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Sustainability
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Household Food Purchases and Sustainable Diets
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Household Food Purchases and Sustainable Diets

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 19589

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ilkka Leinonen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Natural Resources Institute Finland, Latokartanonkaari 9, FI-00790 Helsinki, Finland
Interests: environmental life cycle assessment; ecosystem ecology; global carbon dynamics; plant and animal ecophysiology; systems modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Cesar Revoredo-Giha

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Rural Economy, Environment and Society Department, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, United Kingdom
Interests: consumers’ food and drink demand; operation of agrifood supply chains; introduction of new food and drink products
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Changes in eating patterns are an important step for building sustainable food and agricultural systems, and there is an agreement that global food sustainability cannot be achieved without a significant change in consumers’ diets. However, to reach this goal, there is a need to identify and facilitate the adoption of more sustainable diets. As part of this, it is essential to understand consumers’ interests in those diets, factors that affect their decisions, and how policy can help to move current diets towards more sustainable ones.

This Special Issue will comprise papers covering a wide range of aspects related to sustainable food consumption. It will explore—in developed and developing countries—food-purchasing patterns and consumers’ interest in food products with sustainable attributes. Therefore, we particularly encourage empirical papers that focus on understanding the demand for sustainable food products, consumers’ response to the introduction of new products associated with more sustainable primary production (including both conventional and organic production) processing, transport and packaging, and studies evaluating policies encouraging consumers to adopt sustainable diets (e.g., sustainability labels, marketing, taxes, and subsidies). Furthermore, papers on novel methodologies for sustainability assessment of diets are also highly encouraged.

Prof. Ilkka Leinonen
Dr. Cesar Revoredo-Giha
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Sustainable diets
  • Sustainability assessment of food products
  • Life cycle assessment
  • Greenhouse gas emissions
  • Food purchases
  • New food products
  • Sustainability attributes
  • Consumers’ interest
  • Sustainability labels

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1698 KiB  
Article
Generation Z Food Waste, Diet and Consumption Habits: A Finnish Social Design Study with Future Consumers
by Tiina Kymäläinen, Anu Seisto and Roosa Malila
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2124; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042124 - 17 Feb 2021
Cited by 46 | Viewed by 13603
Abstract
This article presents a Finnish social design study that was targeted at future Generation Z consumers. The main objective was to gain understanding of the target group’s attitudes, routines and skills relating to food consumption, diets and food waste within their households. The [...] Read more.
This article presents a Finnish social design study that was targeted at future Generation Z consumers. The main objective was to gain understanding of the target group’s attitudes, routines and skills relating to food consumption, diets and food waste within their households. The sustainability framework studied the Generation Z experience, obstacles and opportunities relating to behavior patterns, in addition with current habits—with respect to planning, shopping, cooking, eating and storing—and future motivations. The aim of the social design investigations was to provide contributions to the design outcome: a behavior change application that steered young consumers’ behavior patterns towards a more sustainable direction. The design framework was applied in two case studies that focused on 17–26-year-old consumers in Finland. The main method was qualitative online focus group discussions. Based on the results, the most important behavior change opportunities related to social aspects, the role of company sponsoring, localization and context-awareness potential in young consumers’ close environment and the need to engage wider sustainability aspects—such as carbon footprint, comparison of diets and financial savings—to the behavior change framework. Based on the results, the participants took the climate change challenge associated with food waste and biased diets very seriously. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Household Food Purchases and Sustainable Diets)
23 pages, 4922 KiB  
Article
Nutritional and Environmental Assessment of Increasing the Content of Fruit and Vegetables in the UK Diet
by Wisdom Dogbe and Cesar Revoredo-Giha
Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1076; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031076 - 21 Jan 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2670
Abstract
Despite the interest in increasing the consumption of fruit and vegetables in the UK, the total average consumption is still below the recommended intakes. Evidence indicates that the UK government’s “five-a-day” policy has not been effective in reaching its goal. The results of [...] Read more.
Despite the interest in increasing the consumption of fruit and vegetables in the UK, the total average consumption is still below the recommended intakes. Evidence indicates that the UK government’s “five-a-day” policy has not been effective in reaching its goal. The results of fiscal policies (e.g., subsidies) to increase fruit and vegetable consumption are uncertain due to complex substitutions done by consumers amongst overall food choice. The goal of the present study was to estimate the prices (i.e., shadow prices) at which consumers can increase their intake of fruits and vegetables by 10% (higher than that achieved by the “five-a-day” policy) without changing the overall taste of the diet (utility). We estimated the ex-ante effect of increasing the UK’s fruit and vegetable consumption by 10% on household nutrient purchases and greenhouse gas emissions. The required changes in prices were estimated by extending the model of consumer behaviour under rationing. The model combines consumption data, demand elasticities estimated from home scan data, and nutrient coefficients for 20 foods consumed in the UK. Our results suggest that to increase vegetable and fruit consumption by 10% (under the current preferences), their prices should decline by 21% and 13%, respectively. However, there is a trade-off between nutrition and environmental goals; total average household caloric purchase declined by 11 kcal, but greenhouse gas emissions increased by 0.7 CO2-eq kg/kg of food. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Household Food Purchases and Sustainable Diets)
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15 pages, 746 KiB  
Article
Linking Household Food Security and Food Value Chains in North West Mt. Kenya
by Veronica Mwangi, Samuel Owuor, Boniface Kiteme, Markus Giger, Johanna Jacobi and Oliver Kirui
Sustainability 2020, 12(12), 4999; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12124999 - 18 Jun 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2841
Abstract
Smallholder farmers and pastoralists produce the largest proportion of food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they remain among the food insecure populations. This paper explores the food (in)security among smallholder farmers and pastoralists using a sample of 175 households in three agro-food value [...] Read more.
Smallholder farmers and pastoralists produce the largest proportion of food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they remain among the food insecure populations. This paper explores the food (in)security among smallholder farmers and pastoralists using a sample of 175 households in three agro-food value chains of wheat, dairy, and beef in the north-west Mt. Kenya region. The study seeks to answer if a farmer’s participation in a particular agro-food value chain determines his/her food security situation. We use the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and two Poisson regression models, parsimonious and full, to assess the household food security status and determinants of food security among the smallholder farmers and pastoralists. The results show that 61% of the households were either mildly, moderately, or severely food insecure. Households in the beef value chain experienced relatively higher incidences of food insecurity compared to households in the wheat and dairy value chains. The HFIAS scores revealed a wide gap between households with minimum and maximum score. Household size, income and income-related variables (ability to save and borrow to meet family needs), transport assets, membership in farmers’ associations, and household energy were significant in determining household food security, while access to credit and to extension services was not. Strategies that focus on boosting smallholder farmers’ incomes, building strong and resilient farmers associations to improve inclusive and equitable value chains have the potential to get smallholder farmers out of recurrent food insecurity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Household Food Purchases and Sustainable Diets)
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