Agriculture 2016, 6(3), 46; doi:10.3390/agriculture6030046
The Food For Life Catering Mark: Implementing the Sustainability Transition in University Food Procurement
Geography Department, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, Canada
Academic Editors: Giaime Berti, Moya Kneafsey, Larry Lev, Irene Monasterolo and Sergio Schneider
Received: 13 June 2016 / Revised: 1 September 2016 / Accepted: 9 September 2016 / Published: 14 September 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Distributed, Interconnected and Democratic Agri-Food Economies: New Directions in Research)
View Full-Text
|
Download PDF [237 KB, uploaded 14 September 2016]
Abstract
This article presents a case study of the application of the Soil Association’s Food For Life Catering Mark at two universities in England: Nottingham Trent University and University of the Arts London. This procurement initiative has had noteworthy success in the U.K., with more than 1.6 million Catering Mark meals served each weekday. This article, based on 31 in-depth interviews conducted in 2015, is the first to examine its impact and significance at the university level. In particular, this article tests the concepts of the niche, regime and landscape in the multi-level perspective (MLP), a prominent theoretical approach to sustainability transition, against the experience of the Food For Life Catering Mark. The article confirms the importance of the landscape level of the MLP in the food sustainability transition, while adding additional considerations that need to be specified when applying the MLP to the food sector. By highlighting the essential role of civil society organizations (CSOs), public institutions and many champions, this article proposes that more room must be made within the MLP for the explicit role of agency, champions and the implementation process itself. Indeed, this article argues that implementation, the daily practice, is deserving of both increased recognition and theory. View Full-TextKeywords:
public sector food procurement; sustainability; local food; sustainable food; university catering; Food For Life Catering Mark; sustainability transition theory
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
Scifeed alert for new publications
Never miss any articles matching your research from any publisher- Get alerts for new papers matching your research
- Find out the new papers from selected authors
- Updated daily for 49'000+ journals and 6000+ publishers
- Define your Scifeed now
Share & Cite This Article
MDPI and ACS Style
Stahlbrand, L. The Food For Life Catering Mark: Implementing the Sustainability Transition in University Food Procurement. Agriculture 2016, 6, 46.
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Related Articles
Article Metrics
Comments
[Return to top]
Agriculture
EISSN 2077-0472
Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland
RSS
E-Mail Table of Contents Alert