as fruit and vegetables; imposing a system of warning labels; and limiting the marketing of the taxed products, especially to children.

7

Conclusions

The imposition of a specific tax on sugar-sweetened beverages can be used as a tool to improve the eating habits of the population, as we could see from the results obtained in several countries after varying years of tax implementation, in which a significant reduction in the consumption of the taxed beverages has been observed. However, to obtain the positive effects of the tax, it is necessary to be aware that its implementation is very complex, as there are a number of variables and parameters to be considered. One of the preliminary questions to be decided for a correct implementation of the tax is the type of taxation to be enacted: whether the tax will be ad valorem or specific. As we have seen, taxation based on a specific rate offers better results, since the tax is levied on the basis of the levels of sugar and sweetener contained in each beverage which can serve to avoid undesired substitutions—when a consumer switches from the taxed product to a cheaper and equally harmful one. In addition, a specific tax rate may have a greater impact on the industry, which feels compelled to reformulate its products in search of healthier options. We have also found that the implementation of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages requires a prior and exhaustive study on the possible social and economic impact on the population. Among the most important aspect, we can emphasise the analysis of the price elasticity of demand, which is the capacity of consumers to respond to price increases. The tax must be able to raise prices by a considerable level, otherwise consumption of the taxed beverages will not be reduced. Finally, it is important to be aware that the problem of obesity and other noncommunicable diseases will not be solved just by implementing a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. This tax, if implemented in accordance with the key aspects mentioned in this study, can achieve admirable results in terms of reducing the consumption of sugarsweetened beverages, but it needs to be accompanied by other less aggressive fiscal policies, such as subsidies.

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References Aroca Gamero, M. C. (2018). Taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages as a measure to reduce obesity in Spain. Analysis and assessment of effectiveness based on its application in other countries. RBD. Revista de Bioética y Derecho, 42, pp. 269–310. https://doi.org/10.1344/rbd2018.1.20374 Buch-Andersen, T., Helms Andreasen, A., Jørgensen, T., Holger Ehlers, L., & Ulla Toft. (2020). Price and sales volume of sugar-sweetened beverages, diet drinks, sweets and chocolates: Analysis of Danish retail scanner data. Eur J Clin Nutr 74, pp. 581–587. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41 430-019-0470-5. Capacci, S., Allais, O., Bonnet, C., & Mazzocchi, M. (2019). The impact of the French soda tax on prices and purchases. An ex post evaluation. PLoS One. 14(10): e0223196. https://doi.org/10. 1371/journal.pone.0223196. PMID: 31603901 European Commission, Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, Annual report on taxation 2022 : Tax policies in the European Union, Publications Office of the European Union, 2022. https://data.europa.eu/doi/org/10.2778/64681. Eurostat. (2019). Frequency of drinking sugar-sweetened soft drinks by sex, age and educational attainment level. Last update: 04/04/2022 23:00. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ hlth_ehis_fv7e/default/table?lang=en. García-Abadillo, R. (2017). France bans ‘refill your drink as many times as you want’. El Mundo. https://www.elmundo.es/salud/2017/01/27/588ba32e22601d420e8b45a5.html. INE-MSCBS. (2020). European Health Survey in Spain. Madrid: National Institute of Statistics. https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/es/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736176784& menu=resultados&idp=1254735573175. Law 5/2017 of 28 March on fiscal, administrative, financial and public sector measures and on the creation and regulation of taxes on large commercial establishments, on stays in tourist establishments, on radiotoxic elements, on packaged sugar-sweetened beverages and on carbon dioxide emissions. https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-2017-7353. López Casasnovas, G. (2013). Does taxation change lifestyles? Taxes to fight obesity. Revista Española de Salud Pública, Volume 6, 87, pp. 541–548. https://doi.org/10.4321/S1135-572720 13000600001. Mankiw, N. G., Meza y Staines, M. G., & Carril Villarreal, M. d. P. (2012). Principles of economics. 6. México D.F.: Cengage Learning. Ortún, V., López-Valcárcel, B. G., & Pinilla, J. (2016). The tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in Spain. Revista Española de Salud Pública, 90. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_art text&pid=S1135-57272016000100306&lng=es&tlng=es. PAHO. (2021). Taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages in the Region of the Americas. Pan American Health Organization. Washington D. C: Pan American Health Organization. License: CC BYNC-SA 3.0 IGO. https://doi.org/10.37774/9789275323007. Royo-Bordonada, M. Á., Fernández-Escobar, C., Simón, L., Sanz-Barbero, B., & Padilla, J. (2019). Impact of an excise tax on the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in young people living in poorer neighbourhoods of Catalonia, Spain: A difference in differences study. BMC public health, 19(1), 1553. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7908-5. Sánchez, E. M. (2018). Autonomous regional financing: How the Catalan tax on packaged sugarsweetened beverages fits into the international context. Revista Quincena Fiscal (9), pp. 17–36. ISSN 1132–8576. Thow, A. M., Rippin, H., Mulcahy, G., Duffey, K., & Wickramasinghe, K. (2022). Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes in Europe: Learning for the future. European Journal of Public Health, Volume 32, Issue 2, pp. 273–280. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckab211.

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WCRF. (2020). Building momentum: Lessons on implementing a robust sugar sweetened beverage tax. Building Momentum evidence table: Effects of implemented SSB taxes. World Cancer Research Fund International. www.wcrf.org/buildingmomentum. WHO. (2016). Fiscal policy options with potential for improving diets for the prevention of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Geneva: World Health Organization. https://www.who. int/docs/default-source/obesity/fiscal-policies-for-diet-and-the-prevention-of-noncommunica ble-diseases-0.pdf?sfvrsn=84ee20c_2#:~:text=The%20main%20fiscal%20policy%20interventi ons,and%2For%20other%20healthy%20foods. WHO. (2021). Obesity and overweight. Geneva: World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/ es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight. Zámbó, L., Bakacs, M., Illés, É., Varga, A., Sarkadi Nagy, E., Zentai, A., Feigl, E., & Biró, K. (2020). Impact assessment of the public health product tax in Hungary. European Journal of Public Health, Volume 30, Issue Supplement 5. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckaa166.1231.

Cristiane da Silva Lopes do Nascimento is a student of the Master in Legal Practice at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). She holds law degrees from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) and Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Brazil). ([email protected])

Promoting Healthy Foods and Diets: Exploring Communication, Recipes, and Attitudes in Romanian Food Blogs Liliana Dumitrache and Mariana Nae

Abstract

Food bloggers disseminate information about dietary products and behaviours and use variegated social marketing techniques. This paper seeks to understand what constitutes ‘healthy food and diets’ in Romanian culinary blogs and how food bloggers use strategies to promote healthy food recipes and products. We used a snowball sampling approach to find food blogs from search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo. A content analysis approach was applied to find characteristics of promoting healthy food and diets. These blogs were chosen based on three criteria: the presence of the topic ‘healthy food or diets’, the primary objective of the topic is the overall promotion of healthy foods and diets, and the number of page views. Five popular blogs were followed over three months (April–June 2022). In doing this, we raised questions about the relationships between the promotion of healthy foods, diets, products, and the claims of their apparent knowledge of popular Romanian eating blogs. Ninety-eight diet recipes were analysed using various methods, including crosstabs with Chi-square tests, ingredients frequency, and word clouds. Diet recipes showed differences in cooking methods, preparation time, and principal ingredients. Finally, we examined the contribution of food blogs to discourse about healthy eating and diets seeking to understand how recipes are vehicles for promoting foods and products. Characteristics of these blogs were examined, and findings suggest L. Dumitrache (B) · M. Nae University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] M. Nae e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_18

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that bloggers present themselves as passionate about food and give feedback to their followers. Keywords

Healthy foods • Diets • Promotion • Communication • Recipes • Blogs • Romania

1

Introduction

Social media offer new insights and opportunities in the development of behavioural engagement models and healthy promotion models. Magazines, TV shows, and social media largely underlined food as pathogenic, linking obesity and unhealthy habits, and encouraging restrictions on these foods. Blogs are recognised as a valuable source for health, providing researchers and practitioners related to unhealthy habits, diets, and chronic conditions such as obesity. Food-related content on social media may increase the marketing of (un)healthy food and products, fitness imagery, and ‘fitspiration’. Fitspiration is a ‘mot – valise’, linking the words ‘fitness’ and ‘inspiration’—being understood as information content to stimulate healthy behaviour and exercises. Emerging research indicates that exposure can adversely affect emotional wellbeing (Tiggermann and Zaccardo 2016; Norton 2017; Easton et al. 2018; Binder et al. 2021). Contents expressed in food blogs with diets and health sections portray an idealised version of persons. Research highlights that fitspiration content may contribute to unreliable health information or only some positive benefits for social support and motivation (Raggatt et al. 2018). The opposite web-based disseminated content is the ‘fatspiration’, where the fat acceptance movement recently gained widespread attention (Harding and Kirby 2009, Webb et al. 2017). Nutrition scholars emphasise the role of healthy living blogs in the promotion of idealised thinness as well as the potential disorders associated with unhealthy foods and products (Boepple and Thomson 2014). Researchers also focused on consumer behaviour (Hui -Yi and Chang 2010), nutritionally balanced recipes (Schneider et al. 2013), environmental effects of food production, food choices (Mete et al. 2019), and curation of local foods (Joose and Hracs 2015). Schneider et al. (2013) investigated how blogs provide nutritionally balanced recipes and found that vegetarian and seafood recipes were significantly lower in risk nutrients than red meat and poultry recipes. In addition, the content of nutrients in the recipes was analysed according to official health standards in terms of calories, fats, and carbohydrates (Coffey et al. 2019; Christoph et al. 2017). Another study by Dickinson et al. (2018) revealed that the nutrient profile from clean eating and control recipes is similarly classified as moderate to high in fat, saturated fat, salt, and sugar. Finally, Trattner et al. (2017) conducted a comprehensive study on the nutritional content of Internet recipes across sixteen years. Findings suggest that those

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online recipes, compared with those other cooking sources, were less healthy regarding sugar, fat, and sodium content (Trattner and Elsweiler 2017). The blogs predominantly frame food as ‘salutogenic’ in promoting health benefits and wellbeing (Rodney 2018), when diets and recipes are displayed as necessary, focusing on weight loss and promoting healthy behaviour. Celebrities, chefs, and lifestyle creators play a role in adopting the healthy style and diet behaviour. Recipes used in cooking shows and online media have become a foundational source of food information and dietary behaviour. However, specific diets and recipes were criticised regarding claims of apparent knowledge and scientific substantiation (Byrne et al. 2017; Schouten et al. 2019). The users involved in communication, recommendations of recipes, and tips for cooking are mostly adult women (Maheux – Bissonnette et al. 2015, 2018). In addition, geographical factors, differences in urban and rural settings, and cultural background play a significant role in food consumption trends, nutrient intake, healthy diet, and tradition. For instance, studies show that traditional diets originating from the Mediterranean Basin contributed to the promotion of a healthy status and diets, and adherence to the Mediterranean diet (Vadiveloo et al. 2019; Quarta et al. 2021; Bonaccio et al. 2012). A critical and salient issue could be the relationship and dichotomy between food choice and the nutritional content of recipes posted by bloggers since the use of suggestive photographs and videos emphasise food appearance and food porn (Taylor and Keating 2018). Recipes can influence the purchase of a product where food bloggers and food companies have partnerships to promote some (un)healthy and packed products. Bloggers provide and promote a healthy living style and associate food and exercise wherein the food is described as a reward, a fuel for exercising (Lynch 2012). Perception of food and consumer choices mainly affects people’s dietary behaviour (Sedelmeier et al. 2022; in this context, see in this volume: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). People are defined by their social nature and interact similarly with individuals according to beliefs, hobbies, education, and social status. They tend to form psychological bonds with each other (homophily) and also build parasocial interactions for the observed relationships between influencers and their followers. These interactions have been explained by the theory of parasocial interactions (PSI) in psychological sciences since the 1950s. Concisely, parasocial interactions are defined as relationships between a spectator and a performer, creating an illusion of real interpersonal experiences (Horton and Wohl 1956; Giles 2002). Parasocial interactions are experienced by media users and celebrities (Rousseau 2012). Therefore, social influencers are crucial in maintaining warm personal relationships with fans to promote healthy food products. Online social media users create similar relationships by subscribing to their channels of blogs. In this perspective, scholars emphasised the role of ‘parasocial interaction’ that valorised the feelings of connectedness and loyalty to consume the brand’s products (Folkvord 2019; Sokolova and Kefi 2019). An experimental pilot study by Folkvord and

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de Bruijne investigated if a popular social influencer’s promotion of red peppers increased subsequent vegetable intake among adolescents. Results showed no effect of the famous social influencer for promoting vegetables on the intake of vegetables, and no moderation effects were found for parasocial interaction and persuasion knowledge (Folkvord and de Bruijne 2020). Professional healthy and food blogs contributed to relevant self-presentations, using metaphors, diverse addressivity strategies, and ‘before-and-after weight loss’ narratives. Studies highlighted the role of journey metaphors to present themselves as travellers to express the positive aspects of weight loss (Atanasova 2018, Legatt—Cook and Chamberlain 2012). A systematic review on how social media content relates to diet and weight loss (Hawks et al. 2020) exemplified the need for more research on this issue since we assist in healthy eating behaviour change. The findings of this review revealed some features: unhealthy posted-content trends; high exposure to unhealthy foods on social media platforms via photo or video posts with portrayed foods; the role of the recipe in stimulating different levels of engagement and behaviour change. The transient nature of the information provided by the Internet raises methodological challenges. For example, what really defines good and healthy food in the era of digital marketing? Good and healthy food is considered a fluid, socially constructed, and negotiated concept. The bloggers use several sources and hypertext links. Food bloggers use similar techniques and metaphors such as ‘weight-loss journey’ and combinations of diets and exercises. They share experiences, promote diets closer to the official recommendations, and demonstrate their expertise to readers (Lynch 2012, 2010; Endres 2016). They often act as curators for local foods. Curators are crucial in helping consumers find products and create food sourcing (Joose and Hracs 2015). Food advertisers have collaborated with bloggers and social influencers to promote products on social media platforms. Relationships between companies and food bloggers are constructed on the exchange of products since companies usually donate free products to food bloggers to provide publicity and commercials. Topics are related to relationships with the brands, publicity, and advertising the promotion on social media. However, the critical appraisal skills of readers should be necessary to protect them from possible undesirable effects (Easton et al. 2018). This study investigated how food bloggers use strategies to promote healthy recipes and products and seeks to understand what constitutes ‘healthy food and diets’ in Romanian culinary blogs. Romanians are generally attached to cooking and consuming traditional foods with health-oriented behaviour (Roman 2009; Voinea et al. 2020). Romanian cuisine is considered a mixed one, being placed at the crossroads of cultural practices of the northern-central and southern-eastern parts of Europe. Ingredients, recipes, and dishes were adapted creatively becoming drivers of traditional and local food cultures. The geography, natural landscapes, climate, and soil contributed to specific terroir. In all

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regions, dishes with vegetables and spices were prepared with different types of meat (pork, beef, lamb, sheep, or poultry).

2

Data Collection and Methods

A snowball sampling approach (convenience sample) was used to identify food blogs from search engines Google, Bing, and Yahoo. In addition, we used lists and aggregators such as foodcrew.ro, restocracy.ro or zelist.ro. The search terms used in each search engine included ‘Romanian Food Blogs’ and ‘Top 10 Romanian Food Blogs’. The transient nature of the information provided by the Internet raises methodological challenges. Therefore, each webpage was searched and assessed according to three criteria: the presence of the ‘healthy food and diets’ topic (or field), as its primary objective, the overall promotion of healthy foods and diets, and the number of page views. A list of seventy-three Romanian food blogs was generated. According to the criteria mentioned above, to the changing nature of online information and the frequency of posts, we selected the top ten food Romanian blogs using a comprehensive view of digital traffic, such as the similar web tool (www.similarweb.com). In this study, five food blogs were identified for analysis according to the indicators provided by the digital platform (category rank in the country, total visits, average visit duration, pages per visit). Five popular blogs were followed over three months (April– June 2022). The indicators provided by the digital platform were considered from April to June 2022. Each blog was viewed and assessed by independent assistant personnel. Screenshots and posts were taken and stored in Word documents. In addition, text recipes related to diets and healthy foods were collected and translated into English. A part of the textual analysis was performed using an open-source, web-based application Voyant Tools v.2.4 (voyant-tools.org) (Sinclair and Rockwell 2016). Ethics. Blogs are considered available for the public interest if they do not have password protection. To preserve anonymity, we classified the five blogs using an identification letter (from A to E). A diet section (Rina diet) was more organised and provided additional information about recipes. Ninety-eight recipes from the diet Rina section from two bloggers (noted here with A and C) were classified to explore the differences in diet recipes. We used cooking variables, such as dish type, cooking method and time, and quantity of oil, among others. A set of categories was established for each variable as follows (Table 1): All ninety-eight recipes were classified in MS Excel according to the six cooking variables. Chi-square tests were used to study the relationships between cooking variables, and Cramer’s V coefficients were calculated in SPSS version 20 (IBM Corp., USA). The statistical results of the Chi-square tests were reported, and the effects of variable distribution for the variable category were significant (p < 0.05). Cramér’s V coefficient

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Table 1 Categories of variables for diet recipes Dish type

Soups (simple soup with vegetables; cream soup; cream soup with cheese) Salads (with vegetables; mixed salad with vegetables; mixed salad with chicken meat; mixed salad with fish); Dietetic pasta; Dietetic pizza; Fillings (with vegetables, chicken meat, eggs, and fish)

Method of cooking

Boil (cooking in boiling water); Steam (cooking at steaming temperature); Baking (cooking in the oven); Sauté (cooking on a pan with fat)

Time of cooking

Short time (1–10 min); Medium time (11–20 min); Long (over 21 min)

Quantity of oil

Low (0–15 g); Medium (16–60 g); High (over 60 g)

Ingredient type

Primary ingredients (according to the quantity, their prominence in the dish name, and their relationships to other ingredients) Vegetables, chicken, or fish meat; Pasta, flour, and eggs

Number of portions

Number of portions per recipe

was applied to reveal the strength of the association between categorical variables (Field, A. 2013).

3

Results and Discussion

3.1

Blog Characteristics

A total of five food blogs were identified for analysis according to the indicators provided by the digital platform and followed during three months (April–June 2022). The characteristics considered for this study implied the criteria was met for the presence of the ‘healthy food and diets’ topic (field); the topic has as its primary objective the overall promotion of healthy foods and diets, and the number of page views (Table 2). Despite the content-eating blogs being written by various authors, there were common patterns between blog posts. For example, the authors communicated a clear purpose in the section ‘About me’ using headings and short life stories (87%), while others offered some sentences in the first paragraphs (13%). Blog post headings were written intending to increase the role of the ‘healthy food and diets’ movement and the promotion of healthy food with recommendations not exclusive to nutrition (75% for the author’s blog). The bloggers are passionate about food and give feedback to their followers. A small proportion of bloggers (7.3%) are trained in food studies. In comparison, 44.5% are amateurs with different training experiences and professional formation (such as famous artists, players, engineers, artists, freelancers in food studies, web designers, and marketing). A reliable criterion is represented by total visits per month provided by digital tools such as ‘similarweb’. This is a website platform that offers a comprehensive view of

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Table 2 Quantitative content analysis of seventy-three (73) blogs Criteria for assessment

% Of blog posts related to each criterion

Topic Presence of the ‘healthy food and diets’ topic

87%

Not applicable

13%

Promotion of healthy food The topic has as its main objective the overall promotion of healthy foods and diets

75%

Not applicable

25%

The number of page views Applicable

72.5%

Not applicable

27.5%

Demographic variables Male

26%

Female

74%

Education profile of the blogger Specialisation in cooking and food studies

7.3%

Without specialisation in cooking /food studies

44.5%

digital traffic using a web traffic meter browser extension to access objective traffic data (for details, corporate website: www.similarweb.com). According to this database, we selected the most popular food blogs where the indicators are significant drivers in the formation of popularity and celebrity. The country rank of food blogs in Romania is provided by the digital tool mentioned above. For example, the total visits indicator via social media is frequently posted to rate the audiences. The blog, named with the letter A, reached 6.2 million visits in April 2022 (Table 3). Qualitative data analysis was completed using thematic analysis with a combination of deductive and inductive approaches (Boyatzis 1998). The emerging themes were inductively and deductively derived from the text recipe data and using significant concepts from relevant literature. We manually created a coding framework, and the dataset was analysed by deducing the emerging themes. We focused on diets and weight-loss themes. Text recipes for diets and healthy foods were collected and translated into English. A part of the textual analysis was performed using an open-source web-based application: Voyant Tools v.2.4 (voyant-tools.org) (Sinclair and Rockwell 2016). Blog posts are written in practical ways to stimulate fruit and vegetable intake and timesaving for meal preparations, using catchy headings and sentences in the first

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Table 3 Total visits per month for five selected food blogs Blog letter code

Country rank in Romania

Total visits

Total visits per month

April

May

June

Average visit duration (hours, minutes)

Pages per visits

A

1

4.0 M

6.2 M

4.1 M

4.0 M

1.32

1.47

B

2

1.2 M

1.5 M

1.3 M

1.2 M

1.46

2.08

C

3

2.2 M

2.6 M

2M

2.2 M

1.33

1.1

D

4

2.1 M

1.7 M

1.8 M

2.1 M

0.59

1.29

E

5

517.6 K

1.1 M

652.6 K

517.6 K

1.11

1.99

Source: Data from similarweb.com (M = million, K = thousand)

paragraphs. Posts were written in a more everyday-style conversation or using food jargon. Personal comments and nutrition-related concepts without technical language are consistently presented. Two significant strands can be displayed when examining the corpus data of diet recipes. On the one hand, bloggers convey positive messages about a healthy diet and restrictive eating using metaphors as the weight-loss journey. On the other hand, they are involved in promoting healthy diets and exercises by adopting different strategies, sometimes acting as curators of local foods.

3.2

Diets and Weight-Loss Theme in Culinary Recipes

Positive aspects of food and healthy nutrition are included in most communication posts. Healthy eating knowledge and experiences are translated into ideas and tips for the readers. Recipes were used to convey positive messages to the readers and communicate healthy eating solutions, tips, and practical recommendations. Food trends are inserted into conversation and communication, for example: avocado, organic sugar, smoothies, or vegetarian products. The authors encourage the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. The bloggers are passionate about healthy foods and diets and experts on recipes constructing social identities in ‘Goffman trems’—‘self-as-performer’ and ‘self-as-character’ (Cesiri 2017). The first-ranked food blog (noted here with the letter A) is written by two female co-authors, lifelong friends, who specialise in traditional cuisine distinctive to the Transylvania province, which was influenced mainly by the Austrian-Hungarian tradition. Traditional recipes cover ingredients and dishes such as roasts, salads, patisseries, and desserts from the Transylvania and Banat regions. The authors shared their culinary

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Table 4 Terms and relative frequencies of the term of corpus Count Relative Term (Word in the document) (Raw frequency of the term in the (Relative frequency of the term in document) the document) Diet

37

41. 620

Day

29

32. 621

Rina

28

31.496

Recipe

15

16. 873

Protein

12

13.498

Suitable

11

12.373

Source: data from text analysis using the Voyant tool

experiences worldwide, where practices and habits preserve the national traditions, while others interplay cultural elements from the different geographical locales of Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Germany. Cultural specificities influence communications and behaviours. Geographical regions act as drivers of cultural diffusion of food, practices, and recipes and that their passion for food and cooking came from their mothers and grandmothers. A consistent section is allocated to healthy eating and diets. The co-authors used the ‘weight-loss metaphor’ and promoted low-fat recipes. In addition, they recommended a diet (Rina 90 diet), a diet dissociated by days which is appreciated as easier and more relaxing than others, requiring no counted-calories per day and food-related knowledge. Thirty recipes, containing hedge sentences, belonging to the Rina diet section were selected and translated into English for the textual analysis. Hence, the analysed corpus has 889 words and 303 unique word forms. To observe the similarity in text, we expect to find the exact words to appear in pieces of the text, where some words are more important than others (Table 4). The significance is measured as a TF-IDF score, a common way of expressing how important a term is in a document relative to the rest of the corpus: TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency), a numerical statistic. It is often used as a weighting factor in searches for information retrieval and text mining (voyant-tools.org). Some results of text analysis give a glance at the similarity of text; the average word per sentence was 17.8, and the most frequent words in the corpus were diet (37), day (29), recipe (15), and protein (12). A word cloud for ingredient analysis was created for the ingredient list from the database: the bigger the font size, the more frequent the ingredients (Fig. 1). Figure 1 illustrates a word cloud created with the ingredients of dietary recipes for Blog A (Rina diet section of the blog). Tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, potatoes, and mushrooms seem to form a set of essential ingredients for any healthy dish. Various dish types are promoted (soup, creamy soup, dietetic pasta, salad with vegetables, mixed salad with chicken, meat, and fish), and the

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Fig. 1 Ingredients used in recipes promoting healthy eating (Rina diet) from Blog A

method of cooking is adapted according to the ingredients (boiled, sauté—cooking in a pan with fat, steaming, in the oven). The cooking time is different and ranges from one to ten minutes (short time), eleven to twenty minutes (medium time), or twenty-one minutes and above (long time). The writing style and layout of posts may stimulate warm relationships between the two female blog authors and the readers. Posts were written in a familiar way, with food jargon and metaphors such as ‘weightloss journey’. One of the authors introduces herself and addresses a public commitment to the online community. (“The long-awaited moment arrived when I managed to pull myself together and start a weight-loss treatment. I am writing these lines after I saw that it works and, in a month, I lost 9 kg. The fattening was very simple, and I cooked various goodies. This is just a kind of diary of mine in which I wrote here what I ate in the last month, a diary that I will periodically enrich with new recipes and ideas about the proper nutrition of this diet”). At the same time, she gives and receives support from other participants in the online community. Public commitment has its role in increasing compliance to a course of action and would motivate individuals to remain compliant with a specific behaviour (Nyer and Gopinath 2010). The authors wrote in the first person and highlighted the positive side of weight-loss and nutrition-related experiences. A textual analysis of relationships between pairs of words revealed interesting insights. For example, pairs of words such as ‘loss + weight’, ‘loss + month’, and ‘month + weight’ are associated with high Pearson correlation coefficients and high significance of the correlation value (Table 5).

Promoting Healthy Foods and Diets: Exploring Communication … Table 5 Relationships between pairs of words

269

Term 1

Term 2

Correlation

Significance

Loss

Weight

1

0

Ate

Diary

1

0

Diet

Onions

1

0

Fat

Water

1

0

Fasting

Salted

0.937

0.00063

Loss

Month

0.937

0.00063

Month

Weight

0.937

0.00063

Source: data from text analysis using the Voyant tool

The correlation tool explores the extent to which term frequencies vary in sync between the pair’s first term and the pair’s second term. Also, the Pearson correlation coefficient for this pair of words and the significance of the correlation value (lower is better) are displayed. The correlation coefficient is calculated by comparing the relative frequencies of terms. A coefficient close to ‘1’ indicates that values correlate positively; they rise and fall together. Conversely, a coefficient that approaches ‘−1’ indicates that values correlate negatively; frequencies rise for one term as it drops for the other. The second-ranked food blog name is derived from the Romanian word ‘kitchen’, which seems better linked to popular media content. The blog was initiated in 2008, by an online community formed by over thirty-five people who are passionate about traditional food and original recipes. The blog reached 1.2 million visits in May 2022. The blog layout is mixed, with search panes covering miscellaneous topics from a healthy lifestyle and tips for nutrition and diets. The topic of diet is inserted into a section of articles. A more organised and separated field is the raw vegan section, where the recipes are listed according to the trends and ingredients. Recipes did not focus on a specific health-related diet. Some ingredients are used much more often than others (Fig. 2). For example, grapes, lemon, watermelon, and grapefruits seem to form a set of basic ingredients for any healthy dish. There are no specific recipes, except for those for salads and fruit diets. In addition, several recommendations related to diets, natural treatments, and seasonal tips are presented, and advertisements and commercials for various products such as yoghurts, pizza, several vegetarian recipes, and various diets (Atkins, Dukan, Montignac, Omega) are inserted. The authors actively promote detoxification with artichoke, diets are recommended by the nutritionist engaged in writing and counselling the readers. Hypertexts and advertising for fast-food online services are several times presented. However, despite the prevalence of takeaway food consumption, there is a lack of information regarding their nutritional quality (Jaworowska et al. 2012; Smith et al. 2009). Overall, the blogger did not focus on a specific diet and used persuasion cues related to a healthy diet and practice of exercises (‘peach diet’, lose weight quickly and detoxify the

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Fig. 2 Ingredients used in recipes promoting healthy eating (fruit diet) from Blog B

body; ‘let us lose weight with pasta’). The consumption of water after and before meals is recommended. At the end of the period of diet (especially with fruits), they convey a weight loss of around 3.5 kg. Also, diets with fruits are not recommended for persons with certain diseases (kidneys, diabetes, or pancreatic disorders). The persuasion cues towards exercising and healthy eating are often related to the social and physical attractiveness and attitude of homophily (Prisbell and Andersen 1980). Participants shared their interests in health and exercises with their posts in the comment box. For behavioural and motivational purposes, practical tips and recommendations are frequently communicated by bullet points: (‘Be healthy’; ‘Inspire your family and friends; Do not give up and keep your 4-week diet program with a proper diary’). The personal example of keeping a diary program is also considered a challenge for the readers. Bloggers are actors in finding local foods and are considered curators of creating new ways of food sourcing. In addition, the recipe is considered a ‘sign vehicle’ to promote healthy eating. For example, fruits or vegetables are promoted as healthy products and the cure for fruits (melon, raisin). The third food blogger (Blog C) is a motherly middle-aged woman, a professional chef with a self-presentation from the perspective of a traveller who has lived abroad for some time in the eastern part of Italy among the Romanian community of immigrants. She originated from the eastern part of Romania, with her relatives coming from two culturally different regions (Moldavia and Dobrogea). The name of the blog is Romanian for ‘Good appetite’!

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Fig. 3 Ingredients used in recipes promoting healthy eating (fruit diet) from Blog C

The author is presented as friendly, cheerful, and a little talkative with an affectionate appearance. The blogger has a natural gift for storytelling and relies on experience, feeling, intuition, and authenticity when dealing with a recipe. She promoted three types of diets (Rina Diet and Dukan) and gluten-free (Fig. 3). The development of diets represents an incontestable reality responding to different health issues (such as ‘-free’ diets usually known as gluten-free, salt-free, and sugar-free). Dietetics, dietary culinary recipes, and simple tips for healthy weight loss are presented. A section with diets type (Rina and Keto) is separately designed. Neither potato nor oil is used for the Rina diet. The author translates healthy eating knowledge in terms of practical recommendations and tips useful for every day. (“I am passionate about healthy eating.”). The comments convey positive benefits, motivation to exercise, and preparation of healthy dishes. The prototypical structure of a food blog is carefully maintained for the sections with diets and healthy foods. Posts and recipes are selected according to the dish type, nutrients, and tips, evolving listing ingredients and video documentation. In addition, patterns of narrative inserts are displayed, with a combination of weight-loss metaphors, exercises, food nutrients-related jargon, discourse markers, and hedges (Diemer and Frobenius 2013).

3.2.1

Ingredients in Rina Diet Recipes

The recipes of two bloggers who promoted the Rina diet were classified according to cooking variables (dish type, cooking method, and time). A set of categories was fixed for each variable: dish type (soup, creamy soup, pasta, salad with vegetables, mixed salad

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with chicken meat), method of cooking (boiled, sauté—cooking in a pan with fat, steaming, in the oven), cooking time (short time, one to ten minutes), (medium, eleven to twenty minutes), (long, twenty-one minutes and above). To identify the differences in how diet recipes are cooked, we analysed the cooking variables of nintey-eight recipes from the Rina diet section, which were collected from Blogs A and C (Table 6). Chi-square test results show that the distribution of six cooking variables differs significantly (p < 0.05). Generally, the association of the cooking variables with cooking methods and the quantity of oil was moderate to weak (all V s < 0.5). The strongest association with the quantity of oil was achieved by dish type (V = 520; V = 0.449) and the quantity of the first primary ingredient (V = 0.426). In addition, a moderate association was found between the quantity of oil and the first principal ingredient (rho = 0.339), also between the first principal ingredient and the number of portions (rho = 0.387). Table 6 Cooking variables and statistical associations Dish type

Preparation (time, type)

Type of cooking

Chi-square test

Cramér’s coefficient

X2

df

p

V

Dietetic pasta

Medium time

16.376

5

0.006

0.409

Mixed salad with fish

Medium time

18.135

5

0.003

0.430

Salad with vegetables

Boiled

4.913

1

0.027

0.224

Mixed salad with fish

Baked in the oven

5.347

1

0.021

0.234

Dietetic pizza

Baked in the oven

5.488

1

0.019

0.237

Medium time

78.552

50

0.005

0.403

Salad with vegetables

19.777

10

0.031

0.449

Cream cheese

28.542

10

0.003

0.520

p

Spearman’s Rho

Quantity of oil

Quantity of oil

First principal ingredient

0.001

0.339**

First principal ingredient

Number of portions

0.011

0.257*

Number of portions

0.000

387* **

* . Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed): **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). X 2 chi-square value; df degrees of freedom; p statistical significance

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The fourth blog (Blog D) had 2.1 million visits in June 2022, according to the data provided by the analysis web tool. The blog was launched in 2009 and belonged to a woman passionate about food, originating from the historical province of Banat, located in the southern – western parts of the country. Initially an active member of the culinary forum, a chef since 2014, and author of professional cookbooks, she presents herself to the public as a young woman passionate about cooking, and as a wife and a mother who cares about her family. The blog bears a name that stemmed from regional lexical terms [cuina or cuhnia in Romanian], more appropriate to highlight the cultural heritage of the province of Banat and less understood by the online users. The blog’s title associates the term ‘cuisine’ in the local language as well as the full name of the author. The ‘self-as-character’ presentation by the food blogger is a mother who promotes ‘comfort food’ and ‘healthy food’, food mainly dedicated to family and children. The ‘self-as-performer’ emerging from the contents of recipes is consistent with the self-characterisation of politeness, kindness, and willingness to offer helpful advice for cooking. A section for healthy eating is allocated to meat-free and ovo-dairy-vegetarian recipes (Eggplant rolls with ricotta, zucchini au gratin – without meat; Sandwich with cheese, eggs, and avocado; Eggs in tomato sauce; Creamy cauliflower soup; Peppers stuffed with rice and cheese, in tomato sauce; Tarte Tatin with zucchini and goat cheese). The fifth blog (Blog E) has a name derived from two French words (the first term is the franchised Romanian name of the author’s blog, while the second is ‘cuisine’). The blog’s content seems to offer a mixed cultural background since the idea of a culinary site was closely related to an important event for the author’s blog (her marriage after a journey in Maroc). The blog is considered attractive and has fans and followers through its capacity to share cultural experiences between two geographical regions as distinctive as they are close (Romania and Maroc). The author has undeniable abilities for communication, persuasion, and credibility. Credibility is nourished with the implication of the family, passion for cooking, and many hours of shooting and editing video recipes. Credibility positively affects the general attitude towards the blog (Colton 2018). The blog has an attractive layout and is organised into distinctive sections. The section on salads and diets is categorised according to the ingredients, quantity, the recipe’s origin (international or traditional) and nutrition per portion (calories, glucose, proteins, and vitamins). The dishes are various, and the recipes are presented with video (Greek-style hummus salad, salad with mackerel and bulgur, Mexican salad with rice, tuna salad with couscous, pasta salad with salmon, tabbouleh salad, baba ghanouj). The recipes are seen as scenes of performances where the bloggers perform their identities, select the content of the recipe and video share with their readers. The recipe plays here as an act of performance with an engagement for its followers and fans. The author can create an idealised and socialised image in Goffman terms, a ‘personal front’ (Goffman 2007) to offer her best image. Cultural changes are dynamic linking practices, experiences, and rituals. For the international recipes, the provenience and the principal ingredients are explained with insertions of folktales and legends.

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The bloggers expressed their views in colloquial and informal ways and acted like ordinary experts (Lewis 2010). In sections on healthy eating and diets, bloggers generally transmitted their knowledge, experience, practice, and legitimacy, with some appearance, consumer choices and correct dietary experiences and behaviour. In practice, they establish healthy eating targets and consider what foods and recipes are part of a healthy diet.

4

Conclusions

All five selected food blogs create various content, a mix of ‘foodie’ topics, images and diet recipes, promotion of food products, and short weight-loss narratives. We examined the contribution of food blogs to discourse about healthy eating and diets with the intention to understand how recipes are vehicles for promoting foods and products. Food bloggers are seen as actors engaging in an impression of management and trying to construct images of their identity using ‘sign vehicles’ to express something (‘give on’) or provide information (‘give off’). Positive aspects of food and healthy nutrition are included in most communication posts. The fans consistently read their content and check their photographs, believing they have a personal relationship with them (forms of parasocial contact). Bloggers use a range of content reflecting weight-loss metaphors, stereotypical healthy food products (salads, smoothies, fresh fruits, and vegetables), and ‘junk’ food products (burgers, snacks, and chips). Recipes are considered relevant for the users (mainly women); they mainly appreciate recipes with dietary recommendations that are nutritionally adequate for the family and children. Hyperlinks are considered helpful for additional information on posts. Healthy eating knowledge and experiences are translated into ideas and tips for the readers. The findings of this study should lead to the question of what the role of food bloggers in framing healthy eating discourse is. Future studies should assess the relationships between food bloggers’ knowledge, creation of healthy eating discourse, and promotion of commercial products. A critical appraisal should be considered since bloggers express views as experts with legitimate knowledge in nutrition, diets, and healthy products. The legitimacy of bloggers is closely related to their familiarity and celebrity (Lewis 2008). More research should be done to raise public awareness for eating behaviour and exercises, as well as the promotional techniques that food bloggers and food companies use to gain motivation to obtain and consume (un)healthy foods. Limitations. This study has shown that food blogs are an intriguing subject of healthy food and diets via CMC (Computer-Media Communication), requiring additional background and further investigation. The list of food blogs could be extended and updated to see how discursive practices foster social interaction between celebrities and other virtual

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communities. Deep learning technology, such as word embedding techniques, is necessary to understand the structural characteristics and meaning of the words.

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Folkvord and de Bruijne, M. (2020). The effect of the Promotion of vegetables by a social influencer on adolescents’ subsequent vegetable intake: A pilot study. International Journal of Environmental and Public Health 17, 2243. Giles, D.C. (2002). Parasocial interaction: a review of the literature and a model for future research. Media Psychol. 4 (3), 279–305. Goffman, E. (2007). Viata cotidian˘a ca spectacol, Editura Comunicare.ro, Bucuresti (in Romanian)/ The presentation of self in everyday life, 1959, Vintage Anchor Publishing, Random House Inc (in English). Harding, K., & Kirby, M. (2009). Lessons from the fat-o-sphere: Quit dieting and declare a truce with your Body. New York: Penguin Group. Hawks J., Madanat H., Walsh-Buhl E., Hartman S., Nara A., Strong D., Anderson C. (2020). Narrative review of social media as a research tool for diet and weight loss. Computers in Human Behavior, 111, 106426 Horton, D., & Wohl, R. R. (1956). Mass communication and parasocial interaction: Observations on intimacy at a distance. Psychiatry 19 (3), 215–229. Hui-Yi, H., Chang, P.C. (2010). Influence of message trust in online word-of-mouth on consumerism behaviour by the example of food blog. International Conference on Electronics and Information Engineering, 1 (2010), 395–399. Jaworowska, A., Blackham, T., Stevenson, L., Davies, I.G.(2012). Determination of salt content in hot takeaways in the United Kingdom. Appetite, 59, 2, 517–522. Joose, S., Hracs, B. (2015). Curating the quest for ‘good food’: The practices, spatial dynamics and influence of food-related curation in Sweden. Geoforum, 64, 205-216. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Legatt—Cook, C., Chamberlain, K (2012). Blogging for weight loss: Personal accountability, writing styles, and the weight-loss blogosphere. Social. Health Illn. 34 (7), 963-977. Lewis, T. (2008). Smart living: lifestyle media and popular expertise. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Lewis, T. (2010). Branding celebritization and the lifestyle expert. Cultural studies, pp. 24, 580–598. Lynch M (2010). Healthy habits or damaging diets: an exploratory study of a food blogging community. Ecol Food Nutr 49, 316–335. Lynch, M. (2012). From food to fuel: Perceptions of exercise and food in a community of food bloggers. Health Education Journal 71 (1), 72–79. Malheux – Bissonnette V., Provencher V., Lapointe et. al. (2015). Exploring women’s beliefs and perceptions about healthy eating blogs: a qualitative study. J. Med Internet Res, 17 (4), p. e87. Malheux – Bissonnette V., Dumas, A-A, Provencher V., Lapointe A., Dugrenier M., Straus S, Gagnon, M-P, Desroches, S. (2018). Women’s perceptions of usefulness and ease of use of four Healthy eating blog characteristics: A qualitative study of 33 French-Canadian women. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 118 (7), 1220–1227, e3. Mete, R., Curlewis, J., Shield, A., Murray, K. (2019). Reframing healthy food choices. A content analysis of Australian healthy eating blogs. B.M.C. Public Health 19 (1). Norton, M. (2017). Fitspiration: Social media’s fitness culture and its effect on body image. (Master thesis, California State University Monterey Bay, 2017). CSUMB Capstone Projects and Master’s Theses,138. Nyer, P.U., Dellande, S. (2010). Public commitment as a motivator for weight loss. Psychology & Marketing, 27 (1), 1-12.

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Prisbell, M., Andersen, J.F., (1980). The importance of perceived homophily, level of uncertainty, feeling good, safety, and self-disclosure in interpersonal relationships. Communication Quarterly 28, 22–33. Quarta, S., Massaro, M., Chervenkov, M, Ivanova, T., Dimitrovna, D., Jorge, R., Garcia-Conesa, M.T. (2021). Persistent moderate-to-weak Mediterranean diet adherence and low scoring for plant-based food across several southern European countries: Are we overlooking the Mediterranean diet recommendations? Nutrients, 13 (5), 1432. Raggatt, M., Wright, C.J.C., Carotte, E., Jenkinson, R., Mulgrew, K., Prichard I., L., M.S.C. (2018). ‘I aspire to look and feel healthy like the posts convey’: engagement with fitness inspiration on social media and perceptions of its influence on health and wellbeing. B.M.C. Public Health, 18, 1002. Rodney, A. (2018). Pathogenic or health-promoting? How food is framed in healthy living media for women. Social Science & Medicine, 213, 37–44. Roman, R.A. (2009). Tradit, ii, obicieuri s, i bucate de Cr˘aciun, Paideia, Bucures, ti, Romania. Rousseau, S. (2012). Food Media: Celebrity chefs and the politics of everyday interference. London: Berg. Schneider, E.P., McGovern, E. E, Lynch, L. C, Brown, S. (2013). Do food blogs serve as a source of nutritionally balanced recipes? An analysis of 6 popular food blogs. Journal of Nutrition and Behavior, 46 (6), 696–700. Schouten, AP, Janssen, L, and Verspaget, M. (2019). Celebrity vs Influencer endorsements in advertising: the role of identification, credibility, and product-endorser fit. Int J Advert 39(2). https:// doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2019.1634898. Sedelmeier, T., Kühne, O., Jenal, C. (2022). Foodscapes. Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer VS, Springer Nature, Sinclair, Stéfan and Geoffrey Rockwell. (2016). Voyant Tools. Web. http://voyant-tools.org/. Smith, K., McNaughton, S., Gail, S.L., Blizzard, L., Dwyer, T., Venn, A. (2009). Takeaway food consumption and its associations with diet quality and abdominal obesity: a cross-sectional study of young adults. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 6, 29. Sokolova K., Kefi, H. (2019). Instagram and YouTube bloggers promote it, why should I buy? How credibility and parasocial interaction influence purchase intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Taylor, N., Keating M. (2018). Contemporary food imagery: food porn and other visual trends. In: Communication Research and Practice, 4, 3, 307–323. Tiggermann M, Zaccardo, M (2016). ‘Strong is the new skinny’. A content analysis of #fitspiration images on Instagram. J Health Psychol. 23 (8), 1003–1011. Trattner, C, Elsweiler, D., Howard, S. (2017). Estimating the healthiness of internet recipes: A crosssectional study. Front. Public Health, DOI: 10.3389 Vadiveloo, M, Perraud, E., Parker, H.W., Juul, F., Parekh, N. (2019). Geographic differences in the dietary quality of food purchases among participants in the Nationally Representative Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). Nutrients, 6, https://doi.org/10.3390/NU11061233. Voinea, L., Popescu, D.V., Bucur, M., Negrea, T., M., Dina, R. (2020). Reshaping the traditional pattern of food consumption in Romania through the integration of sustainable diet Principles. A qualitative study. Sustainability, 2, 5826. Webb, B. J., Vinoski, R., E., Bonar, A.S., Davies. E.A., Etzel, L., (2017). Fat is fashionable and fit. A comparative content analysis of Fatspiration and health at every size®, Instagram images. Body image, 22, 53 – 64. Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.),

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Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Professor Liliana Dumitrache (LD) is a human geographer at the Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest. Her current academic activity focuses on Geography of Health and Geodemography: accessibility to healthcare, population health inequalities, social determinants of health, migration and health, and demographic ageing. She extensively published books and articles in the field, promoting interdisciplinarity between geography and health sciences. e-mail: liliana.dumitrache@ unibuc.ro Dr Mariana Nae (MN) is an associate professor at the Department of Human and Economic Geography. Her research and teaching interests focus on the socio-spatial transformation of urban areas, urban planning and quality of life. e-mail: [email protected]

Urban Planning and Food: A Necessary Integration? Angel Menéndez Rexach

Abstract

Until recently, urban planners have paid little attention to food systems This paper aims to give an account of the provisions concerning the sale of foodstuffs contained in urban planning within Spain, with particular attention to the city of Madrid. Consumption is obviously not an urban function, but it has implications that planners should foresee, especially in connection with the use of public spaces. Previously, various reflections are included about the importance of food markets in urban development. Keywords

Urban planning • Food markets • Healthy food

To ensure that foodstuffs and all articles of consumption are of good quality, that they are safe, that they are not adulterated or corrupted, that they are properly weighed and measured, that there are no monopolies, and that in critical circumstances there is no lack of the supply of the most indispensable articles for life, in short, this is the duty of good public administration with respect to this important matter; a duty that corresponds more principally to the municipal authority, since it is a responsibility in general of all the branches of urban regulators in their respective towns, particularly that of markets and food supply (MARTINEZ ALCUBILLA, Diccionario de la Administración española, Dictionary of Spanish Administration 3ª ed. Madrid 1877, volume I, p. 33). A. Menéndez Rexach (B) Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_19

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Introduction

Until recently, urban planners have paid little attention to food systems (Cabannes and Marocchino 2018, p. V). However, the situation has begun to change in recent years, with increasing emphasis being placed on the need to explore and strengthen the links between food and urban planning. The American Planning Association (APA) stated in 20071 that “Several reasons explain why planners have paid less attention to food issues when compared with longstanding planning topics such as economic development, transportation, the environment, and housing”. Among these reasons are: 1. a view that the food system only indirectly touches on the built environment, a principal focus of planning’s interest. 2. a sense that the food system is not broken, so why fix it; and, 3. a perception that the food system meets neither of two important conditions under which planners act — i.e., dealing with public goods like air and water, and planning for services and facilities in which the private sector is unwilling to invest, such as public transit, sewers, highways, and parks. In general, excluding the Garden City movement, food remained “a stranger to the field of urban planning” (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 2000, p. 113) until the early 2000s, when the first studies started in the United States to understand why food was not part of urban planning. A survey of twenty-two United States planning agencies in 1997 and 1998 concluded that the perceived urban–rural divide has a primary reason: food and agriculture were considered a rural topic (Cabannes and Marocchino 2018, p. 19). At the international level one major milestone in reducing the gap between food and urban planning was achieved in October 2016 with the New Urban Agenda (NUA) adopted in Quito at the Habitat III Summit (Cabannes and Marocchino 2018, p. 22). The NUA envisions cities and communities that fulfil the right to an adequate standard of living, which includes, among others components, equal access for all to public goods and quality services in areas such as food security and nutrition (ibidem). Considering food system planning in terms of its spatial dimension will require planning to translate a food strategy and its sectoral dimension into spatial terms, and at the same time to materialize the vision of the different actors, usually through a ‘Master Plan’ at city and regional levels, complemented by physical and land-use plans as well as zoning regulations at neighborhood and district level (Cabannes and Marocchino 2018, p. 30). An important document prepared by FAO explains the role, vision and mission of this organization for the Urban Food Agenda. The report has noted that “National urban 1 APA (2007), Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning, May 11,2007. Comments

and quotations to the guide in Brown and Deming Brush (Cabannes and Marocchino 2018, 83).

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policies rarely deal explicitly with food security and healthy ecosystems and tend to emphasize economic development, with little attention to climate change and human development” (FAO 2019: 26). The same document remarks that “A recent survey conducted with the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact signatory cities shows that even when cities are increasingly moving into establishing inclusive food governance mechanisms and comprehensive food policies, there is a striking lack of knowledge about the origins and flows of food, and about the power relations that shape urban food systems” (p. 27). The proposal is that “Food system strategies should contain a roadmap to facilitate a progressive integration of the rural–urban continuum and the resilience of the food system to sustain diverse shocks (e.g., civil, climate), including integration of safety nets and modalities of crisis preparedness” (p. 28). The adoption of a city-region perspective “gives prominence to ‘short food supply chains’—defined as simplified modes of food provisioning that re-connect food consumers and producers around sustainability values and food security and nutrition objectives” (p. 29). “Nourishing cities through sustainable local production implies breaking the rural–urban divide through the creation of functional spaces where urban and rural actors coexist. Important vehicles for the establishment of such spaces are territorial markets (direct producer–consumer), wholesale markets (producer-brokers) and product aggregation points, including food hubs” (p. 30). FAO will support effective land-use planning, zoning regulations and inclusive legal and institutional frameworks that support the design and development of healthy cities by enhancing access to nutritious and affordable foods, to green spaces and to tree products and services that regulate land-use change effectively (p. 32).

2

The Importance of the Market in Urban Development. Municipal Responsibility for Supplying the Population

Historians have stressed the importance of the market in the development of medieval cities. Most of the commercial activity was concentrated in the market square, which accentuated the need to establish regulation.2 Although Sohm’s thesis on the decisive role of the market in the origin of the medieval city and in its legal regulation (aus dem Marktrecht ist das Stadtrecht hervorgegangen) was largely rejected, there is unanimity in asserting the intimate relationship between market and city.3 The main function of the market was to supply citizens with products of proximity, allowing those from outside the city only when the city was insufficiently supplied with local products.4 Many market regulations were issued in Spain. Most of them referred to foodstuffs. They ordered their sale in designated places, well-conditioned, at reasonable prices and 2 García de Valdeavellano, 1975, p. 11–12. 3 García de Valdeavellano, p. 215. 4 García de Valdeavellano, p.180–181.

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without committing weight fraud. The control of compliance with these provisions was a municipal function, which was exercised in accordance with the respective urban regulatory ordinances. Those in Madrid of 1848 regulated the manufacture and sale of bread, meat, and foodstuffs of all kinds (arts. 206 and following). In 1834, freedom of commerce and sale of objects to eat, drink and burn was declared exempt from taxes, except for bread. Also, it was established that in towns with a large number of inhabitants, suitable places for a market or public square should be designated, distinguishing between those for wholesale and retail sales.5 In fact, however, restrictions continued to exist. “Food markets as a new form of architecture and town planning were established in urban Europe in the early nineteenth century and spread over the continent thanks to the proliferation of iron and glass markets in the second half of the century (…). However, in the twentieth century many of them began to decline, some of them falling under the pickaxe and surviving only in people’s memory. Contrarily, many others are still standing, their old structures defying new commercial structures. Their history —in many cities still in the making—remains for the most part to be written”.6 The local regime enactments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries conferred the authority over markets to the municipalities. According to the current laws of 1985, the municipalities have authority over fairs, supplies, markets, and itinerant commerce, as well as for the protection of public health. This authority must be exercised “under the terms of the legislation of the State and the Autonomous Communities” (art. 25.2). This means that the municipalities are obligated to apply the rules on food approved by national and regional parliaments, concerning consumer protection, hygiene, food quality and safety, retail management and market discipline, urban planning, removal of architectural barriers and other applicable provisions. Within this framework, the municipalities may dictate their own rules on food trade, as well as the hygiene and health conditions requiring compliance. Some of these provisions may be included in urban plans. Almost all of them are related to commercial use, considered as urban use, and the establishments in which they are performed. They focus, therefore, on the sale of food, without considering its production and distribution. So far, they do not incorporate the food system as a whole, nor do they impose minimum requirements to ensure healthy, accessible, and affordable food for everyone. The object of this paper is to give an account of the provisions on the sale of foodstuffs contained in urban planning in Spain, with particular attention to the city of Madrid. Previously, we referred to national and regional legislation regulating land use, although there are no explicit provisions in this regard.

5 Royal Decree of 1834.01.20. 6 Guardia and Oyón, 2015: 11.

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References to Healthy Food in National and Regional Legislation on Land Use

The current national legislation on land use and urban renewal (2015) contains a very broad definition of the principle of sustainable territorial and urban development, with references to the health of people and the healthiness of the urban environment, as well as the protection of the rural environment (art. 3.2). It states that urban policies must pursue, among other purposes, the reduction of water and energy consumption, as well as waste production (art. 3.3). However, there is no mention of food. Land regulation is based on the distinction between two basic situations (rural and urbanized land), whose ownership and use are quite different. Therefore, it does not anticipate the possibility of agricultural uses on urbanized land nor urban uses on rural land, except when its transformation is foreseen in the plan, which must be justified. Recent regional laws have introduced sustainability criteria, which must be considered in management plans for the evaluation of territorial and urban models. These criteria refer to population and housing density, green areas, and public facilities available to the population. One of the most complete regulations is that of Extremadura Sustainable Land and Urban Planning Law of 2018 and its Development Regulation (2021). One of the indicators is the maximum time taken to reach basic services (school, day care and health centers, pharmacy, bank office and post office: art. 13.1 of the Regulation). No mention is made of food and beverage stores, perhaps because their existence is presumed in all towns and villages. The criterion of proximity to the main public services is used by the Spanish Urban Agenda to improve density and urban balance in the consolidated city and in new developments. From the standpoint of social cohesion and equal opportunities, the Spanish Urban Agenda establishes as a specific objective “to reduce the risk of poverty and social exclusion in disadvantaged urban environments”. To this end, these environments must be properly identified. The strategic objectives of the Spanish Urban Agenda are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

To organize the territory and make rational use of the land, To avoid urban sprawl and revitalize the existing city. Prevent and reduce the impacts of climate change and improve resilience. To manage resources sustainably and promote circular economy Promoting proximity and sustainable mobility Promote social cohesion and seek equity (equal opportunities). Promote and encourage the urban economy Ensuring access to housing Leading and promoting digital innovation Improve intervention instruments and governance.

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It is clear that in several of these objectives, the guarantee of healthy and accessible food can be understood as implicit. But it is not specified, which reveals, once again, the lack of connection between urban policies and food. The requirements for healthy food are established in consumer protection legislation and in legislation regulating the food chain. But in this legislation, there are no references to urban planning. At the legal level, the dissociation between food and urban planning remains. The situation in municipal planning, in particular that of the city of Madrid, will be shown below.

4

General Urban Development Plan of Madrid

The current Plan, approved in 1997, distinguishes between municipal markets and private commercial establishments. The former are basic or structural elements of urban planning and are therefore considered public services, insofar as they provide citizens with the supply of basic benefits (art. 7.7.1.2 of the Plan rules). The latter performing private commercial activities of service to the public subject to the corresponding regulations (art. 7.6.1.1.1). This distinction between ‘public services’ and ‘services to the public’ is fundamental because it determines the legal regime of the respective use. However, we will not go into it here. The Plan distinguishes several categories of public services. Among them, food supply, which includes facilities through which food products are provided to supply the population, such as central markets, district markets, slaughterhouses, and other similar facilities. This category includes food markets and basic trade centers managed directly by the public administration or subject to the administrative concession regime (art. 7.11.1.e). District markets are considered basic services, while central markets and slaughterhouses are considered singular services (art. 7.11.3). Basic services are publicly owned activities for daily use by the resident population, which can be managed by any of the admitted modalities (including concession). Singular services are also publicly owned, but for occasional use by citizens. Concerning basic services, the General Plan limits itself to stipulating that priority will be given to their central location with respect to the surrounding residential area, as well as an adequate position in relation to the local road network to guarantee their accessibility through pedestrian routes and public transport. Regarding singular services (here, the central market), their location in strategic sites is included, as well as an adequate position in relation to the urban and metropolitan road network to guarantee their accessibility (art. 7.7.2). The area of reference in Madrid for the purchase of fresh food is Mercamadrid, which houses the central fruit, vegetable, meat and fish markets. Private commercial use is one of the specific categories included in the generic category of tertiary services. As mentioned above, these are not public services, but private

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activities through which facilities are provided to the public. Commercial use consists of the engagement in activities related to the direct supply of goods to the public, through retail sales. It is divided into three categories: i) small commerce, ii) medium commerce, iii) large commerce areas (Art. 7.6.1.2). These include those intended for the food trade, whose sales area exceeds 750 m2 . Their detailed regulation is submitted to a ‘Special Plan’. The provisions of the General Plan, quite limited, as has been shown, are developed in specific municipal ordinances. The Retail Food Trade Ordinance, dated March 27, 2003, was based on the same classification of establishments contained in the General Plan, adding another criterion depending on the products to be sold: i) specialized or monovalent, ii) polyvalent, authorized to sell all kinds of food products intended for human and pet. On the same date, the Municipal Ordinance Regulating Street Selling was approved. Subsequently, the Municipal Markets Ordinance of December 22, 2010, and one ordinance for the revitalization of commercial activities in the public domain of May 28, 2014, were approved, which modified those of markets and street vending, while almost entirely repealing the retail trade ordinance. Consequently, the municipal markets are regulated via the 2010 ordinance and the private commercial activity outside the markets is regulated through the 2003 ordinance on street selling and the 2014 ordinance for the revitalization of commercial activities in the public space. These regulations diversify the possibilities for the use of municipal markets. In addition to the typical retail activities of food and non-food consumer goods, recreational areas for food and beverage consumption are allowed, as well as others for cultural, educational, sports, health and social welfare activities that contribute to the improvement of consumer services (art. 6 of the Municipal Markets Ordinance). The municipal market public service is defined as the service activity that the administration provides to citizens, to ensure the supply of food and non-food consumer items. The municipal market is a public service establishment, municipally owned, which integrates a group of retail stores and other services, which share the use of spaces and facilities for common use [art. 3.a) and b) of the Market Ordinance]. It is managed by the City Council or through a concessionaire, who can cede the use of the market stands to third parties, by means of a contract regulating the relationship between the involved parties. The selection of the stand’s users must be implemented by means of a contract, determined by open procedure, which must guarantee the principles of objectivity, publicity, and concurrence (arts. 18 and 19 of the Ordinance).

5

Municipal Policies for Healthy Food

The healthy and sustainable food strategy for the city of Madrid (2018–2020) was developed under the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact 15 October 2015 (MUFPP), the first international protocol on food issues promoted at the municipal level. The strategy

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describes the characteristics of the city’s food system around the six axes of its structure (governance, sustainable and healthy diets, social and economic equity, production and transformation, supply and distribution, and food waste). The document states that “the provision of food through public services is one of the basic ways to ensure access to healthy and sufficient food for the entire population. At the municipal level, social services aimed at the most vulnerable population stand out: people at risk of exclusion, the elderly and minors”. The Strategy states also that the city of Madrid is fundamentally a consumer space and that “the evolution towards sustainable systems must take into account the territorial environment in which it is inserted, knowing that there is a direct relationship between productive model, diet and territorial system”. Much progress can be made along these lines because a quarter of the surface area of the community of Madrid is occupied by agricultural crops. In the area dedicated to governance, the aim is to promote agricultural and livestock food production in the region’s municipalities. To this end, the Madrid city council will establish the necessary collaboration to facilitate the distribution and sale of these products in the city of Madrid. However, there is no reference to urban planning in any of the aforementioned axes.

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Measures to Ensure Healthy Food that Could be Included in Urban Plans

Urban planning is not the most decisive aspect to be considered to ensure healthy food. But it can contribute to improving the quality of life of the population, their lifestyles, health, and the environment. The European ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy for a fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly food system (2020) is moving in this direction, even if it does not contain specific references to urban planning. In the same year, the New Consumer Agenda: European Commission to empower consumers to become the driver of transition, presents a vision for EU consumer policy from 2020 to 2025 focusing on five key areas: 1) green transition, 2) digital transformation, 3) effective enforcement of consumer rights, 4) specific needs of certain consumer groups (children, older people and disable), 5) international cooperation. Regarding the green transition, territorial and urban planning can play a vital role in promoting practices that reduce the environmental and climate footprint of food systems. It is important to overcome the radical separation between urban and rural land by allowing agricultural uses on urban land. For example, i) include family and community gardens among the admissible uses in urbanized land, and ii) allowing public land banks to be used for urban agriculture. To guarantee the population’s supply, it is necessary for planning to ensure the existence of sufficient public markets to supply in all urban

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areas. On the contrary, it does not seem necessary to establish minimum standards for the existence of retail food establishments. It should not be mandatory. “Ensuring the health and well-being of urban dwellers requires urban planning models that provide access to nutritious food and offer consumers the possibility of adopting healthy food behaviors, as well as providing access to adequate green spaces for recreational use that facilitate an active lifestyle and improve air quality in cities. The retail food environment (i.e. everything that physically surrounds people in terms of food sales and consumption establishments and their relative prices) and the means of food advertising and marketing (including social media and billboards) play an important role in shaping people’s eating habits” (FAO Framework for the Urban Food Agenda 2019, p. 32).

7

Conclusion

Various experiences suggest that urban and regional food system planners need to go beyond their professional boundaries and promote a holistic and multidisciplinary approach using the multi-functional character of food. Their role could be crucial to connecting the different actors and sectors involved in food systems and related sectors. At the same time, they could significantly contribute to linking the different spatial scales involved in food-related issues (Cabannes and Marocchino 2018, p. 57). Concludingly, food systems must be considered in urban planning, though this is not its main objective. The urban planning process is complicated enough, especially in countries, such as Spain, where its provisions are binding. Plans should forecast the spatial location of the three phases of the food chain (production, distribution, and consumption). According to the Spanish legislation, they do so by considering the production as an urban use (agricultural or food industry use). The same consideration applies to the distribution (public markets and private commercial use) phases. Consumption is obviously not an urban use, but it has implications that plans should foresee, especially in connection with the use of public spaces. There is a wide space for reflection and debate in this field.

References Journal Menéndez Rexach, A, (2016), Los objetivos del desarrollo urbano sostenible en la Agenda 2030 y en las agendas urbanas europea y española. Revista Anales de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. UNLP, Nº 51–2021. Pothukuchi, K. and Kaufman, J.L. (2000), The Food System A Stranger to the Planning Field, APA Journal, Spring 2000, Vol. 66, No. 2.

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Book Cabannes, Y. and Marocchino, C. (eds). (2018). Integrating Food into Urban Planning. London, UCL Press; Rome, FAO. FAO Framework for the Urban Food Agenda. Leveraging sub-national and local government action to ensure sustainable food systems and improved nutrition (2019, Rome) García de Valdeavellano, L, (1975). El mercado en León y Castilla durante la Edad Media, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla. Guardia, M. and Oyón, J.L. (editors) (2015), Making Cities through Market Halls Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries, Barcelona.

Angel Menendez Rexach Doctorate in Law by the Autonoma University of Madrid (1978). Professor on Administrative Law at the University of Valladolid and at the Autonoma University of Madrid (since January 1993 until his retirement on 2018). Emeritus Professor at the Autonoma University of Madrid. Public servant of the Senior Body of Civil State Administrators since 1972. Director of the Land and Urban Planning Institute (Ministry of Public Works and Urban Planning) since October 1987 until June 1991. President of the Spanish Association of Urban Law (1994–2004). Research areas: a) administrative organization and proceedings; b) water, coasts, and public works Law; c) land and urban planning; d) health and food security; e) civil protection and emergencies. E-mail address: [email protected]

Regional Food as an Instrument for Regional Development Illustrated by the Example of the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve Anna-Maria Weber, Theodor Geiger, and Leon Barghoorn

Abstract

In global food production, an increasing trend towards regionally produced and consumed food can be seen in recent years. The biosphere reserve within the Swabian Alb as a model region for sustainable development also jumps on this trend and aims to strengthen the production, distribution, and marketing of regional food, including through the regional brand ‘Albgemacht’. This article examines the added value of strengthening ‘regional food’, and the contribution of unified production and consumption of regional food can make to regional development. It is shown that the Swabian Alb is shaped by its characteristic foodscapes and that regional food is of significant importance for regional development. Especially the strengthening of regional cycles and the connection to nature conservation are emphasized as positive effects. Keywords

Regional development • Regional food • Regional brand • Foodscape • Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve

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A.-M. Weber (B) · T. Geiger · L. Barghoorn Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Deutschland e-mail: [email protected] T. Geiger e-mail: [email protected] L. Barghoorn e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_20

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Introduction

Within the diverse research field of ‘foodscape’ (for further details on this term, see in this anthology: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023), there are a variety of developments that are shaped by globalization (see Andrée et al. 2014; Nygård and Storstad 1998; Robinson 2004; Wiskerke 2009). In stark contrast, however, there are also various movements that focus on local food production (see Andrée et al. 2014; Blumberg 2018; Nygård and Storstad 1998; Plieninger et al. 2013; Stein and Santini 2022). These can also be found in UNESCO biosphere reserves, which, in addition to nature conservation, have the goal of strengthening the local economy (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.a; Knaus et al. 2017; Plieninger et al. 2013). Plieninger et al. (2013, Chapter: The Way Ahead for Cultural Landscapes) show that for the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve, local food can play an important role for the preservation as well as the development of these cultural landscapes. UNESCO views these cultural landscapes as landscapes on which nature and people have interacted (UNESCO 2021, pp. 22–23). The present work also focuses on the biosphere reserve, established in 2008 and recognized by the UNESCO in 2009, and extends over an area of 850 km2 within the eponymous low-mountain range Swabian Alb (Jooß 2013, p. 43; Ministerium für Umwelt, Klima und Energiewirtschaft BadenWürttemberg 2022). It includes twenty-nine cities and municipalities with a total of about 150,000 inhabitants (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.a; Jooß 2013, p. 43). As of October 2021, it is one of sixteen biosphere reserves in Germany and 727 worldwide (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.a). This paper focuses on the relationship between food and regional development. It provides answers to the question of what contribution regional food makes to regional development. For this purpose, the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve and the local regional brand Albgemacht are examined. To answer the question, the existing literature is presented first. Subsequently, the results from interviews with experts from the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve are presented and discussed.

2

Theoretical Framework

The present work deals with the connection between food and regional development in the field of ‘foodscape’ and considers biosphere reserves for this purpose. For the aspect of regional development, the approach of sustainable development is normatively used (see Bergmann 2000; Borsdorf et al. 2020; Chilla et al. 2016). In it, the ecological, economical, and social pillars are considered (Bergmann 2000, p. 217). This form of regional development is pursued in UNESCO biosphere reserves (Borsdorf and Jungmeier 2020, p. 3; Braun et al. 2020, p. 34; UNESCO 2019). Accordingly, the contribution of the biosphere reserve and the food produced within it is therefore evaluated at these three levels of sustainability.

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The biosphere reserves have already been considered as an instrument for regional development in various works (see Batisse 1997; Borsdorf et al. 2020; Hammer 2007). They are model regions recognized by UNESCO, in which various aspects, such as sustainable development, nature conservation, and economy are promoted (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.a; UNESCO 2019). For these purposes, the respective area is divided into three zones (Fig. 1) (UNESCO 2020, p. 30). While nature with its biodiversity is completely protected in the core area, the buffer zone formed around it offers space for various sustainable activities, such as education, tourism, agriculture, and forestry which are intended to benefit the preservation of the cultural landscapes (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.a; UNESCO 2019, 2020, pp. 30–39). Around the buffer zone, economic and social actions of residents take place in a sustainable way in the outer transition area (UNESCO 2019, 2020, pp. 30–40). The recognition of such a territory is a process with a large number of criteria to be met (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.b). Examples in Germany include support of the local residents, representativeness of the area, and a sustainability vision (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.b). As of October 2021, UNESCO maintains 727 biosphere reserves in 131 countries worldwide, covering approximately 5% of the Earth’s surface (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.a). The sixteen German biosphere reserves cover 3.7% of the German national territory (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission n. d.a). One of these biosphere reserves is the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve, shown in Fig. 1. It extends over 850 km2 on the same-named low mountain range, including the foothills south of Stuttgart, and features a diverse landscape (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.a; Jooß 2013, p. 43; Ministerium für Umwelt, Klima und Energiewirtschaft Baden-Württemberg 2022). In addition to the mountains, the reserve is characterized by traditional cultural landscapes, such as meadow orchards and juniper heaths (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.a; Jooß 2013, p. 43). The growing of wine is also possible because of the milder temperatures at the foot of the Alb (Jooß 2013, p. 43). The organization of the biosphere reserve is managed by the various participating municipalities, the state of Baden-Württemberg, as well as other institutions and associations (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.b). They provide the coordinating steering committee which, for example, makes decisions about finances and personnel (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.b; Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n. d.c). The Swabian Alb together with the biosphere reserve has already been investigated in versatile studies several times (see Müller et al. 2019; Plieninger et al. 2013): Wherein Müller et al. (2019) address visitor interests in biodiversity and landscape and Plieninger et al. (2013) conduct a scenario analysis involving the domain of cultural landscapes. The result of this analysis conveys, among other things, that food produced in the biosphere reserve can be a factor for the preservation of cultural landscapes (Plieninger et al. 2013, Chapter: The Way Ahead for Cultural Landscapes). This link between regional development, food, and biosphere reserves runs throughout the literature. There is a strong focus on social, political, and economic aspects and

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Fig. 1 Location and structure of the study area. (Own representation)

often recommends local products like food as a tool for the development of biosphere reserves (Borsdorf and Jungmeier 2020, p. 23; Knaus et al. 2017, p. 129; Plieninger et al. 2013, Chapter: The Way Ahead for Cultural Landscapes). Coetzer et al. (2014), Knaus et al. (2017), and Weixlbaumer et al. (2020) have already studied these aspects for various reserves, where food and other products are mostly marketed under regional brands. In addition to economic goals, this marketing also has ecological goals, like in the Rhön Biosphere Reserve in Germany, where regional branding protects meadows (Braun et al. 2020, p. 48). This link between food and regional development is discussed in the literature not only in the field of biosphere reserves, but also in other diverse fields, such as tourism (see Cvijanovi´c et al. 2020; Hall and Gössling 2016). In the case of the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve there are also many promotions and projects involving regionally produced food. One prominent action engaging the various channels of the biosphere reserve is the regional brand ‘Albgemacht’. Under it, various products of different producers in and around the biosphere reserve are sold (Albgemacht n. d., p. 1). For a product to be included in this brand, the applicants and their food must fulfill the ‘seven pillar criteria’ of Albgemacht (Albgemacht 2020). These pillars detail specifications for the origin, production, and sustainability of the products and their producers (Albgemacht 2020). One of the main criteria is that the businesses must be located

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within five kilometers of the biosphere reserve (Albgemacht 2020). Further regulations are, for example, that the materials used also come, if possible, from the biosphere reserve and from Albgemacht members (Albgemacht 2020). Furthermore, there are many criteria for the protection of animal welfare, against genetic engineering, and for the preservation of biodiversity (Albgemacht 2020). The products accordingly obtain the claim to be regional and sustainable (Albgemacht n. d., p. 2). Currently, the regional brand consists of twelve members (Albgemacht 2022). Each of them usually markets a part of its product range, often only one or a few products, under the brand name (Albgemacht 2022). The products follow a uniform design, which also conveys information about their distinctive features. The regional brand offers a variety of regional foods, such as beekeeping honey, flour from the mill, and lamb products from the shepherd (Albgemacht 2022). The brand is strongly linked to and supported by the biosphere reserve. Examples of this are jointly organized events and a strong presence among the various channels of the biosphere reserve.

3

Methodical Procedures

Having referred to the importance of the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve and the relevance of regional food for regional development, the research design of this thesis will now be explained. The central research question is: “What contribution do regional foods make to regional development?” This is illustrated by the example of the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve and the regional brand Albgemacht. The aim of the paper is to investigate how different actors assess the importance of regional food in the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve and how they perceive the regional brand Albgemacht. The paper is thus based on a social constructivist understanding of science and landscape. From a social constructivist perspective, it is assumed that a fact cannot be considered detached from the subject and context (Kühne 2018, p. 18). Accordingly, reality is not simply given objectively, but only emerges from social interaction. Thus, the interest lies in the patterns of action resulting from social interactions as well as in the (diverging) perceptions and argumentation structures of the different actors (Kühne 2018, p. 18). To collect these perceptions, assessments and argumentation patterns, qualitative guideline-based expert interviews were conducted. The interview guideline included questions about the points of contact and knowledge about the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve in general, questions about the attitude and the evaluation of the importance of regional food for regional development, and questions about the regional brand—Albgemacht. Five people were interviewed, who can be assigned to different groups of actors and have versatile references to the study area. The perspectives of employees in the biosphere reserve, producers of regional products, and farm store owners as well as employees in the fields of agriculture, nature conservation, and tourism were acquired. The questioning and illumination of the varying groups of actors allowed a look at diverging patterns of

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interpretation and differences in the articulation of interests. The interviews were transcribed and subjected to inductive coding. The coded material was evaluated in terms of a summary content analysis according to Mayring (see Mayring 2016; Mayring and Fenzl 2014).

4

Evaluation of the Results

In the following the main statements that are relevant to the content are discussed. These are divided into different subject areas which emerged on the basis of the code system.

4.1

Personal Relationship and Points of Contact with the Study Area

To find out the relationship of the interviewees to the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve the first question asked was about the points of contact and the relationship. It became apparent that all interviewees have a close professional relationship to the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve and have been familiar with the topic for several years. Interviewee 3 emphasized being closely involved in the development process and had decisively “pushed” for the idea. The interviewees also let it be heard that they support the biosphere reserve—which according to Interviewee 1 is not a matter of course—and see the risks and concerns as well as the opportunities. Especially in the older and more conservative stratum of the population critical voices can often be found which is why it is important to also include the opinion of the “young people” and to listen to where they see the “opportunities and developments” (Interviewee 1).

4.2

Characteristics of the Biosphere Reserve

When the interviewees characterize the biosphere reserve it is noticeable that the aspects mentioned are close to the characteristics mentioned in the theoretical introduction. This again underlines that the interviewees are very familiar with the biosphere reserve and its objectives. Interviewee 5 states that it is a “model region for sustainable development” and that “the typical cultural and scenic features” of the Swabian Alb can be found there as a whole. In addition, reference is made to other characteristic “landscape elements such as rocks, juniper heaths, and orchards” (Interviewee 5). Interviewee 3 also emphasizes that the model region is not only considered in terms of landscape but that many people from different groups become active and participate in the implementation of model projects. This cooperation of the diverse groups of actors such as civil society, authorities, agriculture, nature conservation associations, and tourism allows emerging problems

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to be solved more intensively and quickly. The landscape aspect is nevertheless predominant in the foreground here. Interviewee 2 emphasizes that the production of food in the biosphere reserve should be designed in such a way that something is given back to agriculture. This draws a connection between landscape and food which is the essential component of the ‘foodscape’.

4.3

Goals and Tasks of the Biosphere Reserve

When asked about the goals and tasks of the biosphere reserve varying aspects were mentioned. Interviewee 5 sees the main task of the biosphere reserve in promoting regional development. In this context voluntary and full-time actors are brought together to develop projects and to create awareness. For Interviewee 4, the pillar of ecology and nature conservation is in the foreground. There should be an attempt to bring nature conservation “to the field” to focus even more on the preservation of the environment (Interviewee 4). However, Interviewees 1 and 3 contradict this statement by referring again to the model region which has the task to consider all three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and ecological) and not to focus only on a singular aspect of ecology. Another task mentioned is the creation of awareness among the population, for example, to eat regionally (Interviewee 1). Interviewee 4 adds that information and networking events are also important to raise awareness about the importance of the biosphere reserve.

4.4

Actors with an Interest in the Foraging Landscape

Next, respondents were asked which actors have an interest in the foodscape of the Swabian Alb and contribute to its design. The interviewees named a large number of actors but ultimately, they are all interrelated. Interviewees 4 and 5 expressed that everyone has an interest in how and where food is produced. Furthermore, regional producers, farmers, and private entrepreneurs are cited, who often had been critical of the topic in the beginning but gradually joined the movement in order not to be at a disadvantage compared to the competition (Interviewee 1, 3, 4, and 5). Also, according to Interviewee 5, consumers have a great interest in the foodscape which is mainly measured by the “increasing demand for locally produced food”. Interviewee 1 adds that in addition to consumers the local population also has an interest in the foodscape because the purchase of local products leads to the preservation of the cultural landscape which can ultimately serve as a recreational area. Interviewees 1 and 5 see gastronomy as another interest group since “regional specialties are something special” (Interviewee 1). Gastronomers would often use regional products as a “signboard” and thereby try to attract new customers (Interviewee 5). Ultimately, it can be said that the cooperation of the different

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interest and stakeholder groups is seen as an essential and central point of success in the development of the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve (Interviewee 1).

4.5

Potentials and Challenges of Regional Foods

Interviewee 5 mentions the creation of regional value chains as the greatest potential. However, Interviewee 5 emphasizes that there are still hurdles in the areas of transport and packaging. Interviewee 4 adds that the bundled processing steps ultimately lead to decoupling from the world market. Local production and processing of domestic products would result in fair prices along the value chain. The most frequently mentioned challenge is the question of price. Interviewees 1, 2, and 5 see the relatively high price of regional food as a reason for lower demand. However, the actual added value has been very low so far which is why there is still a need for readjustment in this area in the future (Interviewee 1). The behavior of consumers is also criticized as they lack an understanding of the value of regionally produced food. Here educational work and a stronger familiarization are needed. Further challenges currently exist as already mentioned in the distribution and sale of the products. Interviewee 1 states that there are still problems in logistics and that a consistent regular supply, for example, to farm stores does not yet function satisfactorily. In addition, farms often do not have the same status as other companies and industries. According to Interviewee 5, there is also a lack of political incentives to invest in regional food production. Especially, because of financing issues these land uses have a lower status. In this regard Interviewee 5 also emphasizes that many communities even have to pay for the grazing of juniper heaths and similar concerns.

4.6

Importance of Regional Food for Regional Development

To discern what influence regionally produced food can have, the interviewees were asked about the importance of regional food for regional development. Interviewees 3 and 5 attributed a very significant importance to them for regional development. Interviewee 1 concretized the positive importance and mentioned again the local added value and regional cycles as a central contribution to regional development. These included not only the advantages for the producers but also for the consumers who want to have a good and reliable product. Interviewee 4 also sees three important factors for regional development: saving CO2, creating local value-added circles, and creating regional identity. According to Interviewee 4, regionality is not sufficient for the goals of regional development. Interviewee 4 emphasizes that with regional products there must always be “a certain amount of nature conservation” and that this therefore plays a vital role. Finally, however Interviewee 1 suggests that the added value is not to be classified in monetary terms but can

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be clearly felt by the population. Thus, Interviewee 1 sees the contribution of regional food as “an excellent regional development process”.

4.7

Evaluation of the Foraging Landscape in the Biosphere Reserve

Interviewees 1, 3, 4, and 5 are of the opinion that the foraging landscape in the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve has evolved historically. In this context Interviewee 4 adds that the topography and the soils have led to a mixed foraging landscape. In addition to these two components, the climate and the landscape are also reflected in the food which is therefore characteristic of the region (Interviewee 5). As foodstuffs that characterize the foodscape in the biosphere reserve, crops such as the Alb lentils are quite often mentioned which has a supra-regional significance in this respect (Interviewees 1, 4, and 5). Cereal cultivation also plays a key role although it is not so much the “usual” agricultural products such as wheat, barley, or corn that are cultivated but rather niche products such as emmer spelt or millet (Interviewees 2 and 3). The orchard sector is also considered important including requisite regional apple juice, distillates, and sparkling wines made from fruit (Interviewees 1 and 5). In conclusion, Interviewee 4 suggests that there is an undersupply in the area of vegetable cultivation as well as in cattle and pig farming, adding that in contrast to other counties there is no focus here.

4.8

Regional Brand Albgemacht—Added Value and Challenges

The regional brand of Albgemacht is mentioned by all interviewees as an integral part of regional development. Regional brands often get lost next to the many different brands that already exist, but all interviewees see Albgemacht as an added value for the region and the actors. According to Interviewee 4, the farmers and producers hope for an economic advantage using Albgemacht in that they “want to open up new delivery areas or new customers”. Interviewee 2 also sees an added value for consumers in that Albgemacht takes on an educational function. Consumers should be informed of what is behind the brand and what the consumption of regional food means. The preservation of regional added value is repeatedly mentioned as a positive aspect. But besides the added value for producers and the preservation of the value chain, Albgemacht also offers tourism potential. Interviewee 5 mentions that especially the visibility for tourists can be increased and that food from the Swabian Alb is a good advertisement for the region. The Interviewees all see an added value in Albgemacht, nevertheless the regional brand is still in the initial phase. The terms “start-up level” (Interviewee 1), “pioneering phase” (Interviewee 3) and “rough standing outfit” (Interviewee 5) were mentioned which underline this again. The development and progress to date are assessed as positive although there is still “a lot of room for improvement” (Interviewee 2). To be competitive in the future and to further

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expand the product range Interviewee 1 proposes to professionalize Albgemacht, which has so far only been run on a voluntary basis. The current distribution situation also poses a great challenge as there is not yet a common distribution point. In the future more coordinated effort would be needed here to increase efficiency (Interviewee 1 and 2). In addition, Albgemacht has significantly stricter nature conservation criteria than other regional brands which on the one hand is assessed as good but on the other hand it is feared that the economic aspect could suffer in the long run (Interviewee 1).

4.9

Assessment of the Degree of Awareness of Albgemacht

Furthermore, the degree of awareness of Albgemacht, according to the estimation of the interviewed persons, varies strongly with the spatial unit. The degree of awareness within the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve is estimated as relatively high, outside the biosphere reserve however a high degree of awareness is doubted. Interviewee 5 makes the reference that the rather low awareness could also be related to the fact that the products are no longer available for purchase outside the biosphere area. Interviewee 4 states that the products are at least everyday necessities and that a certain level of awareness therefore appears to be achievable in the future. As was already evident in the assessment of the development stage, the interviewees also see “a lot of room for improvement” in terms of awareness (Interviewee 4). The products should be better advertised in the future and, in general, there is still a lack of awareness of the importance of regional products among the population. In this regard, Interviewee 1 suggests integrating the products more strongly in facilities such as company and school cafeterias and at public events. Interviewee 2 adds that even if people have already heard of the brand, it does not automatically mean that they have understood what is behind it. Above all, awareness must be created among consumers. In this context there is also the suggestion to increase awareness via new channels such as social media. However, there is often a lack of the necessary personnel, time, and financial capabilities (Interviewee 2). Interviewee 1 adds that this could also reach people outside the region.

4.10

Albgemacht’s Contribution to Regional Development

The contribution of Albgemacht to regional development is assessed as good and important. None of the interviewees is of the opinion that the regional brand is superfluous or has a negative effect on regional development. Interviewee 5 gives the best rating to Albgemacht’s contribution giving it “10 out of 10 points”. Interviewee 4 supports this assessment and highlights the development of a food brand as the main objective of UNESCO biosphere reserves. Interviewee 4 states that the regional brand is still in its infancy, as mentioned earlier, but over time sees great potential for development and

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added value for regional development. The influence of Albgemacht can lead, according to the estimation of Interviewee 2, both to the fact that the consumers gain familiarity with the products of the biosphere reserve and familiarity with the biosphere reserve in its entirety including its landscape characteristics. Thus, more points of contact created with the region will eventually lead to an increase in awareness among the population.

5

Discussion

The evaluation of the interviews shows that in terms of content there are great parallels to the aspects listed in the theoretical chapter. As already became clear in the discussion of the literature, the interviewed persons see a connection between the regional food and the regional development in the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve. Within the interviewees, there are no strongly diverging interpretation patterns and the assessments are similar. The social as well as economic importance of regional food refers primarily to the local added value, the tourist attractiveness, and the added value for the local population. The greatest differences of opinion among the interviewees can be seen in the importance of the ecological dimension. While for some, nature conservation takes precedence over economic interests, for others it is important that all measures and approaches are also economically profitable. A larger data corpus would have been necessary to be able to make further differentiations and to acquire additional content-related aspects, but this was not done as a result of the limited scope of the work. Furthermore, in a more in-depth study, additional groups of actors should be interviewed. Although the people interviewed have different professional backgrounds, they are all familiar with the topic on a full-time basis. Here, for example, a survey of locals or consumers would be helpful for a more comprehensive examination of the topic. Likewise, this study and the data collected for it are limited to a relatively small study area. For a spatially larger evaluation, the inclusion of further spatial units would therefore be necessary. In addition, inclusion of regions that are not designated as biosphere reserves would be important for a more comprehensive and contrasting illumination of the question. Nevertheless, the results of the study show that the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve draws an added value from the regional food and that regional food is emphasized as a positive instrument of regional development. Therefore, the study area can also serve as a model for other regions and inspire them to think about the introduction of a regional brand and the strengthening of regional food. Through reference to scientific theory, for example, Coetzer et al. (2014), Knaus et al. (2017) or Weixlbaumer et al. (2020), it also becomes clear that the importance of regional food is affirmed already in other regions, where similar developments to those in the Swabian Alb area are shown.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be stated that the interviewees as well as the cited scientific literature see a great potential in regional food for regional development (in this anthology, see in this context: Grupp & Gschwender 2023). From an ecological point of view, it is particularly emphasized that the cultivation of the land in the biosphere reserve contributes to and plays a significant role in the preservation of the special cultural landscape, dominated by rough pastures, juniper heaths, and scattered orchards. In addition, it is mentioned that the marketing of regional products should create an increased awareness for more environmentally friendly food in the population and thus nature conservation can be brought “to the area”. From an economic point of view, regional food also contributes to regional development, as local value creation is strengthened, and smaller farms can survive better. In addition, Albgemacht is reiterated as an important approach to create a central platform for regionally produced products and to promote marketing. According to the interviewees, this strengthening of the ecological and economic pillar ultimately influences the local population, as they value the cultural landscape of the biosphere area as a local recreation area on the one hand and can consume high-quality products from the reserve on the other. However, the future demand for regional food depends on the price development of these products and the willingness of the population to pay these prices. Nevertheless, currently, regional food is seen as a great contribution to the sustainable development of the Swabian Alb Biosphere Reserve.

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Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb (n. d.b). Organisation. https://www.biosphaerengebiet-alb.de/ biosphaerengebiet/organisation. Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb (n. d.c). Lenkungskreis. https://www.biosphaerengebiet-alb.de/ biosphaerengebiet/organisation/lenkungskreis. Blumberg, R. (2018). Alternative food networks and farmer livelihoods: A spatializing livelihoods perspective. Geoforum, 88, 161–173. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum. 2017.10.007. Borsdorf, A., Jungmeier, M., Braun, V. & Heinrich, K. (Eds.). (2020). Lehrbuch. Biosphäre 4.0: UNESCO-Biosphere Reserves als Modellregionen einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung. Springer Spektrum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-60707-7. Borsdorf, A. & Jungmeier, M. (2020). Das Weltnetz der Biosphere Reserves (UNESCO WNBR) im Spiegel des Nachhaltigkeitskonzeptes: Stand und Perspektiven. In A. Borsdorf, M. Jungmeier, V. Braun & K. Heinrich (Eds.), Lehrbuch. Biosphäre 4.0: UNESCO-Biosphere Reserves als Modellregionen einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung (pp. 3–30). Springer Spektum. Braun, V., Humer-Gruber, A., Heinrich, K. & Job, H. (2020). Synopsis der Biosphere Reserves in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. In A. Borsdorf, M. Jungmeier, V. Braun & K. Heinrich (Eds.), Lehrbuch. Biosphäre 4.0: UNESCO-Biosphere Reserves als Modellregionen einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung (pp. 33–60). Springer Spektum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-66260707-7_2. Chilla, T., Kühne, O. & Neufeld, M. (2016). Regionalentwicklung. utb-studi-e-book: Bd. 4566. Verlag Eugen Ulmer. https://doi.org/10.36198/9783838545660. Coetzer, K. L., Witkowski, E. T. F. & Erasmus, B. F. N. (2014). Reviewing Biosphere Reserves globally: effective conservation action or bureaucratic label? Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 89(1), 82–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12044. Cvijanovi´c, D., Ignjatijevi´c, S., Vapa Tankosi´c, J. & Cvijanovi´c, V. (2020). Do Local Food Products Contribute to Sustainable Economic Development? Sustainability, 12(7), 2847. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/su12072847. Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission (n. d.a). Kultur und Natur: Biosphärenreservate. https://www.une sco.de/kultur-und-natur/biosphaerenreservate. Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission (n. d.b). Kultur und Natur: Biosphärenreservat werden. https:// www.unesco.de/kultur-und-natur/biosphaerenreservate/biosphaerenreservat-werden. Grupp, C., & Gschwender, F. (2023). Analysing the weekly market in Tübingen within the concepts of Regionality and Alternativ Food Networks. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Hall, C. M. & Gössling, S. (2016). From food tourism and regional development to food, tourism and regional development. In C. M. Hall, S. Gössling (Eds.), Food tourism and regional development: Networks, products and trajectories. Routledge studies of gastronomy, food and drink (pp. 3–57). Routledge. Hammer, T. (2007). Biosphere Reserves: An Instrument for Sustain-able Regional Development. The Case of Entlebuch, Switzerland. In I. Mose (Ed.), Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice. Protected areas and regional development in Europe: Towards a new model for the 21st century (pp. 39–54). Ashgate. Jooß, R. (2013). Schwäbische Alb (Swabian Alb) Biosphere Reserve. Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research and Management, 5, 43–48. Knaus, F., Bonnelame, L. K., & Siegrist, D. (2017). The economic impact of labeled regional products: The experience of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Entlebuch. Mountain Research and Development, 37(1), 121–130. https://www.jstor.org/stable/90001387.

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Kühne, O. (2018). Landschaftstheorie und Landschaftspraxis: Eine Einführung aus sozialkonstruktivistischer Perspektive (2., aktualisierte und überarbeitete Auflage). Springer VS. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-658-19034-7. Kühne, O. (2023). Landscape theorerical approches to the study of foodscapes – a neopragmatic proposal. In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Mayring, P. (2016). Einführung in die qualitative Sozialforschung: Eine Anleitung zu qualitativem Denken (6. Aufl.). Pädagogik. Beltz. http://www.beltz.de/de/nc/verlagsgruppe-beltz/gesamtpro gramm.html?isbn=978-3-407-25734-5. Mayring, P. & Fenzl, T. (2014). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. In N. Baur & J. Blasius (Eds.), Handbuch Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung (pp. 543–556). Springer VS. Ministerium für Umwelt, Klima und Energiewirtschaft Baden-Württemberg (2022). Biosphärengebiete. https://um.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/umwelt-natur/naturschutz/schutzgebiete/biosphaer engebiete/. Müller, S. M., Peisker, J., Bieling, C., Linnemann, K., Reidl, K. & Schmieder, K. (2019). The Importance of Cultural Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity for Landscape Visitors in the Biosphere Reserve Swabian Alb (Germany). Sustainability, 11(9), 2650. https://doi.org/10.3390/su1109 2650. Nygård, B. & Storstad, O. (1998). De-globalization of Food Markets? Consumer Perceptions of Safe Food: The Case of Norway. Sociologia Ruralis, 38(1), 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9523. 00062. Plieninger, T., Bieling, C., Ohnesorge, B., Schaich, H., Schleyer, C. & Wolff, F. (2013). Exploring Futures of Ecosystem Services in Cultural Landscapes through Participatory Scenario Development in the Swabian Alb, Germany. Ecology and Society, 18(3). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES05802-180339. Robinson, G. M. (2004). Geographies of agriculture: Globalisation, restructuring and sustainability. Routledge. Stein, A. J., & Santini, F. (2022). The sustainability of “local” food: A review for policy-makers. Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41130021-00148-w. UNESCO (2019). What are Biosphere Reserves? https://en.unesco.org/node/314143. UNESCO (2020). Technical Guidelines for Biosphere Reserves. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/ 48223/pf0000375692. UNESCO (2021). Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. https://whc.unesco.org/en/guidelines/. Weixlbaumer, N., Hammer, T., Mose, I., & Siegrist, D. (2020). Das Biosphere Reserve-Konzept in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz–Paradigmatische Entwicklung und zukünftige Herausforderungen im Spannungsfeld von Regionalentwicklung und globaler Nachhaltigkeit. In A. Borsdorf, M. Jungmeier, V. Braun & K. Heinrich (Eds.), Lehrbuch. Biosphäre 4.0: UNESCOBiosphere Reserves als Modellregionen einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung (pp. 99–119). Springer Spektum. Wiskerke, J. S. (2009). On Places Lost and Places Regained: Reflections on the Alternative Food Geography and Sustainable Regional Development. International Planning Studies, 14(4), 369– 387. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563471003642803. Yasmeen, G. (2023). Origins of the concept of foodscape from the 1990s to today: quo vadis? In O. Kühne, L. Dumitrache, J. D. Fischer, V. Hochschild, C. Manetti, A. de Marcos, et al. (Eds.), Foodscapes. Theory, History and Current European Examples (in this anthology). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Anna-Maria Weber is studying for a master’s degree in “Human Geography—Global Studies” at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, where she also completed her Bachelor of Science in Geography. Since February 2021, she has been working at the Chair of Urban and Regional Development as a research assistant. Contact information: [email protected]. de Theodor Geiger is studying for a master’s degree in “Human Geography—Global Studies” at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Augsburg. Contact information: [email protected] Leon Barghoorn is studying for a master’s degree in “Human Geography—Global Studies” at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. He received his Bachelor of Science in Geography from the University of Augsburg. Contact information: [email protected]

Fighting Food Waste: Current and Upcoming Policies and Regulations in Spain Carlos Castells-Somoza

Abstract

Food waste, defined as the act of disposing of food that has not been used for its intended purpose, is a problem all over the world, as well as in Spain. Although not the biggest contributors, sellers and caterers are responsible for a significant amount of this waste but have traditionally not been targeted by policies and regulations aiming to prevent food waste. This has changed recently, as some countries have started looking at the food chain as a whole and adopted policies and regulations that directly affect distributors and food service providers. The focus of this paper is analyzing the current situation in Spain, which is in the midst of passing a law specifically focused on preventing food waste, to determine if it tackles the problem correctly. Keywords

Foodscapes • Food waste • Food insecurity • Food distribution • Food services Spanish Law • European Union Law

1

•

Introduction

The concept of ‘foodscape’ has multiple dimensions (Sedelmeier et al. 2022, pp. 15–19; see in this anthology: Kühne 2023; Yasmeen 2023). In its most basic understanding, it relates to physical spaces where food is produced, distributed, sold, or consumed; however, it has also been used by behavioral sciences to study how human perceptions of C. Castells-Somoza (B) Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 O. Kühne et al. (eds.), Foodscapes, RaumFragen: Stadt – Region – Landschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41499-3_21

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food landscapes shape their eating behaviors, and it has been approached in more systemic fashion as well, studying the food regime as a whole to critique and promote more sustainable diets. Foodscape is, all in all, a purposefully wide concept that encompasses many different realities. Therefore, it should not be problematic to include within it those policies and regulations regarding food as well, since these indubitably shape everything food related, from how it is produced (e.g., bans on certain pesticides) and stored (e.g., date marking) to the way it is consumed (e.g., school workshops regarding healthier eating habits) and disposed of (e.g., management of dumpsters and garbage collection services). These regulations, however, have traditionally focused almost exclusively on food safety, and thus only on the first half of the food supply chain, forgetting the problem of food waste. It is only recently that some countries have started to realize the importance of a more comprehensive approach, one which ensures that the food we access is safe for human consumption, undoubtedly, but also takes into consideration food security (ensuring that everyone has reliable access to a sufficient quantity of food) and the environment (avoiding the ‘invisible waste’ that food waste engenders: water, CO2 emissions, human labor, etc.). One of these countries is Spain, which is currently in the process of passing a more comprehensive law to fight food waste at a national level. The focus of this paper, therefore, is to analyze both the existing and the proposed policies and regulations, specifically those that target the problem of food waste at a distribution or commerce level, to determine if enough is being done or if there is room for improvement.

2

Two preliminary problems: definition and relevance

Before diving into the problem of policies and regulations to fight food waste in Spain, two issues should be addressed. On the one hand, it is necessary to establish what food waste is – and distinguish it from other similar concepts with which it usually gets mixed. On the other hand, the relevance of the topic should be determined as well, to justify the necessity of this paper and the proposed policies and regulations.

2.1

What is Food Waste?

The problem of defining ‘food waste’ stems from the fact that a unified global agreement regarding this topic has not been reached yet. Therefore, different countries use different terms and classifications, which can make it difficult to measure the extent of the problem and to make comparisons between them. Focusing on western countries, some agencies (like the United States Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, see US EPA (n. d.)) use the term ‘wasted food’ to describe any food that is ‘not used for its intended purpose’, encompassing the concepts of ‘food loss’

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(unused products from the agricultural sector, e.g., crops damaged by frosts), ‘excess food’ (produce that would go to waste, but is recovered and donated to feed people instead) and ‘food waste’ (food intended for human consumption that is finally used for different purposes, e.g., animal feed). Others (such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations or FAO, see FAO 2013, pp. 8–9) use the term ‘food wastage’ instead of ‘wasted food’, and only differentiate between ‘food loss’ (any decrease in mass or quality of food originally intended for human consumption) and ‘food waste’ (‘food appropriate for human consumption being discarded’ for any reason). Finally, as for the European Union, the definition of ‘food waste’ relies on three regulations: i) Article 2 of the Regulation (EC) 178/20021 defines ‘food’ or ‘foodstuff’ as “any substance or product […] intended to be, or reasonably expected to be ingested by humans”. ii) Article 3 of the Directive (EC) 2008/982 defines ‘waste’ as “any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard”. iii) Article 1 of the Directive (EU) 2018/8513 establishes that ‘food waste’ “means all food as defined in Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council that has become waste”. The three definitions proposed are quite similar, but not exactly the same, and it cannot be stated that one is necessarily better than the others. However, for the purposes of this paper, and given that Spain is part of the EU and thus bound by the aforementioned Directives and Regulations, we will adhere to the last one. Therefore, a wide concept of ‘food waste’ will be used in the following pages, meaning “any substance or product intended to be ingested by humans that its holder discards or intends or is required to discard”.

2.2

Why is Food Waste at Distribution and Retail Level Relevant?

Once a definition has been reached, it is important to lay out why the topic of food waste at distribution level is relevant. To do so we must first examine how prevalent of an occurrence it is, that is, how much food is wasted nowadays in Spain. After all, if it is a negligible amount, the efforts to fight it might not be worth the cost. 1 Regulation (EC) 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 28 January 2002,

laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety. 2 Directive (EC) 2008/98 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 19 November 2008, on waste. 3 Directive (EU) 2018/851 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 30 May 2018, amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste.

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At this point it should be stated that it is difficult to put a number to Spain’s food waste –let alone at any specific level. The FAO has in fact denounced that “[a]ccurate estimates of the magnitude of food losses and waste in the broader Mediterranean region are lacking” (FAO 2016). It is true that the Ministry for Agriculture, Fishing, and the Environment (MAPA, in its Spanish acronym) publishes yearly reports since 2016, but it should be noted that i) it only takes into consideration food waste at consumer level, both domestic and extra-domestic4 ; ii) it relies solely on information provided by consumers themselves, who have been found to underestimate the amount of food they waste (Albal 2011).5 That being said, the most cited figure is 7.6 million tonnes* a year (see FAO 2016; Mediterra 2016, p. 219; and Albisu 2014, p. 40), based on a study commissioned by the EU (Eurostat 2010, p. 12). According to this survey, wholesale markets, restaurants and caterings would add up to 44% percent of food waste, or 3.3 million tonnes a year – a significant amount of food! This number, of course, is not definite. MAPA, for example, pegs household food waste since 2016 at about 1.3 million tonnes yearly (with slight variations), far less than the 2.1 million tonnes in Eurostat (2010), which would either mean that waste at production and distribution levels is more than estimated by Eurostat, or that the total amount of food waste in Spain is less. At the same time, statistical simulations estimate the distribution and food service contributions to food waste to be around 8% and 6%, respectively (see Laso et al. 2020, pp. 8–10), which would translate to 1.1 million tonnes a year (assuming that the total amount of food waste described by the Eurostat study is correct). The absence of a reliable source of information regarding food waste at a national level makes it impossible to determine just how big of a problem it is. However, from the aforementioned studies we can conclude that food waste happens at every stage of the food supply chain, including at distribution and food service level, and that, even by the most conservative figures, it is not a negligible amount. And, according to other studies, a large percentage of the food thrown away by distributors, restaurants, etc., is still edible,6 which makes sense considering that at these levels the main causes of waste are confusion caused by date marking (specifically, the difference between ‘best by’ and ‘expiration’ dates, in this regard, see González Vaqué 2017, p. 49; Lozano Petit 2022; and Ziegner and Moreno 2022, p. 15) and exceedingly strict aesthetic requisites (at European, 4 *1 metric tonne (1000 kg) equals 1.10231 US tons (2000 pounds).

However, as noted by Lorenzo (2020), p. 85, the MAPA is exploring the possibility of widening the scope of these reports to include food waste at production, distribution, and food service levels. 5 According to this study, which combined surveys and monitoring of 500 individuals, consumers believed themselves to waste around 4% of the food they bought, when in actuality they wasted around 18%. 6 Specifically, according to Stenmarck et al. (2016), pp. 17–19, 83% of food waste at wholesale and retail level and 59% at food service level is still edible. And, although a similar study has not been conducted in Spain, in Germany it has been estimated that most of the food waste generated at that level is avoidable (Schmidt et al. 2018, pp. 3–5).

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national or company level, see González Vaqué 2015, p. 214; and González Vaqué and Vives-Rego 2017), which often do not affect the safety of the products. The singular fact that supermarkets, restaurants, and other distributors directly contribute between 1.1 and 3.3 million tonnes of food waste every year might warrant the existence of this paper. This number reveals that there are inefficiencies in the management of food at distribution level that need to be addressed. However, other arguments can be provided to further justify the relevance of the topic at hand. First of all, from an ethical standpoint, it should be noted that we live in a world where hunger has not yet been eradicated. Contrary to what some people might believe, it is not just people from impoverished countries who often go hungry or even starve to death (which nonetheless should be a good enough reason on its own to fight food waste), but it is also a pressing issue in more developed countries. According to a Eurostat study conducted in 2020 (Eurostat 2022), for example, on average 8.6% of the EU population is “unable to afford a meal with meat, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every second day”; in Spain the percentage is noticeably lower (5.4% of the total population), but this would still mean that 2.6 million people cannot afford a proper meal on a regular basis. A more comprehensive study on the situation in Spain (Maragues-Faus and Magaña-González 2022, pp. 19–21) offers an even duller picture, showing that in the first year of the COVID19 pandemic 13.3% of Spanish households (or 6.2 million people) were affected by food insecurity, and a noteworthy 5.2% (or 2.4 million people) had to resort to skipping meals, eating less, or even going hungry for a whole day. And the problem is only expected to worsen in the foreseeable future, following the invasion of Ukraine (the ‘breadbasket of Europe’) by Russia (Caprile 2022, pp. 1–2). Secondly, from an economical perspective, wasting food is a loss of money. The EU project FUSIONS (‘Food Use for Social Innovation by Optimising Waste Prevention Strategies’) estimates the value of food wasted in 2012 by the EU-28 to be around 143 billion euros, of which 30 billion can be traced back to food service and distributors (Stenmarck et al. 2016, pp. 32–33), while according to another study conducted in Spain more recently the economic impact of food waste has been pegged at 12.7 billion euros (Campoy-Muñoz et al. 2017, pp. 205). And these studies do not even take into consideration the costs of waste disposal, such as infrastructure and waste collection services. Lastly, the environmental costs of food waste are not to be overlooked either. Producing food requires large masses of land dedicated to growing crops (linked to deforestation), copious amounts of water, pesticides, and manure, etc. Afterwards it has to be processed, which requires more water, chemicals, plastics for packaging, etc., and then it has to be distributed, sometimes across the world, which equates to burning fossil fuels for transportation. And, if in the end the food goes to waste, it has to be disposed, either via recycling, burning, or gathering in landfills. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that food waste has been linked to global warming, acidification, and eutrophication,

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with associated emissions equivalent to 86 Mt CO2, 1.66 Mt SO2, and 0.74 Mt PO4 (Scherhaufer et al. 2018, pp. 106–108). In summary, we can conclude that food waste at distribution and food service level is a relevant issue. Companies throwing away a substantial amount of food while people go hungry is not only ethically problematic, but also equates to economic destruction and environmental degradation. Therefore, the policies and regulations drafted and implemented to fight it in Spain are worthy of study and critique.

3

Policies and Regulations to Fight Food Waste in Spain

Many grand statements of the highest level have been made about food waste and its negative effects. Halving it at a global scale by 2030 is one of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN (§12.3),7 while the EU explicitly included it as part of the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy (§2.1.6).8 Nevertheless, when it comes to specific policies and regulations no international agreement has been reached, and no system of checks and balances has been implemented, leaving it up to individual countries to decide how to achieve said goal. A prime example of this is the aforementioned Directive (EU) 2018/851. In its preamble it presents itself as an ambitious piece of legislation: it emphasizes the importance of “protecting, preserving and improving the quality of the environment”, “ensuring prudent, efficient and rational utilisation of natural resources” and “promoting the principles of the circular economy” (amongst other goals), aims to incentivize the application of a more sensible waste hierarchy, and calls on Member States to “take measures to promote prevention and reduction of food waste” at all stages of the food supply chain, including awareness campaigns and incentives for the collection of unsold food products and for their safe redistribution. However, when it comes to actual legislation, aside from defining ‘food waste’ (as explained before) and offering some imprecise examples of measures that States could consider, it only asserts that “Member States shall take measures to prevent waste generation. Those measures shall, at least: […] (g) reduce the generation of food waste in primary production, in processing and manufacturing, in retail and other distribution of food, in restaurants and food services as well as in households […] (h) encourage food donation and other redistribution for human consumption, prioritising human use over animal feed and the reprocessing into non-food products”. It does not set minimum

7 Resolution A/RES/70/1 adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2015,

regarding ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. 8 Communication 2019/640 from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Coun-

cil, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, of 11 December 2019, on the European Green Deal.

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thresholds,9 offering instead indicative targets and some vague, low intensity policies, which makes it almost impossible to render States accountable for their actions (or inactions) and dilutes the impact of the directive (Salamero Teixidó 2020, pp. 438–439). As a result, implementation varies greatly from country to country. Focusing solely on Spain, the general consensus is that measures adopted thus far have been insufficient (González Vaqué 2017, p. 31)10 – although, being a State with more than one legal system, disparities do exist. At a national level, the greatest piece of legislation thus far is the belated transposition of the Directive (EU) 2018/851, that only took place earlier this year (Law 7/2022, of 8 April).11 Following in the footsteps of the directive, its preamble highlights the importance of preserving and protecting the environment and human health, as it calls for a more efficient use of our resources and for the implementation of the principles of the circular economy. However, with regard to taking actual steps towards reducing food waste it falls short. Succinctly, it imports word by word the definition set by the directive (Article 2.ap) and the vague examples of measures to incentivize the implementation of the waste hierarchy (Annex V), adding some new ones to specifically prevent waste (Annex VI), and then delegates entirely on the central and regional administrations the decision of what measures shall be taken to fight it, compelling them to elaborate their own prevention programs – which must include specific actions against food waste (Article 14) – to take measures to prevent food waste and incentivize food donation and redistribution (Article 18), and to implement the EU hierarchy of waste (Articles 8 and 19). As of today, no administration, neither national nor regional, has approved a prevention plan. This does not mean that no measure has been taken. At the state level, MAPA inaugurated in 2021 a national strategy ‘Aquí no se tira nada’ (‘Nothing is thrown away here’),12 which aims to promote more sustainable consumption habits via TV and radio spots, graphics in cooking and gastronomy magazines, social network collaborations with renowned chefs, and the Spanish women’s football team… Similar measures have been adopted at a regional level. For example, the government of Aragon approved the strategy ‘Más alimento, menos desperdicio’ (‘More food, less waste’),13 which included a campaign to inform consumers at different supermarkets about food planning, recipes to use leftovers, date marking, etc. The Government of Cantabria also launched its own Strategy against Food Waste in 2019, including the campaign ‘ReAprovecha. Evita el despilfarro de alimentos’ (‘ReUse. Avoid food waste’), organizing workshops to learn recipes and 9 It is only recently that the European Commission has started to consider setting legally binding

targets, hopefully by 2023: European Commission (n. d.). 10 It should be noted, however, that Spain is far from being the only one to not fulfill its obliga-

tions (see, for example, Montserrat Fasting’s analysis of the situation in the Netherlands: Montserrat Fasting 2019, pp. 150–151). 11 Ley 7/2022, de 8 de abril, de residuos y suelos contaminados para una economía circular. 12 Website: https://www.mapa.gob.es/es/alimentacion/temas/desperdicio/ 13 Website: https://www.aragon.es/-/desperdicio-alimentario#anchor1.

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to better plan one’s grocery shopping, educating children on food waste and its effects, et cetera. In Catalonia, the Administration has backed a wide variety of initiatives to raise awareness regarding food waste and how to fight it.14 In Extremadura, the regional government published a list of ten suggestions15 to encourage more sensible eating and consumption habits, such as making a grocery list before shopping, ordering reasonable amounts at restaurants, and making smoothies with ripe fruits and vegetables, among others. Chiefly, every administration has organized activities and campaigns to some capacity. However, as demonstrated, most efforts have been put towards educating and raising awareness among consumers via campaigns and workshops (Vidal-Mones et al. 2021, pp. 546–547; Bourges 2016, pp. 24, 27), largely ignoring the industry under the excuse that most waste is generated by citizens. This is problematic, not only because sellers and food service also contribute a great deal towards food waste, as explained before, but also because in many cases the causes of waste at a certain level can be traced back to earlier stages in the food chain (Mestre Montserrat 2015, p. 81). In fact, industrial food waste has so often been disregarded as irrelevant that the action with a bigger impact thus far regarding this kind of wastage is probably food donation – a measure that mainly aims at reducing food insecurity, making the correlative reduction of waste a secondary goal. Most administrations collaborate with food banks, sponsoring them either directly (e.g., via grants or subsidies) or indirectly (food banks operate as foundations, so they benefit from tax exemptions,16 looser liability laws,17 etc.), and thus have contributed to the establishment of a network of soup kitchens and redistribution centers that function as a vector for food redistribution and waste prevention. At the same time, companies are often encouraged to donate, either through public campaigns that provide them with opportunities to better their brand image or, more subtly, by codifying deductions for donations in the Corporate and Income Tax Laws,18 by exempting food donations from

14 A list of said initiatives can be found in the webpage of the Catalonian Agency of Food

Safety (ACSA): https://acsa.gencat.cat/es/seguretat_alimentaria/seguretat_alimentaria_per_temes/ donacio_i_aprofitament_aliments/projectes/ 15 The ‘Decálogo del buen provecho’ (Decalogue of enjoying your meal) can be retrieved from: http://extremambiente.juntaex.es/files/CARTEL%20DECALOGO%20BUEN%20PROVECHO% 2032x45%20arte%20final.pdf. 16 Articles 109 to 111 of the Ley 27/2014, de 27 de noviembre, del Impuesto sobre Sociedades (Corporate Tax Law) and Articles 15 and 23 of the Ley 49/2002, de 23 de diciembre, de Régimen Fiscal de las Entidades sin Fines Lucrativos y de los Incentivos Fiscales al Mecenazgo. 17 Instead of the firm liability laws that apply to corporations and to the State, foundations benefit from the general rule of liability of the Spanish Civil Code (Article 1902), which requires bad faith or negligence on the side of the food bank to make them responsible for any damage caused to third parties. 18 Articles 17 to 21 of the Ley 49/2002.

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VAT,19 or by allowing reductions in the waste disposal taxes for companies that take steps towards reducing their waste production.20 Restaurants and other food service companies have also been encouraged to allow customers to take their leftovers home by many administrations.21 Although data is scarce, these measures may have helped reduce food waste by manufacturers and distributors to a certain degree.22 However, a more comprehensive regulation is still needed. Looking at comparable laws, some countries in Europe have already passed laws to this avail, which can be categorized in two groups: i. The voluntary model relies mostly on the goodwill of the companies, while the administration adopts a supportive role (e.g., simplifying bureaucracy regarding food donations, tax incentives, or investing in I + D projects regarding preservation of food). This is famously the model adopted by Italy,23 the underlying reasoning being that companies already have economic incentives to prevent food waste and will do so if the government fixes some inefficiencies, coordinates efforts, and provides innovation (González Vaqué and Vives-Rego 2017). ii. The compulsory model, on the other hand, makes it mandatory for companies to have plans in place to prevent food waste, and codifies fines and sanctions for those who breach this duty. This is the model followed by France,24 as well as Poland (Mikołaj Sokołowski 2020, pp. 467–471). Given that all these laws are quite recent, their effects are yet to be measured and compared to determine the best course of action. A priori, however, the compulsory model seems like the better alternative, since mere collaboration from companies has thus far failed to significantly reduce food waste (although some administrations still seem to favor

19 Article 79.3.3 and Article 91.4 of the Ley 37/1992, de 28 de diciembre, del Impuesto sobre el

Valor Añadido (Value Added Tax Law). 20 Article 19.4 and First Additional Provision of the Ley 7/2022. 21 See the recommendations of the regional government of Andalucia (https://www.juntadeandal

ucia.es/organismos/saludyconsumo/servicios/actualidad/noticias/detalle/362503.html), the campaign organized by the Asturias Waste Disposal Agency (https://www.cogersa.es/metaspace/por tal/14498?ipg=50273), the campaign of the Miajadas Town Hall in Extremadura (https://miajadas. org/2021/09/el-ayuntamiento-lanza-una-campana-para-reducir-el-desperdicio-alimentario/), the campaign organized by the government of Murcia (https://www.carm.es/web/pagina?IDCONT ENIDO=112105&IDTIPO=10&RASTRO=c$m122,70), etc. 22 According to the Spanish Coding Association (AECOC), in 2020 their 31,000 member companies have on average donated to food banks a third of the food they could not commercialize: AECOC (n. d.). 23 Legge 166/2016, 19 agosto, di disposizioni concernenti la donazione e la distribuzione di prodotti alimentari e farmaceutici a fini di solidarieta’ sociale e per la limitazione degli sprechi. 24 Loi n° 2016–138 du 11 février 2016 relative à la lutte contre le gaspillage alimentaire.

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it25 ). In fact, some regions of Spain have actually stepped up to the table and passed harsher legislation to prevent food waste by sellers and food services. In the Balearic Islands, for example, sellers are explicitly forbidden from throwing away food in good state and catering services are compelled to donate leftovers to food banks and individuals in need whenever it is safe to do so.26 Similarly in Galicia, restaurants must offer customers the possibility of taking their leftovers and provide them with containers, preferably reusable ones.27 Castilla-La Mancha was the first region in Spain to regulate food waste in a comprehensive manner28 : it made it mandatory for distributors to implement the hierarchy of waste outlined by the Directive (EU) 2018/851 and set different obligations, such as facilitating the sale of food close to its ‘best-by’ or ‘use-by’ date or with defective labels or packaging, collaborating with food banks and other redistributors, educating consumers, et cetera, although it did not foresee sanctions for companies that breached this duties. The best example of the compulsory model, however, is the recent Catalonian law on the prevention of food waste, heavily inspired by the French law, which acknowledges the economic, environmental, and social impacts of food waste and consequently compelling regional administrations and companies alike to reduce waste.29 This Law includes the following measures regarding food waste at retail and food service level: • A hierarchy of priorities inspired by the Directive (EU) 2018/851 is set for all agents in the food supply chain, and they are obligated to implement plans to reduce waste of food according to the logic of that hierarchy (first and foremost, prevention; then, if impossible, food donation, use for animal feed, etc.). • It is mandatory for all agents to donate their excess food to other companies, social initiatives, NGOs, and food banks, and they must cooperate with them to ensure the traceability, hygiene, and preservation of donated food. They must also keep records of the amounts of food donated or destined for animal feed.

25 See the draft of the regional strategy of Castilla-La Mancha ‘Sin desperdicio 2030’ (‘No waste

2030’), which insists on voluntary action instead of forcing companies to donate food. Official website: https://www.castillalamancha.es/gobierno/desarrollosostenible/estructura/dgagencons/act uaciones/estrategia-contra-el-desperdicio-alimentario-en-castilla-la-mancha-sin-desperdicio-2030. 26 Article 26.3 of the Ley 8/2019 del Parlamento de Islas Baleares, de 19 de febrero, de residuos y suelos contaminados de las Illes Balears. 27 Article 45 of the Ley 6/2021 del Parlamento de Galicia, de 17 de febrero, de residuos y suelos contaminados de Galicia. 28 Decreto 19/2019, de 26 de marzo, por el que se promueven medidas para evitar el desperdicio alimentario y se facilita la redistribución de alimentos en Castilla-La Mancha. 29 Ley 3/2020 del Parlamento de Cataluña, de 11 de marzo, de prevención de las pérdidas y el despilfarro alimentarios.

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• Civil liability for donated food is excluded unless negligence or bad faith is proved. This is a welcome development, because before that the rule was strict liability (according to consumer law), i.e., food operators were subject to responsibility in case of food poisoning regardless of their diligence. • It is also mandatory for retail sellers to incentivize the sale of products close to their ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ dates, as well as educating their personnel and clients on how to prevent and reduce food waste. • Companies are also called to prevent other types of waste associated with food waste, such as packaging, facilitating the segregation of residues to make them easier to compost or recycle, and encouraging the sale of food in bulk. • Restaurants and catering services have a specific set of obligations, such as promoting the consumption of close proximity, seasonal foods (to save on transportation emissions and its spoilage of food), providing customers with containers to take their leftovers home, and implementing programs to reduce food waste at schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. This law has in turn influenced the Spanish central government, which has drafted a bill to fight food waste at national level and expects to pass it before the year ends. It is quite similar to the Catalonian law (and, by proxy, to the French model), but there are some subtle differences. We will not reiterate the aspects in common, highlighting these disparities instead: • The hierarchy of priorities is more extensive, including the possibility of transforming food (e.g., companies could cook meals with ingredients close to the expiration date, making them safe for sale again). • Businesses bigger than 400 m2 must have aisles of ‘unappealing’ products to be sold at a discount, and must promote initiatives for food planning, sustainable grocery shopping, and bulk sale of products (avoid unnecessary packaging), etc. • The fines range from 2,000 to 500,000 euros (for comparison, in Catalonia the sanctions oscillate between 400 and 150,000 euros), deepening their deterrence. • The Draft demands MAPA to publish a yearly report on food waste at different levels of the food chain, which would hopefully tackle the lack of effective data previously denounced. Finally, it should be noted that both laws call for more rational ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates as well, and for all agents and consumers to be educated on their meaning, and they also promote the sale of food that is past its ‘best before’ date but still safe for human consumption. At the same time, however, other measures proposed by experts, such as using data analysis to predict changes in demand and supply (implemented in the Netherlands, see Montserrat Fasting 2019, p. 159), barring three-for-two specials on

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perishable products, or packaging food in more sensible servings (Lorenzo 2020, p. 89), have not been explicitly included in either law.

4

Conclusions

Food waste is a pressing issue. In Spain alone, an estimated 7.6 million tonnes of food with an economic value of 12.4 billion euros is thrown away yearly, while at the same time between 5.6% and 13.3% of its population find themselves at different degrees of food insecurity. Although consumers have traditionally been blamed for this, in fact they seem to be the biggest contributors to food waste, sellers and caterers hold some responsibility of their own, especially taking into consideration that most of the food they dispose of is still edible and a big part of their waste is avoidable. However, policies and regulations thus far have ignored this reality and focused on raising awareness and educating consumers, while approaching companies only to encourage donations to food banks. It is only recently that some regions have realized how flawed this system is and have therefore started paying attention to the food chain as a whole, instead of focusing exclusively on the last link. The Spanish draft law, following in the footsteps of the French and Catalonian laws, is an important step in this direction, as it mandates producers, distributors, and food service providers to take specific measures to prevent food waste and, when unavoidable, to at least reduce its pernicious effects by donating surpluses, transforming, or composting them, etc. This system, in contrast with the voluntary model adopted by other countries (such as Italy), is, conceivably, more likely to achieve its goals of waste reduction. That does not mean, however, that the state shall become complacent and pass the burden entirely to the private sector: companies are not non-profits, and the costs of preventing food waste and donating or transforming food can add-up. Consequently, the government should at least bear part of the expense and on top of keeping the tax incentives already in place, remove some obstacles denounced by the industry that stem from poor regulation (e.g., date marking and food aesthetic laws). In doing so, hopefully, we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN and advance towards eradicating food insecurity without hurting our economies nor endangering public health.

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Carlos Castells-Somoza is a PhD candidate in Private Law at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), and a Law graduate with two master’s degrees by the same University. His research includes topics such as Consumer Law, Civil Liability, and State Liability, usually intertwined with Comparative Law studies which have led to a wide variety of publications, grants, and prizes.