Evaluating Sustainable Food System Innovations: A Global Toolkit for Cities

Valette, Élodie (Ed.) et al. Book Evaluating Sustainable Food System Innovations: A Global Toolkit for Cities Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment Provided in Cooperation with: Taylor & Francis Group Suggested Citation: Valette, Élodie (Ed.) et al. (2024) : Evaluating Sustainable Food System Innovations: A Global Toolkit for Cities, Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment, ISBN 978-1-000-96614-5, Routledge, London, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003285441 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/290607 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Élodie Valette is a geographer and a senior researcher at CIRAD (French Agricultural Research for Development) in Montpellier, France. She is the coordinator of the Urbal project. Alison Blay-Palmer is the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Food Systems, the founding director of the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, and a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She is the co-editor of This book presents Urbal, an approach that applies impact pathway mapping to understand how food system innovations in cities, and their territories, change and impact food system sustainability. Around the world, people are finding innovative ways to make their food systems more sustainable. However, documenting and understanding how these innovations impact the sustainability of food system can be a challenge. The Urban Driven Innovations for Sustainable Food Systems (Urbal) methodology responds to these constraints by providing innovations with a simple, open-source, resource-efficient tool that is easily appropriated and adaptable to different contexts. Urbal is designed to respond to the demands of field stakeholders, whether public or private, to accompany and guide them in their actions and decision-making with regard to sustainability objectives. This book presents this qualitative and participatory impact assessment method of food innovations and applies it to several cases of food innovation around the world, including the impact of agricultural districts in Milan, chefs and gastronomy in Brasilia, e-commerce in Vietnam, eco-friendly farm systems in Berlin and the Nourish to Flourish governance process in Cape Town. The book demonstrates how food innovations can impact different dimensions of sustainability, positively and negatively, and identify the elements that facilitate or hinder these impacts. The volume reflects on how to strengthen the capacity of these stakeholders to disseminate their innovations on other scales to contribute to the transition towards more sustainable food systems. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars working on sustainable food systems, urban food, food innovation and impact assessment, as well as policymakers, practitioners and funders interested in these areas. Evaluating Sustainable Food System Innovations Sustainable Food System Assessment (Routledge, 2019) and the scientific coordinator of the Urbal Project. Beatrice Intoppa is a project manager at the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems at L’Institut Agro Montpellier, France. She holds an MA in Local Development from the University of Padua, Italy. Amanda Di Battista is the project coordinator of the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, Canada. She produces the Handpicked: Stories from the Field podcast and is the co-editor of Food Studies: Matter, Meaning, Movement (2022) and Sustainable Food System Assessment (Routledge, 2019). Ophélie Roudelle is a project manager at the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems in L’Institut Agro Montpellier, France. She is in charge of the valorization, dissemination, and popularization of research results of the Urbal project. Géraldine Chaboud holds a PhD in economics from Université de Montpellier, France, and has been a former project manager at the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems in L’Institut Agro Montpellier, France. Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment Food Loss and Waste Policy From Theory to Practice Edited by Simone Busetti and Noemi Pace Rewilding Food and the Self Critical Conversations from Europe Edited by Tristan Fournier and Sébastien Dalgalarrondo Critical Mapping for Sustainable Food Design Food Security, Equity, and Justice Audrey G. Bennett and Jennifer A. Vokoun Community Food Initiatives A Critical Reparative Approach Edited by Oona Morrow, Esther Veen, and Stefan Wahlen Food Futures in Education and Society Edited by Gurpinder Singh Lalli, Angela Turner, and Marion Rutland The Soybean through World History Lessons for Sustainable Agrofood Systems Matilda Baraibar Norberg and Lisa Deutsch Urban Expansion and Food Security in New Zealand The Collapse of Local Horticulture Benjamin Felix Richardson Evaluating Sustainable Food System Innovations A Global Toolkit for Cities Edited by Élodie Valette, Alison Blay-Palmer, Beatrice Intoppa, Amanda Di Battista, Ophélie Roudelle, and Géraldine Chaboud For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in- Food-Society-and-the-Environment/book-series/RSFSE Evaluating Sustainable Food System Innovations A Global Toolkit for Cities Edited by Élodie Valette, Alison Blay-Palmer, Beatrice Intoppa, Amanda Di Battista, Ophélie Roudelle, and Géraldine Chaboud First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Élodie Valette, Alison Blay-Palmer, Beatrice Intoppa, Amanda Di Battista, Ophélie Roudelle, and Géraldine Chaboud; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Élodie Valette, Alison Blay-Palmer, Beatrice Intoppa, Amanda Di Battista, Ophélie Roudelle, and Géraldine Chaboud to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution- Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by Institut Agro. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-25881-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-25883-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28544-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441 Typeset in Times New Roman by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive) Contents List of contributors ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 Mapping change: The Urbal approach 1 ÉLODIE VALETTE, ALISON BLAY-PALMER, OLIVIER LEPILLER AND AMANDA DI BATTISTA 2 Urbal: A research project 18 ALISON BLAY-PALMER, ÉLODIE VALETTE, OLIVIER LEPILLER AND AMANDA DI BATTISTA 3 The role of chefs and gastronomy in transforming the Brasília food system 36 JESSICA PEREIRA GARCIA, MAURO G. M. CAPELARI, STÉPHANE GUÉNEAU, TAINÁ BACELLAR ZANETI AND JANAÍNA D.A.S. DINIZ 4 Traditional tortillas in Mexico: Opportunities and challenges for producers and consumers 55 HÉLOÏSE LELOUP AND JULIE LE GALL 5 The role of school canteens in building more sustainable food systems: The impact pathways of the “Ma Cantine Autrement” programme in Montpellier 77 MARLÈNE PERIGNON, OLIVIER LEPILLER, BEATRICE INTOPPA, ÉLODIE VALETTE, OPHÉLIE ROUDELLE AND AMÉLIE WOOD 6 The potential of Short Food Supply Chains for sustainable urban agri-food systems: The UFIL of Milano Ristorazione 101 GIULIA BARTEZZAGHI AND FEDERICO CANIATO DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441-1 1.1 Introduction This book describes the Urbal (Urban Driven Sustainable Food System Innovations) research approach that was developed by a multidisciplinary, international team of food system researchers and experts between 2018 and 2023. The Urbal research project, supported by the Agropolis, Carasso, and Cariplo Foundations’ Thought for Food initiative,1 provided the time and resources necessary to explore how innovations can produce short-term changes and longerterm impacts on multiple dimensions of urban food system sustainability. Urbal enables and activates a better understanding of the flows in food system innovation processes and the impediments and enablers to increasingly sustainable food systems. Urbal emerged as a response to the multiple challenges that arise from industrial food systems that generate enormous exploitation, externalities, and cascading socio-environmental damage. On top of increasing food insecurity, environmental degradation, and inadequate livelihoods (Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development & IPES-Food, 2020; FAO et al., 2022; Lacerda etal., 2020), climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflicts including the war in Ukraine add extra strain for those already marginalized by this globalized food system (Moustier et al., 2023; Lang & McKee, 2022; Blay-Palmer et al., 2021; Kaiser et al., 2021). Confronting these challenges demands a multiscale approach that addresses multiple sustainability issues at the same time so polyvalent solutions can help improve food and nutrition security, livelihoods, and preserve biocultural diversity, among other co-benefits (Tribaldos & Kortetmäki, 2022; Hebinck et al., 2021). Calls from policy and decision-makers to understand food systems at the regional scale are growing, with a recognition of the need for evidence to support the transformation of the existing global food system to one that is more regionally focused and sustainable. In the fall of 2022, the United Nations Committee on World Food Security set its 2-year goals and directions for its High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. These goals and directions focus on creating more regional food systems through improved urban, peri-urban, and rural linkages with a mandate to “provid[e] independent, 1 Mapping change The Urbal approach Élodie Valette, Alison Blay-Palmer, Olivier Lepiller and Amanda Di Battista This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. 2 Élodie Valette et al. comprehensive and evidence-based analysis, and elaborat[e] its studies through a scientific, transparent and inclusive process” (High Level Panel of Experts, 2023, np). The Convention on Biodiversity COP15 meeting in December 2022 and the resulting Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) which includes 23 targets and associated indicators further demonstrates the need to monitor and map out food system changes and impacts. Urbal can contribute to developing and tracking regionally relevant evidence about meaningful change brought about through more sustainable food systems, including agricultural and ecosystem biodiversity, improved livelihoods, and increasing gender equity, all included in the GBF. Urbal’s urban focus is also important given the fast pace and extent of urbanization. While urbanization can be a challenge for future sustainability given the complexity of urban spaces, it can also open up opportunities for solutions. Key questions in applying Urbal are whether existing innovations are broad enough or too narrow to bring about food system transformation within urban regions and how public policy can enable sustainable food system transitions. This can be particularly important when local city authorities are increasingly involved in developing food policies to support more sustainable food systems (Moragues-Faus & Morgan, 2015). It is also important to understand when and how food system innovations result in significant and/or unintended consequences for urban and social landscapes and to note that change is not always positive, intentional, or governable. Attention to systems is equally relevant for sustainability where the inherent complexity means that solutions often only address one dimension of sustainability. A uni-dimensional approach can result in unanticipated conflicts or require trade-offs with other sustainability dimensions. For example, direct sales from producers to consumers through farmers’ markets can eliminate the need for distributors so that producers earn more revenue while consumers may pay lower prices. However, from an environmental perspective, direct sales don’t guarantee pesticide-free food production, and from an economic perspective it may adversely affect the viability of livelihoods for distributors who work between the farmer and retail spaces. Mapping impacts can help us understand how innovation contributes to sustainability by analysing these complex interactions that result in positive outcomes as well as identify areas for improvement. This introductory chapter describes the key components of the Urbal approach and provides collective insights from the case studies, called Urban Food Innovation Labs (UFILS), which helped to test and refine this approach. It was written using many internal and publicly available resources developed and gathered during the Urbal process from 2018 to 2023, including author participation in workshops and interviews, participant exit surveys, internal Urbal webinars and meetings, training workshops, and key reflections from the chapters in this book. The subsequent chapters focus on developing the Urbal process and lessons learned. Chapter 2 describes how Urbal was developed across all the 16 UFILs (Figure 1.1) and highlights lessons learned from the Mapping change 3 Figure 1.1 Map of all 16 Urban Food Innovation Labs (UFILs). 4 Élodie Valette et al. research including how, by working on the ground with communities, Urbal was developed to enable a deeper understanding of governance, food system supply chains, and consumer practices. Starting with Chapter 3, 8 UFILS out of 16 present insights from their adoption and adaptation of the Urbal approach for their specific context. The book is structured according to the three over-arching themes that guided the research project and were used, as relevant, to organize, consider and report our findings: (1) consumer practices, (2) value chain organization, and (3) governance. Explicitly differentiating the three themes helped ensure there was a cross section of case studies from different sources. Given the interconnectedness that is inherent to food systems, UFIL missions were nevertheless obviously found to overlap in many cases, so drawing clear thematic lines was not possible in several cases. Chapters 3–5 present three case studies which focus on initiatives that aim to transform consumers’ practices, from social gastronomy in Brasilia and Mexico City (Chapters 3 and 4) to school canteens in Montpellier (Chapter 5). Chapters 6–8 explore various innovations focused on value chain organization, from the impact of the use of short food supply chains in the school food system in Milan (Chapter 6) to that of e-commerce in Hanoi (Chapter 7) and that of a private urban farm in Berlin (Chapter 8). Chapters 9 and 10 focus on governance innovations in Milan (Chapter 9) and Cape Town (Chapter 10). The book concludes with a discussion about applying Urbal as a monitoring and tracking tool (Chapter 11). 1.2 The possibilities in applying Urbal While questions of sustainable food system assessment have been addressed elsewhere (see Blay-Palmer et al., 2019), this work has focused mainly on developing indicators to measure urban food system sustainability. Many of these approaches are time- and cost-intensive and cannot be easily adopted by local authorities or innovators to better inform decision-making processes. In the absence of accessible tools to support decision-making, policymakers may engage in planning without a clear idea of their context and/or the impacts they can expect from food systems innovations (Callon et al., 2001). To address this gap, Urbal offers a simple, participatory methodology that fosters learning in the context of public policy and improved sustainability. This qualitative, participatory evaluation approach can help build consensus, empower stakeholders, and create agency to support actors as they strive to increase sustainability (Ciaccia et al., 2019; Ceasar et al., 2017). Urbal uses a participatory research approach as it enables community members to identify the outputs, barriers, and enablers of change and impacts on their food system. This approach builds on the foundations of impact pathway assessment, allowing the identification of pathways for action that are relevant to stakeholders (Tribaldos et al., 2020) and that can reach across scales. As an evolving, field-tested approach, Urbal can help innovators, policymakers, researchers, and funders understand how urban innovation unfolds Mapping change 5 in place-specific, sustainable food systems (Lever et al., 2022; Rees 2019; Sonnino et al., 2016). By mapping the pathways of sustainability from the possible five dimensions—governance, health, environment, socio-cultural, and economic—the enablers and barriers to sustainable innovation can be made more apparent, helping to activate the benefits of using a systems approach (Hebinck etal., 2021; Gliessman, 2013). As a whole, Urbal can support the decision-making process undertaken by organizations and funders and the creation of policy and programmes by policymakers. Following the initial development of the Urbal approach, it was tested in 16 UFILs, including 1 in each of Baltimore, Berlin, Brasilia, Cape Town, Lyons, Mexico City, Rabat; 2 in Hanoi, Montpellier, and Paris; and 3 in Milan. To ensure that the approach is widely accessible and adopted, a free, detailed, and adaptable Urbal guide and resource toolkit is available online at http://urbal food.org. 1.3 The Urbal process: A participatory impact pathway analysis The Urbal approach builds on theory of change and impact pathway assessment. Impact pathway maps have been used and refined for decades, emerging from and alongside other assessment and project management resources such as theory of change, project management tools, and causal modelling concepts and tools. Impact pathway maps were originally created to assess agricultural development projects (Padilla, 2002; Thornton et al. 2017) and initially developed to map out how research projects unfolded and what researchers observed about the impact of their work. In the early 2000s, ex-post impact pathway maps were developed to assess project impacts in complex circumstances (Douthwaite et al., 2003) and used to evaluate agricultural research in response to increasing pressure from funders to provide evidence of social impact (Springer-Heinze et al., 2003). Building on this work, CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, launched the ImpresS (IMPact of RESearch in the South) project in 2011 to assess the impact of public institutional research on innovation. ImpresS used a participatory approach to get answers to questions about the value of agricultural research through 13 projects that were either completed or in process (Hainzelin et al. 2017; Faure et al., 2020). ImpresS created impact pathway maps to describe how research impeded or supported the emergence of an innovation, uncovering where power imbalances existed in the process. Urbal takes up and refines the tools developed by ImpresS and others by expanding the focus from assessing academic research to creating tools for innovators working within food systems. These tools can be used to understand and improve sustainability changes and impacts of their work. Urbal builds on and contributes to these approaches by providing a qualitative and participatory approach and a suite of tools to help innovators, policymakers, funders, academics, and practitioners improve the sustainability of an innovation. The aim of the Urbal approach is to help disentangle the chain of 6 Élodie Valette et al. actions and strategies that push an innovation towards or away from sustainability. Urbal invites a diversity of actors to co-design impact pathway maps that make explicit the changes and impacts of innovations on sustainability dimensions. Impact pathway maps identify three key types of information about an impact: (1) the actual changes produced by the innovation on sustainability; (2) how changes are generated by innovation activities; and (3) the ways that actions and sustainability are interconnected, from short-term changes (outputs) to medium-term (outcomes) and to long-term changes (impacts). The approach therefore assesses not only the intended and unintended impacts on sustainability but also the pathways that lead to change, in some cases addressing multiple scales from the local to the global. It is important to understand that these pathways are not necessarily linear and are often winding or circuitous. There can also be divergence between the various changes and pathways as to how the innovations contribute to different sustainability dimensions. As such, Urbal focuses primarily on the process of change rather than the final result and does not measure the innovation’s impact. Impact pathway maps can help identify positive and negative feedback loops as well as unforeseen changes, trade-offs, and contradictions between pathways, which can be particularly relevant when examining complex sustainable food systems. 1.4 A 3+1-step approach Urbal helps answer one central question: what are the actual changes that result from the innovation? To address this question, Urbal unfolds as a threestep methodology, with an optional fourth step. Step 1 is dedicated to the collection of background information through interviews with key informants that help to raise awareness about the innovation, document the context, develop a timeline and network diagram for the innovation, and in some cases, draft a preliminary impact pathway map. In Step 2, a participatory workshop is organized with practitioners and experts to understand the innovation and map the pathways of activities through changes to impacts. Step 3 offers the opportunity to reflect on the outputs from Step 2 during another workshop or meeting according to needs and constraints. Finally, Step 4 is an optional step that extends the impact pathway maps developed during the workshop to specify indicators to measure and, perhaps, track change over time (see Chapter 11). This 3+1-step approach was undertaken in various forms in the 16 UFILs over 3 years. These first three steps were outlined at the beginning of the research project in 2018. As the research project developed, we adapted the thematic foci, the terms of reference and the details of how to use the Urbal approach. While we provide an exemplary UFIL process in Box 1.1 that features the work undertaken in Ma Cantine Autrement (MCA) in Montpellier (see also Chapter 5), other UFILs and their learnings are presented in the subsequent chapters of this book. Box 1.1 Ma Cantine Autrement (MCA) Ma Cantine Autrement (MCA) was exceptionally well suited to engage in and actively use the Urbal approach. The enabling conditions included a clear request from the local authority in charge of the MCA programme for a long and thorough evaluation; the active and committed participation of faculty and graduate students at CIRAD and the active and thoughtful contributions from people working at MCA. The Fact that MCA operates in Montpellier, where the researchers live and work also made this UFIL more robust and iterative. As a result, the MCA research extended the Urbal approach beyond original expectations, and, in some cases, facilitated revisions to the Urbal approach in time to share with other UFIL, especially the Lyons, Paris, and Mexico projects. Notable insights from MCA include the need to: • clearly identify relevant and meaningful activities from the interview process and use these to animate the workshop. As a key informant from MCA explained in the exit interview, During the workshop we used the chronogram and the map we made during the workshop in Step 1, because at that time we mapped all the activities of innovation, and also different actors/ stakeholders. In step 1 we had to describe very precisely all the activities of the innovation, and identify all the actors. • Distinguish between outputs, or direct effects, and outcomes as the intermediate changes from the innovation. As noted in Chapter 5 (the MCA chapter), outcomes help spread activities to more actors than direct outputs. Outcomes result in positive changes but also some (un) avoidable negative changes. The unavoidable changes often result as trade-offs from implementing the innovation. For example, there was an increased workload for staff at MCA as they prepared more meals from scratch that, in turn, required pay adjustments for staff. This effect, among others, needed to be taken into account if this innovation is adopted in other places. Impacts are long-term shifts in sustainability as a result of the innovation such as policy changes. There are practical considerations during workshops where it can be fairly straightforward to determine “changes” or “effects” while it is more challenging to locate them on the causal chain as, for example, direct or indirect changes. This distinction between three possible effects Mapping change 7 8 Élodie Valette et al. Social dimensions, such as food access and equity, were a foundational component in the development of specific tools for each step in the Urbal method, including actor network diagrams, interview questions, guidelines for choosing and engaging with participants, and impact maps. Urbal’s participatory approach helps to ensure that the social dimensions of sustainability are incorporated throughout the process, especially during the co-creation of impact pathway maps in Step 2. While the extent of participation in the Urbal process produced by an innovation is a key contribution from the MCA UFIL and consistent with classic distinction made in the impact pathway literature (Hainzelin et al., 2016, 2017). As the Urbal approach explores the sustainability dimensions for each activity, MCA researchers and participants suggested that the sub-dimensions be clearly specified and made consistent as much as possible to improve the clarity and readability of the IP. • The final recommendation from MCA researchers is the opportunity to …identify the brakes and enablers along the IP, and classify them into: i) conditions for success (required to reach the expected impact), ii) impact facilitators (not necessary to reach the impact but favourable to its achievement), and iii) brakes (i.e. factors that limit the efficacy/performance of the program). (Chapter 5, p. 92) There is also the need to distinguish between the conditions needed for success and others that are facilitators but not required, “and to identify if they are context-related, material or organisational inputs” (Chapter 5, p. 97). As relevant, with respect to the outputs and outcomes step, MCA notes the importance to be clear about, which group of actors these effects occur, and to classify them in positive or negative effects. In addition, negative effects should be classified as “avoidable” or “unavoidable” effects, in order to subsequently identify how the first could be avoided, and how the second could be compensated. (Chapter 5, p. 97) While providing valuable insights, MCA is not universally representative as other innovations come to the process with various capacities. In other cases, this level of precision may not be possible or even desirable as the impact pathway mapping process may be more exploratory. Mapping change 9 varied from one UFIL to another depending on the resource availability, capacity, and project goals in each context, overall it was broadly inclusive of key actors implicated and affected by the innovation process. While the overarching Urbal approach itself was developed prior to the research in each lab, it was modified based on input from the various UFILs over the course of the project. The emergent and adaptive nature of the Urbal approach facilitated increased consideration on social innovation in UFILs where the social dimensions of sustainability were not a key consideration at the outset of the project (see Berlin UFIL, Chapter 8). 1.4.1 Step 1: The context Step 1, as the foundational basis for the Urbal approach, begins with a literature review to provide a context for the innovation and the impact pathway map in Step 2. This includes grey literature and academic sources where applicable to ground the UFIL innovation in both theory and practice. The literature review provides the information necessary to craft effective questions for interviews with innovators and other stakeholders about the development of the innovation and helps to make decisions about the workshop. General categories of questions put to key informants include the following: (1) Was there a clearly defined innovation statement at any point in the process?; (2) How was the challenge defined as an innovation problem?; (3) Was sustainability a consideration?; and (4) How did the innovation develop over time into a range of defined activities meant to directly or indirectly propose alternatives to the dominant food system’s regular activities? In general, UFILs interviewed between 4 and 10 people, including innovators and stakeholders representing different stages of the process and experts to help understand the different aspects of sustainability and the larger context. The interview results typically described the mission and activities of the innovation and enabled the creation of a case description, timeline, actors network map, list of activities created by the innovation and, sometimes, a draft impact pathway map. A key goal was to produce knowledge useful for: (1) the Urbal workshop; (2) innovation stakeholders to help them understand and promote their innovation; and (3) decision-makers and other supporting actors to help them make informed decisions about the innovation. It is important to note that the Urbal approach—including the interviews in Step 1—is not intended to question innovation objectives, values, drivers for action, or future directions. Rather, the aims are to uncover the actual contribution of the innovation to the various dimensions of sustainability, to build reflexively from these observations, and to identify the various changes and impacts produced by the innovation activities. The interviews and other Step 1 activities provide the context needed to plan and conduct an effective workshop in Step 2. 16 Élodie Valette et al. Douthwaite, B., Kuby, T., van de Fliert, E., & Schulz, S. (2003). Impact pathway evaluation: An approach for achieving and attributing impact in complex systems. Agricultural Systems, 78(2), 243–265. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, & WHO. (2022). The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2022. FAO; IFAD; UNICEF; WFP; WHO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0639en Faure, G., Blundo-Canto, G., Devaux-Spatarakis, A., Le Guerroué, J.L., Mathé, S., Temple, L., Toillier, A., Triomphe, B., & Hainzelin, E. (2020). A participatory method to assess the contribution of agricultural research to societal changes in developing countries. Research Evaluation, 29(2), 158–170. Gliessman, S. (2013). Agroecology and food system transformation. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 37(1), 1–2. Gray, B., Purdy, J., & Ansari, S. (2022). Confronting power asymmetries in partnerships to address grand challenges. Organization Theory, 3(2), 26317877221098765. Hainzelin, E., Barret, D., & Faure, G. (2016). Agriculture research in developing countries: From a” culture of promise” to a” culture of impact”. ImpresS Policy Brief. CIRAD. https://agritrop.cirad.fr/583241/1/Impress%20Policy%20Brief.pdf Hainzelin, E., Barret, D., Faure, G., Dabat, M.H., & Triomphe, B. (2017). Agricultural research in the Global South: Steering research beyond impact promises. Perspective, 42, 1–4. Hebinck, A., Selomane, O., Veen, E., De Vrieze, A., Hasnain, S., Sellberg, M., Sovová, L., Thompson, K., Vervoort, J., & Wood, A. (2021). Exploring the transformative potential of urban food. NPJ Urban Sustainability, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ s42949-021-00041-x High Level Panel of Experts. 2023. About the HLPE of the United Nations food and agriculture committee on world food security. https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/en Kaiser, M., Goldson, S., Buklijas, T., Gluckman, P., Allen, K., Bardsley, A., & Lam, M.E. (2021). Towards post-pandemic sustainable and ethical food systems. Food Ethics, 6(4), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41055-020-00084-3 Lacerda, A., Hanisch, A.L., & Nimmo, E. (2020). Leveraging traditional agroforestry practices to support sustainable and agrobiodiverse landscapes in Southern Brazil. Land, 9(6), 176. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9060176 Lang, T., & McKee, M. (2022). The reinvasion of Ukraine threatens global food supplies. BMJ, 376. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o676 Lever, J., Blake, M., Newton, D., & Downing, G., 2022. Working across boundaries in regional place-based food systems: Triggering transformation in a time of crisis. Cities, 130, 103842. Mohtar, R.H., & Lawford, R. (2016). Present and future of the water-energy-food nexus and the role of the community of practice. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6, 192–199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-016-0378-5 Moragues-Faus, A., & Morgan, K. (2015). Reframing the foodscape: The emergent world of urban food policy. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 47(7), 1558–1573. Moustier, P., Holdsworth, M., Anh, D.T., Seck, P.A., Renting, H., Caron, P., & Bricas, N. (2023). The diverse and complementary components of urban food systems in the global South: Characterization and policy implications. Global Food Security, 36, 100663. Padilla, E. (2002). Intergenerational equity and sustainability. Ecological Economics, 41(1), 69–83. Mapping change 17 Rees, W.E. (2019). Why place-based food systems? Food security in a chaotic world. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 9(A), 5–13. Sonnino, R., Marsden, T., & Moragues-Faus, A. (2016). Relationalities and convergences in food security narratives: Towards a place-based approach. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(4), 477–489. Springer-Heinze, A., Hartwich, F., Henderson, J.S., Horton, D., & Minde, I. (2003). Impact pathway analysis: An approach to strengthening the impact orientation of agricultural research. Agricultural Systems, 78(2), 267–285. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0308-521X(03)00129-X Thornton, P., Schuetz, T., Förch, W., Cramer, L., Abreu, D., Vermeulen, S., & Campbell, B. (2017). Responding to global change: A theory of change approach to making agricultural research for development outcome-based. Agricultural Systems, 152, 145– 153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2017.01.005 Tribaldos, T., & Kortetmäki, T. (2022). Just transition principles and criteria for food systems and beyond. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 43, 244–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2022.04.005 Tribaldos, T.M., Oberlack, C., & Schneider, F. (2020). Impact through participatory research approaches: An archetype analysis. Ecology and Society, 25(3), 15. Wenger, E.C., & Snyder, W.M. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139–146. https://hbr.org/2000/01/communities- of-practice-the-organizational-frontier DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441-2 2.1 The evolution of the Urbal approach and related tools: The unfolding research process In applying principles of participatory research to Urbal, we engaged in an iterative, co-created, loosely prescribed, and much adapted research process as we worked our way towards a place-based approach for mapping the changes and impacts from sustainable food system innovation and identified the outcomes, enablers, and impediments to sustainability impacts (Ceasar et al., 2017; Ciaccia et al., 2019; Faure et al., 2020; Tribaldos et al., 2020). We tested our draft approach in 16 case study Urban Food Innovation Labs (UFILs), adapting key features of the Urbal approach to ensure that it is relevant in the greatest diversity of contexts possible (Chapter 1). The process of developing and refining the Urbal approach was iterative and engaged with both the insights and vision of and materials developed by the core research group and the activities of the UFILs. Initially, our vision, the Urbal guide, and supporting material were developed and refined by the core research team through online and in-person meetings and a test case UFIL. This process allowed us to continuously refine the Urbal approach and add new key components and information such as: 1) reviewing interview findings to narrow the activities to be considered at the workshop as the starting point for the impact pathway map; 2) providing a clear, defined role for experts; and, 3) incorporating participatory research processes in the Urbal approach to explicitly enable social inclusion and the consideration of relative power and voice for various participants in the UFILs. Building on the work of Bricas (2017), we reviewed and expanded the dimensions and sub-dimensions for sustainable food system considerations. We also worked to ensure that Urbal is adaptable to a diversity of contexts. Throughout the process we also held online webinars for Urbal participants to present guiding material to our UFILs teams and report their research findings. Simultaneously, each UFIL conducted their own Urbal process with new insights incorporated into the general methodological research as appropriate. Urbal was then interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While some UFILs had concluded their interview process (Step 1) and workshops (Step 2), several 2 Urbal A research project Alison Blay-Palmer, Élodie Valette, Olivier Lepiller and Amanda Di Battista This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Urbal 19 had not held public meetings and others were not yet part of the project. While this presented challenges, the onset of COVID-19 demonstrated the value of Urbal as a flexible and adaptable tool. In some cases, Urbal workshops were held online with minimal in-person interaction under these circumstances. Despite this, lively conversations and significant engagement took place online, highlighting the importance of having these discussions and opening the doors for engagement. In other cases, researchers held smaller in-person workshops that respected social distancing needs and/or conducted online focus groups and interviews. In two cases, academic researchers developed the impact pathway maps from existing data and then shared the maps for comment with innovators and practitioners. 2.1.1 Evolving terms of reference and lessons learned from the Urbal research process The flexibility and iteration that is a hallmark of Urbal extended to the terms of reference for the project as they too evolved throughout the research. What became clear as the UFILs used the Urbal approach was the iteration that occurred between the steps and how, with each round, the information gained and understanding about the interaction between the innovation and sustainability deepened. For example, in Brasilia (Chapter 3) UFIL leaders used their literature review in Step 1 to determine relevant sustainability criteria for chefs and restaurants. This was then the basis to select restaurants for interviews based on their willingness to engage in sustainability and interview guides were developed and adapted to each group of key informants. Particularly notable changes in our terms of reference occurred for place-based considerations, sustainability dimensions in the context of food systems, innovation, and social innovation. 2.1.1.1 Place-based insights The breadth of the case study selection themes (governance, value chain, and consumer practices) and the intended audiences (policymakers, funders, academics, and/or practitioners), makes Urbal widely relevant. This breadth also works well as a place-based approach to identify and develop relevant sustainability innovations. This proved to be the case as Urbal was trialed across the UFILs and resulted in unique findings and insights into the Urbal approach based on place-based interpretations of and alignment with Urbal. For example, in the case of Berlin (Chapter 8), the ECF-Farms had a start-up culture and goal of changing the way cities produce food but also the requirement to build a self-sustaining company that can compete in the marketplace. The openness and flexibility of the Urbal approach permitted unique findings to emerge for the ECF-Farm such as the need for more flexible regulations for specifics such as compost. At the time of the research, regulations required that fish waste be dumped so this source of nutrients was lost to the food cycle. 20 Alison Blay-Palmer et al. However, Urbal helped uncover that regulatory improvements permitting composting of the Yellow Perch fish waste from the ECF production cycle to produce usable fertilizer could help ECF become even more ecologically sustainable. The relevance of Urbal as a useful place-specific approach also emerged for UFILs exploring the governance theme and raising important insights about the innovation to policy. In the case of the Agricultural Districts in Milan, “the existence of districts makes farmers more visible to other actors in the area, facilitating the creation of partnerships with institutions and civil society organisations in order to produce projects that develop and protect the territory” (Chapter 9, p. 183). These particular territorial conditions allowed the UFIL participants to become active agents of change for regional and national policy as they were able to …reflect on the role of agricultural districts from the point of view of land governance: through the districts, farmers transcend their role as workers of the land and become protagonists of a proposal for a radical change in land use policies. The districts work to promote access to the tools and funds of the Common Agricultural Policies, provide technical support for the implementation of projects that have concrete effects on food production and distribution, and contribute to the maintenance and production of local environment and landscape. Their impact, measured [previously] from the merely econometric point of view, is still very limited and today the agricultural districts can be considered emerging actors that are playing a crucial role as innovators of metropolitan food systems governance, and forerunners of a change in progress. (Chapter 9, p. 184) An important contribution of Urbal to the Mexico City UFIL (Chapter 4) was identifying the need to include producers in value chain considerations. Prior to Urbal, the innovators’ focus was largely on food processors but engaging in the Urbal process allowed them to better understand that farmer’s income is important to the viability of their supply chain, particularly as a point where interventions could increase sustainability. The Urbal approach helped uncover concerns about the fragility of relationships between food processors and producers in the region by providing a more complete picture of the supply chain and identifying possible pathways to help improve supply chain viability. In the Cape Town UFIL (Chapter 10), the timelines developed as part of Urbal demonstrated how the different components of their project, Nourish to Flourish (N2F), aligned with and captured the iterative processes associated with the development of project outcomes. The flexibility and ease of using Urbal meant that, despite several impediments—including limited budgets, mandate disputes, contested policy and strategy development interactions, leadership changes, and conflicting views about who is responsible for food Urbal 21 and nutrition—it was possible to get the strategy accepted. As a result of initial Urbal consultations and follow-up processes, the N2F authors were asked to present the Urbal documents to the emerging Provincial Food Systems Working Group as an external, independent review. The Urbal researchers were then asked to draft a summary version of the Urbal Project Assessment Report that further supported the N2F consultation processes. The Urbal approach and methodological process supported the needs of the N2F strategy evolution and refinement from concept through to implementation in a mutually reinforcing and beneficial iterative process. As well as providing an operational framework for N2F, groups such as the City of Cape Town Food Working Group, the Western Cape Community of Practice and the Western Cape Food Forum all used the Urbal report as both an internal working document and to support their own processes of mandate deepening. Urbal also enabled the development of methodologies adapted to the needs of each UFIL circumstances. For example, in the Milano Ristorazione UFIL (Chapter 6) for Step 1, the researchers tailored the approach so that they conducted semi-structured interviews and meetings with only two key informants. They then developed their own network map using a grid with the interest of stakeholders along one axis and power/influence along the other axis. The impact pathway map was then adjusted by academics following the workshop as participants found it challenging to identify the impacts of the relatively new innovation. As changes from the innovation had not been in place long enough to have lasting effects, in the end, they were able to identify potential or anticipated sustainability impacts. 2.1.1.2 Sustainability dimensions and food systems The Urbal project began by framing the research so it combined both food systems and sustainability considerations. The food systems lens means that Urbal researchers looked across the various points along the food chain to include as many aspects as possible from seed to waste heap. While the project did begin with urban innovations, applying a food systems lens also led us to broaden the geographic scope and use a more territorial/regional focus. At the beginning of the project, we used six sustainability dimensions, including food security, nutrition, governance, environment, social-cultural, and economic dimensions (Bricas, 2017). As we moved to the end of the pilot project research phase, we collapsed nutrition and food security into one ‘health’ category to provide a broader dimension for food systems analysis. Accordingly, the relevant sustainability dimensions and key sub-dimensions that emerged over the course of the Urbal project are: 1) Health: food security (access, quality, regularity), nutrition, well-being, physical activity 2) Governance: transparency, power dynamics, people’s participation, accountability 22 Alison Blay-Palmer et al. 3) Environment: protection of biodiversity, renewable resources, energy efficiency, climate resilience 4) Social-cultural: equity, community building, confidence in the system, positive expression of social and cultural identity, culture 5) Economic: equity, resilience, fair work and remuneration, local economies, circularity The sub-dimensions listed are those that arose most prominently or frequently during the course of the research. However, the above list is not intended to be normative and the identification and use of other sub-dimensions are feasible and encouraged. It is important that users of Urbal ensure that the approach meets the needs and goals for each innovation being studied. The features of a sustainable food system may vary according to regional or territorial contexts (Chapters 3–10). To reflect place- and context-specific considerations, each UFIL used the five-dimensional diagram to define and focus on their own definition of food system sustainability so that it reflected their values and objectives. 2.1.1.3 Innovation Beginning with the idea that innovation is an umbrella term for initiatives that result in change, we developed an innovation typology to guide how we framed the Urbal project. This typology included a range of innovation characteristics used to select the UFILs to help ensure the widest diversity of UFILs within the project. Social innovation was a key consideration as we developed the Urbal project. This focus allowed us to begin to explore whether the innovation satisfied human needs, brought about changes to social relations through process, and/or increased levels of socio-political capability and access to resources (Kirwan et al., 2013). Another parameter was the type of actors leading the innovation, including whether innovations were led by individuals from civil society, the private sector, and/or by public authorities. Next, we considered who was impacted by the innovation and whether it was linked to consumer practices, value chain organization, or governance related to urban food policies. These categories were the basis for the three research themes previously discussed. Sustainability dimensions were taken into account and, as described in the previous section, included food security, nutrition, governance, environment, social-cultural, and economic at the outset of the research. We considered the presence of participatory approaches, classifying them as high or low to begin to include equity and power considerations. To ensure that Urbal would have global appeal at the end of the project, we considered location by global region, including Europe, Northern America, Latin America, Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Finally, we considered the progress of the innovation, including if the innovation was at the planning stage, newly launched and experimental, fully in service, or completed and focused on the dissemination of information and results. Not surprisingly, the Urbal 23 stage of innovation made a difference to the impact pathway mapping in that the more established the innovation, the more complex and detailed the impact pathway maps. It is interesting to note that the innovations were not necessarily perceived as such by the innovators themselves. The purpose and vision of what was being done was sometimes unclear to the innovators, so Urbal was able to bring some precision to their processes. Other times, the innovation was a work in progress that Urbal helped fine-tune. For example, an innovation may have originated and be guided by innovators, such as in the Berlin UFIL (Chapter8), where a private company had a clear vision for more localized, environmentally sustainable production of protein and greens. In other cases, that the innovation was less clearly specified was identified as part of the research at theoutset with ideas being refined as the project evolved. This was the case of the Brasilia UFIL (Chapter 3) where the concept of sustainable gastronomy emerged as a framing research concept and was then refined more precisely as the project developed. In that case, the interview questions and the activities were easily aligned with sustainability goals as sustainability was a key consideration of the innovation at the outset. This led to the determination of specific sustainable gastronomic practices including the use of traditional food in menus and locally produced and/or organic food as well as waste minimization initiatives. The researchers also identified food activism and social inclusion as both emergent opportunities and challenges, particularly in terms of inclusion. 2.1.1.4 Social innovation In addition to innovation as an umbrella concept, Urbal intentionally focused on different aspects of social innovation (SI). We grounded this work in Bouchard et al.’s definition of social innovation as: [A]n intervention initiated by social actors to fulfil an aspiration or need, provide a solution or seize an opportunity for action in order to modify social relations, transform a framework for action or propose new cultural orientations. From this perspective … social innovation aims to modify the institutional frameworks that shape relationships in society. (Bouchard et al., 2015, p. 9) Social innovation generally involves social transformation based on the introduction of novelty into the established order. To identify UFILs engaged in a diverse range of social innovations to include in the Urbal project, we used Richez-Battesti et al.’s (2012) types for social innovations, in which social innovations can be: 1) tools to enable more responsive public policy with respect to social issues. In these cases, policy is shaped into new forms of interventions, usually based on public-private partnerships, such as the Projets Alimentaires Territoriaux in France, or, more generally, urban or territorial food 24 Alison Blay-Palmer et al. policies that engage multiple actors (see Cape Town UFIL, Chapter 10, p. 189) linked to social enterprises and entrepreneurs who implement market-oriented activities that both look for profit and social impacts such as the aquaponic firm in Berlin or restaurants in Brasilia (see Chapter 8); and 2) a multi-actor collective process, emerging to respond to unsatisfied social needs by the public sector or by the market or to put into effect a desired change. This category includes the La Cagette cooperative supermarket in Montpellier (Valette etal., 2022). SI was a key focus for the Urbal initiative from the outset. There was a deep commitment to exploring dimensions of social innovation across nearly all the UFILs. However, given the range of UFILs themes, it was not possible to uniformly apply or prioritize SI. Despite this constraint, social dimensions were highlighted wherever possible including as a key facet of sustainability. In practice, and as supported in the literature (Juan et al., 2020; Klein & Laville, 2014), the idea of social innovation varied significantly between UFILs as SI development and operations are context specific. As a result, contextual differentiation was crucial for understanding each social innovation’s priorities, practices, organizational structures, and activities (Konstantatos et al., 2013). A methodological consequence is that it became clear that the Urbal approach can help identify relevant contextual elements to understand the conditions for the emergence and evolution of social innovations including elements that facilitate and constrain the activities or implementation of the innovation (Bonomelli, 2018). 2.2 Lessons and insights from UFIL research There was significant theoretical development as we evolved the Urbal approach and, as early as in our pilot phase, participants found that engaging in the process of data gathering, impact pathway mapping, and workshop planning, participation, and facilitation helped build capacity and dialogues that strengthened organizations and networks, helped develop quick and easy impact assessments, and significantly contributed to theoretical development of the project. In addition, the UFILs provided living labs where we could test and develop the Urbal process and its application. This iterative approach helped to make a range of sustainability challenges more obvious. In practice, Urbal case studies were not just an academic exercise. They also helped the multiple UFILs identify and address hurdles and, in many cases, find new ways to deal with challenges and surface successes to build on and celebrate. 2.2.1 Sustainable food system dimensions A systems lens offers an opportunity to grasp the kaleidoscopic shifts between people and the environment as food circles and moves from seed to table to waste (Hipel et al., 2010; Morgan et al., 2008). Urbal brought specificity to the impact pathway mapping approach in the context of sustainability and food Urbal 25 systems combined by identifying how actual changes and impacts were the result of sustainable urban food system innovations. This was confirmed through the work in various UFILs. As researchers in the Cape Town UFIL observed about the impact pathway maps: [T]he interrelation, convergence, potential divergence between the various changes and pathways towards the different dimensions of sustainability, also build a systemic theory of change, emphasizing positive and negative feedback loops, unforeseen changes, and unforeseen contradictions between pathways, which we believe are particularly relevant to address the issue of the FSS [food system sustainability]. (Chapter 10, p. 191) Urbal helped to clarify the interconnectedness of sustainable food system dimensions as well as the need for careful assessment that helped avoid false assumptions (e.g., local equals more sustainable, Hinrichs, 2016; Born & Purcell, 2006). The combination of these two insights helped to generate realistic sustainability proposals for the future, an outcome that is of practical importance for many reasons. For example, researchers in the Milano Ristorazione (MiRi) UFIL (Chapter 6) explained that identifying logistical barriers and enablers with respect to the sustainability of the innovation allowed them to recommend concrete sustainability guidelines to be included in future contracts sent out for tender. In particular, the combination of sustainability and applying a systems lens helped them to clarify characteristics of sustainable food supply chains and how to determine ways to shorten the supply chain beyond simply geographical distance to include informational and relational proximity. Through the Urbal analysis, it was possible to identify ways logistics tenders could be used to enhance and/or monitor specific sustainability dimensions for the MiRi initiative using these three facets of sustainable food systems chains (distance, information, and relationships). These new sustainability considerations for tenders were specified as: 1) environmental, including alternative transportation options such as vehicle type; 2) food security, spelling out a commitment to regular and reliable food delivery; 3) improved social resilience through better working conditions; 4) more transparent accountability for delivery and carbon emissions; and 5) reduced inequity in the workplace. If taken up, these considerations could foster a more integrated and coherent approach to sustainable food systems. In the Brasilia (Chapter 3) and Ma Cantine Autrement (Chapter 5) UFILs, this level of sustainability awareness focused the attention of participants on reducing food waste. In MCA, it raised the profile of reducing food waste in school canteens as part of environmental education. In Brasilia, this translated into a greater uptake of zero waste for restaurants as part of a circular economy. In the Mexico City UFIL (Chapter 4), the Urbal process helped to clarify the barriers that needed to be addressed to realize desired goals and impacts 32 Alison Blay-Palmer et al. insights on changes and impacts that uncover the process of food systems transformation directly addressing scaling issues. Urbal’s focus on a multidimensional understanding of sustainability means that it can be applied at multiple scales so that “the systematic nature of interventions for the sustainability of the food system and thus, the fact that the area of impact are actually wider (sustainability dimensions of related activities are indirectly involved)” (Chapter 5, p. 79). Applying the Urbal approach also adds to what we understand about scaling as described by Moore and Riddell (2015) where: 1) scaling up is about impacting laws and policy; 2) scaling out occurs through duplication as the innovation spreads, evidence for which includes the replication or spreading of projects and programmes geographically and/or to greater numbers, or the dissemination of principles, knowledge, and experiences with adaptation to new territorial contexts; and 3) scaling deep is impacting cultural roots, and entails spreading cultural ideas by using stories and providing other evidence to shift norms and beliefs and can require significant investment in transformative learning and Communities of Practice. These three forms of scaling are not mutually exclusive and can help innovators shape hybrid strategies to think and act towards a wider change. The Urbal process supports the identification of the transformational opportunities that emerge from scaling including the modalities of change initiated by innovation activities as Urbal characterizes the enablers, conditions for success, impediments, and levers that make change and/or impact possible. This knowledge makes it possible to understand the diversity of the innovation impacts and helps to clarify the capacity to amplify these impacts as an opportunity to foster increased transformation. Identifying these scaling opportunities is at the core of Urbal’s focus on impact pathways, making various types of scaling more apparent. The ECF farm project in Berlin (Chapter 8) provides an example of scaling out and demonstrates how urban agriculture can be linked to its urban context and surrounding region, as well as how the ECF Farm’s turnkey operations installed in other cities are connected to their communities, regions, and other places, and contribute to the dissemination of change. In the Hanoi UFIL (Chapter 7), scaling out was achieved through online platforms in various locations. In the Mexico City UFIL (Chapter 4), scaling deep occurred through the Urbal approach which raised questions about how to include actors and “raise the scope of food justice action” especially with respect to agency and power dynamics for farmers. Addressing this question is the main goal of Urbal Step 3 that offers a unique opportunity to go beyond the simple and limited assessment of the impact of isolated innovations and to reflect on the interconnections and possibilities for a wider impact on food system sustainability. Specifically, the Urbal approach can help stakeholders address questions such as how can innovations be more widely adopted, and ultimately lead to transformative impact? As such, whatever choices might be made regarding the specifics of an Urbal project, Step 3 can foster a reflexive exercise on the different forms of scaling. Urbal 33 Garnering the support of public authorities is a possible secondary impact of Urbal. As the case of Ma Cantine Autrement demonstrates, The exercise of cross-sectional analysis of Urbal results allows [us to] order and prioritise [Ma Cantine Autrement] activities according to their weight and influence on each other. This result can provide interesting knowledge for decision making for improving the sustainability trajectory that the project engenders. (Chapter 5, p. 79) Ma Cantine Autrement sought to amplify the scope of the innovation by extending the measures taken by the programme and contributing to a spin-off via a cooperative initiative with neighbouring school canteens. This supported the goal to anchor change at the territorial scale, despite international trade agreements that limit their ability to procure local food. In summary, Urbal enables innovators to: 1) identify multiple sustainability dimensions simultaneously across scales; 2) monitor short-, medium-, and long term indicators; and 3) develop a collective understanding of the innovation. As previously discussed, while it is challenging to include all the key actors, Urbal can result in a more balanced assessment as inclusive participation can raise both positive and negative considerations. The results of Urbal thus invite us to think about the mechanisms, activities, and instruments, existing or to be created that can be used to ensure the short- and mediumterm changes and longimpacts of innovation. The potential to use Urbal to monitor sustainability is also very promising for researchers, funders, and policymakers. As UFILs identify similar challenges, there is also the opportunity to build global Communities of Practice and create solidarity around sustainability action. Urbal can help expose spaces where change is needed and how this can happen, clarifying how innovation can contribute to the transition to more sustainable food systems. References Anderson, C.R., Bruil, J., Chappell, M.J., Kiss, C., & Pimbert, M.P. (2019). From transition to domains of transformation: Getting to sustainable and just food systems through agroecology. Sustainability, 11(19), 5272. Bilali, H. (2020). Transition heuristic frameworks in research on agro-food sustainability transitions. Environment, development and sustainability, 22(3), 1693–1728. Blay-Palmer, A., Carey, R., Valette, E., & Sanderson, M.R. (2020). Post COVID 19 and food pathways to sustainable transformation. Agriculture and Human Values, 37(3), 517–519. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10051-7 Bonomelli, V. (2018). Building a participative tool to map the impact pathway of urban driven innovations on food systems sustainability: How to consider specific features of social innovation? Master’s thesis, Montpellier Supagro/Cirad. Born, B., & Purcell, M. (2006). Avoiding the local trap: Scale and food systems in planning research. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(2), 195–207. 34 Alison Blay-Palmer et al. Bouchard, M. J., Evers, A., & Fraisse, L. (2015). Concevoir l’innovation sociale: dans une perspective de transformation. Sociologies Pratiques, 31(2), 9–14. Bricas, N. (2017). Les enjeux de l’urbanisation pour la durabilité des systèmes alimentaires. In C. Brand et al. (coord.) Construire des politiques alimentaires urbaines (pp.19–38). Editions Quae. Ceasar, J., Peters-Lawrence, M.H., Mitchell, V., & Powell-Wiley, T.M. (2017). The communication, awareness, relationships and empowerment (CARE) model: An effective tool for engaging urban communities in community-based participatory research. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(11), 1422. Ciaccia, C., Di Pierro, M., Testani, E., Roccuzzo, G., Cutuli, M., & Ceccarelli, D. (2019). Participatory research towards food system redesign: Italian case study and perspectives. Sustainability, 11(24), 7138. Faure, G., Blundo-Canto, G., Devaux-Spatarakis, A., Le Guerroué, J.L., Mathé, S., Temple, L., Toillier, A., Triomphe, B., & Hainzelin, E. (2020). A participatory method to assess the contribution of agricultural research to societal changes in developing countries. Research Evaluation, 29(2), 158–170. Geels, F.W. (2019). Socio-technical transitions to sustainability: A review of criticisms and elaborations of the multi-level perspective. Current opinion in environmental sustainability, 39, 187–201. Gibson, S., Baskerville, D., Berry, A., Black, A., Norris, K., & Symeonidou, S. (2017). Including students as co-enquirers: Matters of identity, agency, language and labelling in an international participatory research study. International Journal of Educational Research, 81, 108–118 Gray, B., Purdy, J., & Ansari, S. (2022). Confronting power asymmetries in partnerships to address grand challenges. Organization Theory, 3(2), 26317877221098765. Hinrichs, C. (2016). Fixing food with ideas of “local” and “place”. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6(4), 759–764. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-015-0266-4 Hipel, K.W., Fang, L., & Heng, M. (2010). System of systems approach to policy development for global food security. Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering, 19, 1–21. Juan, M., Laville, J.-L., & Subirats, J. (2020). Du social business à l’économie solidaire. Critique de l’innovation sociale. Erès. Kirwan, J., Ilbery, B., Maye, D., & Carey, J. (2013). Grassroots social innovation and food localisation: An investigation of the local food programme in England. Global Environmental Change, 23, 830–837. Klein, J.L., & Laville, J.L. (2014). L’innovation sociale: Repères introductifs. In J.-L. Klein, J.L. Laville, & F. Moulaert (Éds.), L’innovation sociale (pp. 7–45). Eres. Koelen, M.A., & Das, E. (2002). Social learning: A construction of reality. In C. Leeuwis, R. Pyburn, & N. Röling (Eds.), Wheelbarrows full of frogs: Social learning in rural resource management: International research and reflections (pp. 437–446). Van Gorcum. Konstantatos, H., Siatitsa, D., & Vaiou, D. (2013). Chapter 20: Qualitative approaches for the study of socially innovative initiatives. In F. Moulaert, D. MacCallum, A. Mehmood, & A. Hamdouch (Eds.), The international handbook on social innovation (pp. 274–284). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781849809993. 00036 Kruijssen, F., Keizer, M., & Giuliani, A. (2009). Collective action for small-scale producers of agricultural biodiversity products. Elsevier, 34(1), 46–52. Moore, M.L., & Riddell, D. (2015). Scaling out, scaling up, scaling deep: Advancing systemic social innovation and the learning processes to support it. Journal of Corporate Citizenship. https://doi.org/10.9774/GLEAF.4700.2015.ju.00009 Urbal 35 Morgan, K., Marsden, T., & Murdoch, J. (2008). Worlds of food: Place, power, and provenance in the food chain. Oxford University Press on Demand. Richez-Battesti, N., Petrella, F., & Vallade, D. (2012). L’innovation sociale, une notion aux usages pluriels: Quels enjeux et défis pour l’analyse? Innovations, 38, 15–36. https://doi.org/10.3917/inno.038.0015 Tornaghi, C. & Dehaene, M. (2020). The prefigurative power of urban political agroecology: Rethinking the urbanisms of agroecological transitions for food system transformation. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 44(5), 594–610. Tribaldos, T.M., Oberlack, C., & Schneider, F. (2020). Impact through participatory research approaches: An archetype analysis. Ecology and Society, 25(3): 15. Valette, E., Lepiller, O., Bonomelli, V., & Pérignon, M. (2022). Des innovations à la transition des systèmes alimentaires: comment penser les conditions et les modalités de leur changement d’échelle? Géocarrefour, 96(3): 21. DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441-3 3.1 Introduction Contemporary gastronomy is an innovative field of sustainability practices in the food system (Pereira etal., 2019). Many chefs around the world choose ingredients noted for their sustainable attributes, whether they are local and organic ingredients or products that reflect regional culture and biodiversity (Pereira etal., 2019; Zaneti, 2017). Chefs supporting small-scale, local, agroecological production systems are particularly important in Brazil, where agribusiness is dominant and generates considerable social and environmental impacts (Sauer, 2018). The link between gastronomy and sustainability refers to many issues concerning how dishes are prepared, where and how ingredients are produced, the environmental impact of restaurants, employment issues, and so on. Nevertheless, scholars have pointed out that the emergence of sustainable gastronomy is mainly due to the loss of value of food as a result of globalization, leading to the disempowerment of people in food preparation processes, including the stages of growing and cooking food (Sloan etal., 2015). “Sustainable Gastronomy Day”, promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), defines the set of activities developed by these chefs to address the sustainability of gastronomy as “a cuisine that takes into account the ingredients—where they come from, how they are grown, how they reach our markets and, ultimately, our plates” (Sternadt etal., 2021, p. 2). In Brazil and other Latin American countries, the kitchen provides a space for introducing local native species that are little used and/or do not have a structured supply chain, thus demonstrating these foods’ potential to (re)integrate the local food culture. Chefs concerned about socio-environmental issues promote actions to develop regional food through the use and dissemination of foods prepared with native plants that support family farming, strengthen ties between rural and urban areas, and reduce food waste (Barbosa, 2009; Niederle & Schubert, 2020; Pereira et al., 2019; Zaneti, 2017). For example, Teresa Corção, a renowned chef in Brazil, stands out for her use of native Brazilian ingredients in her gastronomic dishes and is known for her food activism (Franklin, 2012). In Brasília, certain chefs have gained strong recognition for their efforts to create a gastronomic identity for the city. For a new city created just over 60 years 3 The role of chefs and gastronomy in transforming the Brasília food system Jessica Pereira Garcia, Mauro G. M. Capelari, Stéphane Guéneau, Tainá Bacellar Zaneti and Janaína D.A.S. Diniz This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Role of chefs and gastronomy 37 ago, Brasília’s reputation as the third largest gastronomic hub in Brazil is striking (Congresso em Foco, 2017). Moreover, the population of the Federal District— the administrative area of which the city of Brasília is part—is about 3-million inhabitants (IBGE, 2022), and it is home to many civil servants and employees of international organizations who are endowed with a high financial and intellectual capital and are often concerned about sustainability issues. In the Federal District, one of the major sustainability concerns is the rapid deterioration of the Cerrado biome, which surrounds Brasília. The Cerrado biome is suffering from the expansion of agribusiness with high rates of deforestation and several forms of socio-environmental damage (Eloy etal., 2018). Against this backdrop, some authors have sought to grasp the role of gastronomy in promoting regional products from the Cerrado biome and to analyse the process of developing markets for these products, which are often unknown to Brazilian consumers (Duarte etal., 2020; Guéneau etal., 2017; Zaneti & Balestro, 2015). Nevertheless, further research is still needed to better understand the relationship between gastronomy, the consumption of these products, and the impacts of the actions implemented by gastronomic actors on the transformation of food systems. Although gourmet chefs in Latin America present themselves as important actors in the development of alternative food systems (Zanella, 2020; Zaneti & Schneider, 2017), systematic studies of their roles and capacity to strengthen these systems are scarce. This chapter analyses the sustainable practices of chefs working in Brasília and considers their potential to transform the food system of the Brazilian capital. In so doing, we seek to answer the following question: What are the ways in which chefs take action and what challenges do they face in the construction of sustainable food systems in the city of Brasília? The chapter is divided into four sections. Section 3.2 presents the conceptual framework of the research. Based on a review of the literature on the concepts of food sustainability and gastronomy, we define the concept of “sustainable gastronomy”, a new term used by international institutions such as the FAO but still little studied in the social science literature. This definition then serves as a baseline for our analysis of the changes resulting from the actions initiated by chefs in Brasília. Section 3.3 presents the methodological framework of the research, detailing the data collection process and the Urbal approach (Valette etal., 2019). Section 3.4 outlines the results of the research in three subsections. The first subsection analyses the chefs’ decision-making process surrounding sustainability, including the sustainability criteria they use in their activities and to what extent this may reflect a trend in Brasília’s gastronomy. The second subsection considers the political dimension of chefs’ work to build an alternative food system. Finally, the third subsection highlights the limitations of the chefs’ practices and activism. Section 3.5 presents the conclusions of the research, setting out the main findings and reflecting on the future challenges facing the transformation of Brasília’s food system. 38 Jessica Pereira Garcia et al. 3.2 Conceptual framework: Strengthening the relationship between food sustainability and gastronomy Some strands of contemporary food culture are increasingly incorporating sustainability considerations into their approaches through movements aimed at reducing meat consumption, banishing food originating from monoculture production systems, promoting organic and agroecological products, and favouring food purchased directly from farmers (Portilho etal., 2011; Preiss etal., 2017). Contemporary societies’ rising interest in food sustainability also coincides with the growing importance given to aestheticization, taste appreciation, and pleasure in eating and cooking. This trend, which Barbosa (2009) describes as a process of gastronomization, has fostered an increasingly close relationship between gastronomy and rural areas, as the pleasure of cooking and eating combines a quest for better-quality ingredients and greater value given to products’ origin, on the one hand, with the use of gastronomic techniques and sometimes traditional culinary knowledge on the other (Zaneti, 2017). There is no consensus on the concept of gastronomy. Historically, it was shaped by the emergence of the first modern restaurants. It has sometimes been associated more closely with elite and taste, and at other times with social movements and markets. For the purposes of this study, we adopted the concept developed by Zaneti (2017), who defines gastronomy as: [A] socio-cultural process of interaction between, on the one hand, the trajectory of the ingredients—from their production to their distribution, their processing using culinary techniques, their consumption, and their disposal—and on the other hand the relationships established between the actors that make this trajectory possible—such as producers, distributors, chefs and/or cooks and consumers—mediated by knowledge, rituals, and symbolic and aesthetic representations along this path. (Zaneti, 2017, p. 47) As a social phenomenon, gastronomy has also found its way into the political arena. Some authors, such as Franklin (2012), Barber (2015), and Niederle and Schubert (2020), argue that chefs play a social and political role surrounding food. This role can be described as gastronomic activism in the sense that, in using specific products in their kitchens and justifying these choices, chefs may influence and educate their consumers towards sustainable gastronomy. Moreover, owing to their fame, gourmet chefs are also claim-makers who can act as policy entrepreneurs (Kingdon, 1995). As Sloan etal. (2015) note, “chefs have the power to change opinions and have highly influential roles to play in shaping the gastronomic desires of society to a more sustainable future” (p. xvi). Because of their institutional position, famous chefs have a certain legitimacy regarding food issues and are in a position to defend a cause and propose solutions to policymakers. Role of chefs and gastronomy 39 Krause and Bahls (2013) and Sloan etal. (2015) outline a number of characteristics that can make gastronomy a sustainable activity. These include in particular: 1) the creation of sustainable menus, “in connection not only with new gastronomic trends, but also with a rational and sensible method for using our resources” (Krause & Bahls, 2013, p. 439) based on seasonality, organic and local products, and cultural factors; 2) the choice of ingredients, informed by packaging and storage, transportation, locality/authenticity, and biodiversity considerations; 3) environmental education, with education and training of the sector’s workforce on this subject, so that they can incorporate the tenets of sustainability into their work and everyday practices. It is interesting to note that although many renowned avant-garde restaurants do not use the term sustainable gastronomy to define their establishments, a significant number of these practices have been adopted by contemporary gastronomy chefs. Moreover, these practices are identified as the basic ethos of restaurants recognized for serving creative haute cuisine (Zaneti, 2017). Renowned chefs, especially the stars of gastronomic guides and rankings, routinely incorporate certified and traceable organic foods into their cooking because these ingredients are produced on a small scale, often by groups of traditional peoples and communities and are endemic to a specific region. Beyond these ingredients’ sensory attributes—qualities that may help define a chef’s creative signature—chefs often choose local and traditional products for ideological reasons (Azevedo, 2015). In this sense, there appears to have been a shift in the very concept of gastronomy, which has emerged from its technical and elitist bubble built around the French school1 (Pulici, 2012) and which, as Zaneti (2017) argues, is expanding both horizontally in the world of cuisine and vertically to incorporate less elitist cuisines. These cuisines both offer dishes that are more affordable while still being produced using elaborate techniques and, above all, place sustainability criteria at the centre of meal production. Guided by this shift, several movements are driving contemporary sustainable gastronomy, including: a) the Slow Food movement, created in 1989 in Italy to promote good, clean, and fair food based on a cooperative relationship between farmers, cooks, and other consumers (considered as co-farmers) (Petrini, 2015); b) the Locavore movement, created by Californian chef Alice Waters in 1971, which advocates consuming local products as a way to boost the economy and local development by bringing farmers and consumers together (Azevedo, 2015); and c) the Farm to Fork movement, created by New York chef Dan Barber, which commits participating chefs to not buying products from more than 100 km away (Barber, 2015). Within these movements, it is worth highlighting the work of certain chefs at the forefront of innovative gastronomic practices striving to incorporate 40 Jessica Pereira Garcia et al. elements of sustainability, namely: René Redzepi, from the now closed restaurant Noma in Denmark, who initiated an itinerant school to improve local actors’ gastronomic techniques in order to enable them to cook with local ingredients (Leleux & van der Kaaij, 2019); Virgilio Martinez, from Restaurant Central in Lima, Peru, who applies modern cooking techniques to indigenous Peruvian ingredients and embraces approaches that respect Andean ecosystems (Barandiarán, 2018); and chefs Ray Adriansyah and Eelke Plasmeijer, from the restaurant Locavore in Bali, Indonesia, where 95% of the kitchen’s ingredients are Indonesian (Sgarbi, 2019). Such projects have also developed in Brazil, where several factors have converged to foster sustainable food initiatives. In this country, the agricultural sector is mainly characterized by large-scale monoculture farming and the promotion of commodity exports that contribute to separating society from nature and rendering food issues invisible (Cruz etal., 2016). However, since 1990, debates on the theme of food sustainability have been taking over the policy agenda as well as scientific research and development in Brazil (Monteiro etal., 2015; Portilho etal., 2011). Food activists are eager to better understand and communicate where food comes from, how it is produced, and why it is consumed (Darolt etal., 2016; Martinelli & Cavalli, 2019). Among the Brazilian representatives of a contemporary gastronomy that promotes sustainable food initiatives, chefs Tainá Marajoara and Teresa Corção in particular are worth mentioning. Together with her companion Carlos Ruffeil, Tainá Marajoara created the food culture centre ‘Iacitatá’ in the Amazonian metropolis of Belém. Iacitatá’ promotes the same values and forms of dissidence against the dominant food systems by criticizing the exploitative relations brought about by the industrialization of food production and the attending standardization, reduced varietal diversity, loss of flavours and culinary knowledge, and seed control. (Granchamp, 2019, p. 13) Teresa Corção founded the Maniva Institute which aims to restore traditional food knowledge. Based on a review of the literature exploring how the issue of sustainability has percolated into the concept of gastronomy, and how social actors themselves are implementing innovations to transform gastronomy, the concept of sustainable gastronomy can be understood as an approach whereby ingredients are chosen according to their social, environmental, and health-related characteristics (factoring in dimensions such as proximity, authenticity, fairness, nutritional quality, modes of production, packaging, transport, and distribution). Furthermore, the way these ingredients are combined is informed not only by specific culinary techniques to obtain refined dishes with gustatory and aesthetic qualities but also by the goal of making optimal use of available ingredients in order to preserve the environment and avoid food waste. Beyond Role of chefs and gastronomy 41 the confines of the restaurant, sustainable gastronomy strives to influence consumption choices and wider policy processes to transform the food system as a whole so that it can become more inclusive and sustainable. 3.3 Tailoring the Urbal approach to the analysis of the pathways of food system transformation induced by Brasília chefs In order to analyse the sustainable practices adopted by chefs working in Brasília, a qualitative research methodology was implemented in two stages. The first stage included interviews with key actors. Between 2018 and 2019, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted: 16 with chefs and restaurant owners in Brasília; 1 with a food cooperative; 6 with food producers (including 3 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers and 3 farmers from traditional communities); 2 with commercial intermediaries; and 1 with the person managing a gastronomic programme that operates in partnership with the Federal District Education Secretariat. All interviews were recorded and transcribed, and a content analysis guided by the research question was performed to identify and categorize the actions associated with sustainable gastronomy and the challenges that the chefs face in implementing them. Restaurants were chosen on the basis of their own statements about their willingness to engage in sustainability and according to criteria set out in the literature on sustainable gastronomy. We searched for these “sustainabilityoriented” establishments using the snowball technique (Vinuto, 2014), until the number of chefs selected and interviewed satisfied the principle of saturation (Glaser & Strauss, 2006). Several interview guides were produced for the different types of actors interviewed. With restaurants, the questions focused primarily on how the chefs conceive of their restaurants, what differentiates them from other establishments, and the history and trajectory of the restaurants’ creation. A series of questions then explored each chef’s practices: the types of products used; the product selection criteria; the supply chain for the ingredients used in the restaurant; the restaurant’s waste policy; the chef’s relationships with suppliers, customers, and other restaurants; and the innovations implemented specifically to make their establishment or the city’s food system more sustainable. The guides for interviews with the other actors focused on the sustainability of the actors’ practices (for farmers, cooperatives, and intermediaries) or their programmes and actions to advance sustainability in food systems (for the public sector), and on the nature of their relationship with the restaurants of Brasília. The aim was particularly to investigate the type of partnership built with the restaurants and the way in which this partnership was able to change these other actors’ practices or actions. The second stage of the research consisted of a participatory workshop organized in Brasília in June 2019. The workshop allowed the researchers to analyse the actions, identified through the interviews, which contribute to the 48 Jessica Pereira Garcia et al. 3.4.3 Challenges to and limitations of sustainable gastronomy The perspectives shared by the group interviewed suggest that the first challenge faced by the chefs and other actors of sustainable gastronomy in Brasília is local farmers’ limited supply capacity. This is due to the fact that the large restaurants of Brasília require a guaranteed supply of specific products on a regular basis, but also to the expansion of sustainable gastronomy in the region. According to the interviewees, many of the family farming businesses are small and informal, which hinders the development of strong partnerships with restaurants. This precarious supply structure among family farmers entails legal and contractual difficulties, as many farmers cannot issue invoices and restaurants have to fragment their purchases, adding on greater fiscal complexity for the establishments. An account by one of the interviewees exemplifies this situation: A huge difficulty in working with family farming is that, in my view, it is still a group that has not organized itself very well, and our weekly purchase is gigantic, and I have already faced several difficulties in getting hold of the farmer and saying “man, can you supply me with 200 kilos of tomatoes?” and he said “no, I can offer you 40” and I said “and next week?” and he said “next week I can’t offer you anything, because 40 is my whole production.” The trickle of contact is very difficult, because nowadays you go to Ceasa,7 you can find a giant wholesaler, or three giant wholesalers that can supply an entire restaurant [on their own], and it’s difficult to work with family farming like this. (Interviewee 15, 2019) This type of situation, brought on by local producers’ limited supply capacity, tends to favour restaurants that adapt their menus to the available food supply, creating dishes from what the farmers can provide. These restaurants generally have a clientele that can adapt to the offer: consumers who come not to taste aspecific dish, but rather because they adhere to a set of principles upheld by the restaurant while also appreciating the overall quality of the dishes offered. These customers normally spend a greater amount on purchases. In this sense, referring to our typology of restaurants engaged in sustainable gastronomy inBrasília, it appears that “alternative gastronomic” restaurants are generally restricted to small establishments that serve a higher social class (see Table 3.1). Although the use of fruits from the Cerrado was a practice mentioned by more than half of the chefs interviewed, these fruits generally feature in small quantities and often on an irregular basis, for instance on special occasions such as gastronomic festivals dedicated to the Cerrado, with the exception of a few restaurants in the alternative gastronomic category (Duarte etal., 2021). Asecond challenge for sustainable gastronomy in Brasília is thus the inclusion of larger quantities of Cerrado fruits in establishments’ dishes, on a more regular basis. Two important factors help to understand this challenge. Role of chefs and gastronomy 49 The first is the chefs’ lack of commitment to including Cerrado fruits in their cuisine. This may be linked to the trend already identified by Zaneti and Balestro (2015), who point to a gap between the chefs’ rhetoric on the protection of the biome and their actual commitment to changing their culinary practices. According to the authors, this trend can be due either to operational considerations by the restaurants (associated with the difficulty of working with a changing menu, or the purchasing relationship with farmers), or to consumers choosing these restaurants for the refinement of their dishes rather than to preserve the Cerrado biome. Furthermore, the lack of specialized staff who understand the importance of following the guidelines of sustainable gastronomy can make it difficult to turn discourse into reality (Krause & Bahls, 2013), ultimately leading to the maintenance of the status quo. The second factor that explains the low quantity of Cerrado fruits in the everyday menus of Brasília’s restaurants relates to chefs constantly sensing their customers’ reluctance to try these specific fruits. Many of them reported that when they offer their customers the choice between two dishes, the one containing Cerrado fruits and the other without these fruits, the customers consistently choose the option without Cerrado fruits. The following interview excerpt clearly illustrates this situation: I think people here are not very comfortable leaving their comfort zone, trying something new, trying something different. I see it a lot here in Brasília, it seems that other people have to test it and say that it is good for it to be accepted. We have a lot of cases like that, when I get called to a table to suggest it and the person says “no, I want the steak with risotto”. (Restaurant 15, 2019) This account indicates that the clients of gastronomic restaurants are not willing to change their consumption habits and have a very conservative gastronomic profile. Many of Brasília’s upper-class residents still see meals made from Cerrado products as popular dishes, as in the case of the traditional “rice with pequi”, which would remove them from their elitist bubble. In this sense, the more consistent inclusion of Cerrado fruit is hampered by a market rationality that is not yet socially constructed (Guéneau etal., 2017). The following account illustrates this problem: A restaurant that serves dinner and that wants to sell something sophisticated … ends up creating a cycle where you need to have commercial dishes to be able to pay the rent, and this ends up diluting the concept with standard options, because that’s what people buy. And so the restaurant ends up selling, I don’t know, risotto with fillet steak to be able to pay the rent. (Restaurant 14, 2019) Some collective initiatives involving chefs are striving to change this representation among consumers. The publication of gastronomic recipe books and the organization of gastronomy festivals and culinary events hosted by groups of 50 Jessica Pereira Garcia et al. chefs—private banquets of sorts dedicated to Cerrado gastronomy, the entrance fee for which necessarily limits participation to the upper classes—are examples of such initiatives by the abovementioned activist movements. These events communicate the need to support the gastronomy based on Cerrado products in order to protect this threatened biome. The issues described above point to the third challenge to and limitation of sustainable gastronomy in Brasília, which is the need for social inclusion or, in other words, the need to expand gastronomic sustainability to less privileged customers who have a lower per capita income. Brasília has the highest per capita income in Brazil (IBGE, 2021), and this income is concentrated within a small group of residents of the capital—usually civil servants and their families—who live in more centralized and upmarket areas of the city. This is also where the researched establishments with a sustainability profile are located. Based on our findings, it is clear that the city of Brasília promotes sustainable gastronomic actions for a more affluent social class. These are the actors who seek, consume in and sustain this gastronomic circuit striving to develop sustainable practices. Even so, there are exceptions, especially in the case of chefs linked to local universities, which are working to establish university extension practices in less affluent areas, such as schools on the outskirts of the city. However, this is not the dominant pattern of sustainable gastronomy observed in the capital of Brazil. On the contrary, the prevailing approach is elitist and restricted to more affluent social classes, thus raising questions about future challenges for socially inclusive sustainable practices and the extent to which such practices, even though they exist on a small scale in the capital8 (IESB, 2016), can serve as an instrument for improving the diet of Brasília residents. 3.5 Conclusion This chapter analysed the role of Brasília chefs in transforming the local food system, and the challenges they face in this endeavour. Our findings shed light on an activist profile shared by the chefs surveyed that steers their actions towards: • Improving the quality of the food served, using organic, neglected, and native species, and sourcing their supply from local family farmers, thereby generating support for local small-scale producers and cooperatives such as the Central do Cerrado. • A set of activities that promote a sustainable gastronomy based on products from the Cerrado biome, which suggests the beginnings of building a food identity for the region of the Federal District, based on sustainability principles and supported by movements that seek to give the Cerrado political visibility, such as Slow food Cerrado and Panela Candanga. • Attentiveness to the waste generated by their establishments, which has encouraged the search for self-organized alternatives for the adequate collection and treatment of waste with the innovative organization Ecozinha, the largest zero-waste restaurant initiative in Brazil. Role of chefs and gastronomy 51 This set of innovative actions, arising from coordinated engagement by a specific group of chefs in the city of Brasília, demonstrates the potential for food systems transformation towards more sustainable practices. This transformation has not happened yet in Brasília. Innovative actions are still restricted to higher-income consumers, even though they increasingly include rural communities in Brasília and the surrounding area. It can also be said that this higher-class audience, which embraces a European ideal of gastronomy, shares a somewhat romanticized understanding of sustainability. Despite chefs’ environmental concerns, regarding modes of production and the conservation of biodiversity for instance, economic considerations often limit new action, in addition to such action having little social impact, with a large part of the local population still excluded. Chefs’ very limited adoption of some of the most relevant sustainable practices, such as making full use of the ingredients, serving seasonal menus, and fostering links with CSAs, reflects the significant gap between their discourses and their practices. Moreover, it reveals the shortcomings of public policies dedicated to the transformation of food systems, with a lack of technical assistance and rural extension services, for instance, to support innovative chefs in their efforts to build sustainable food markets and help farmers and traditional communities to access these emerging markets. Gastronomy provides a space for the creation of new markets and new products. In various places around the world, it has come to encompass solidarity restaurants, participatory canteens, and 100%-bulk or zero-waste restaurants, which can increasingly be found in working-class neighbourhoods. The initiatives that have emerged in Brasília are still in their early stages, but could draw inspiration from these innovations to transform the city’s food system. Notes 1 Pulici conducted surveys among members of the Brazilian elite and analysed gastronomic reviews published in the Paulist Press between 2005 and 2009. She showed how the Brazilian elite created a gastronomic universe, guided by French professional gastronomy in the 2000s, in order to distinguish itself from the working class. Classical or professional gastronomy takes the French school as its frame of reference, as the discipline was born in the post-French Revolution era when the ex-cooks of the fallen nobility started to open restaurants for the emerging bourgeoisie. 2 The Brazilian term “traditional peoples and communities”, as defined in the Brazilian Constitution (Decree 6.040 of 07/02/2007), includes native, Afro-descendant, and multi-racial populations. 3 In Portuguese Plantas Alimentícias Não Convencionais (PANC). 4 Social media has become an extension of the restaurant as well as the chef. Both the chef’s persona and the restaurant’s image are constructed through their media presence. The media are used as a space for marketing, nurturing a relationship with the public and, most of all, gastronomic branding. 5 A species native to the Cerrado, Xylopia aromática. 6 A very popular local newspaper. 7 Ceasa (Centrais de abastecimento) are the main supply centres of metropolitan areas in Brazil, bringing together most food wholesalers in the same location. 52 Jessica Pereira Garcia et al. 8 The Bandeneón social project developed by chef Sebastian Parasole is one of the few examples of sustainable gastronomy in Brasília catering to the lower classes. The project provides itinerant education for vulnerable people, and works towards solidarity and sustainability around the theme of food. Information about this project is available at https://www.sebastianparasole.com/bandoneon References Azevedo, E. (2015). Food activism: The locavorism perspective. Ambiente & Sociedade, 18(3), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-4422ASOC740V1832015 Barandiarán, J. (2018). Science and environment in chile: The politics of expert advice in a neoliberal democracy. MIT Press. Barber, D. (2015). O terceiro prato. Observações sobre o futuro da comida. Rocco. Barbosa, L. (2009). Tendências da alimentação contemporânea. In M.L. Pinto & J.K. Pacheco (Eds.), Juventude, consumo e educação (pp. 15–64). ESPM. Congresso em Foco. (2017). Terceiro polo gastronômico, Brasília atrai restaurantes consagrados do eixo SP-Rio. https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/opiniao/colunas/ terceiro-polo-gastronomico-Brasília-atrai-restaurantes-consagrados-do-eixo-sp-rio/ Cruz, F.T., Matte, A., & Schneider, S. (2016). Produção, consumo e abastecimento: desafios e novas estratégias. Editora da UFRGS. Darolt, M.R., Lamine, C., Brandenburg, A., Alencar, M.D.C.F., & Abreu, L.S. (2016). Alternative food networks and new producer-consumer relations in France and in Brazil. Ambiente & Sociedade, 19(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1590/1809-4422ASOC 121132V1922016 Duarte, L.M.G., Guéneau, S., Diniz, J.D.A.S., & Passos, C. J. S. (2020). Sistemas agroalimentares alternativos, construção social de mercados e gastronomização de produtos agroextrativistas do Cerrado brasileiro. In S. Guéneau, J.D.A.S. Diniz, & C.J.S. Passos (Eds.), Alternativas para o bioma Cerrado: agroextrativismo e uso sustentável da sociobiodiversidade (pp. 405–446). Mil Folhas. Duarte, L.M.G., Guéneau, S., Diniz, J.D.A.S., & Passos, C.J.S. (2021). Valorización de los patrimonios alimentarios y productos agroextractivistas del Cerrado brasileño en la gastronomía: un estudio sobre el Festival Gastronómico Cerrado Week. In N. Rebaï, A.G. Bilhaut, C.E. de Suremain, E. Esther, & M. Paredes (Eds.), Patrimonios alimentarios en América Latina: recursos locales, actores y globalización (pp. 109–136). IRDIFEA. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.irdeditions.42804 Eloy, L., Guéneau, S., Nogueira, M.C.R., Diniz, J.D.A.S., Leme, A., & Passos, C.J.S. (2018). Alternatives durables pour le biome Cerrado: occupations et usages des territoires par les producteurs agroextractivistes. Problèmes d’Amérique Latine, 4(111), 85–100. https://doi.org/10.3917/pal.111.0085 Franklin, S.B. (2012). Manioc: A Brazilian chef claims her roots. Gastronomica, 12(3), 40–45. https://doi.org/10.1525/GFC.2012.12.3.40 Garcia, J.P. (2017). Valorização de produtos agroextrativistas do Cerrado: comercialização e construção dos mercados da sociobiodiversidade. [Masters Thesis, Universidade de Brasília]. UnB Repository. https://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/24443 Glaser, B.G., & Strauss, A.L. (2006). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine Transaction. Granchamp, L. (2019). Penser l’alimentation d’un point de vue décolonial. Revue des Sciences Sociales, 61, 132–141. https://doi.org/10.4000/revss.3611 Role of chefs and gastronomy 53 Guéneau, S., Diniz, J.D.A., Mendonça, S.D., & Garcia, J.P. (2017). Construção social dos mercados de frutos do cerrado: entre sociobiodiversidade e alta gastronomia. Século XXI, Revista de Ciências Sociais, 7(1), 130–156. https://doi.org/10.5902/ 2236672528133 Guéneau, S., Diniz, J.D.A.S., Bispo, T.W., & Mendonça, S.D. (2020). Cadeias de produtos da sociobiodiversidade como opção de desenvolvimento sustentável no cerrado: o desafio da comercialização. In S. Guéneau, J.D.A.S. Diniz, & C.J.S. Passos (Eds.), Alternativas para o bioma Cerrado: agroextrativismo e uso sustentável da sociobiodiversidade (pp. 329–367). Mil Folhas. IBGE. (2021). Rendimento nominal mensal domiciliar per capita da população residente. https://cidades.ibge.gov.br/brasil/df/pesquisa/48/48986?tipo=ranking&indicador= 48986 IBGE. (2022). Cidades e Estados. Brasília. Retrieved 20 May 2020, from https://www. ibge.gov.br/cidades-e-estados/df/Brasília.html IESB. (2016). Conheça a Iniciativa Bandoneón de Gastronomia. Retrieved 23 March 2020, from https://www.iesb.br/noticias/conheca-a-iniciativa-bandoneon-de-gastronomia/ Instituto Ecozinha. (2021). Restaurantes sustentáveis. Retrieved 26 October 2021, from https://www.institutoecozinha.org.br/ Kingdon, J. (1995). Agendas, alternatives and public policies (2nd ed.). Harper Collins. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR28024.v1 Kinupp, V.F., & Lorenzi, H. (2014). Plantas alimentícias não convencionais (PANC) no Brasil: guia de identificação, aspectos nutricionais e receitas ilustradas. Instituto Plantarum de Estudos da Flora. Krause, R.W., & Bahls, A.D.S.M. (2013). Orientações gerais para uma gastronomia sustentável. Turismo – Visão e Ação, 15(3), 434–450. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn. 1984-4867.v26i3p668-694 Leleux, B., & van der Kaaij, J. (2019). Stellar performance from sustainability teams. In B. Leleux & J. van der Kaaij (Eds.), Winning sustainability strategies (pp. 243–261). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97445-3_12 Martinelli, S. S., & Cavalli, S. B. (2019). Alimentação saudável e sustentável: uma revisão narrativa sobre desafios e perspectivas. Ciencia & Saude Coletiva, 24(11), 4251–4262. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-812320182411.30572017 Monteiro, C.A., Cannon, G., Moubarac, J.C., Martins, A.P., Martins, C.A., Garzillo, J., … Jaime, P.C. (2015). Dietary guidelines to nourish humanity and the planet in the twenty-first century. A blueprint from Brazil. Public Health Nutrition, 18(13), 2311– 2322. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1368980015002165 Niederle, P., & Schubert, M.N. (2020). How does veganism contribute to shape sustainable food systems? Practices, meanings and identities of vegan restaurants in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Journal of Rural Studies, 78, 304–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrur stud.2020.06.021 Panela Candanga. (2021). Um movimento, uma celebração da cozinha de Brasília. Retrieved 14 November 2021, from http://panelacandanga.com.br/ Pereira, L.M., Calderón-Contreras, R., Norström, A.V., Espinosa, D., Willis, J., Guerrero Lara, L., … Pérez Amaya, O. (2019). Chefs as change-makers from the kitchen: Indigenous knowledge and traditional food as sustainability innovations. Global Sustainability, 2, e16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2059479819000139 Petrini, C. (2015). Food & freedom: How the slow food movement is changing the world through gastronomy. Rizzoli Publications. 54 Jessica Pereira Garcia et al. Portilho, F., Castañeda, M., & de Castro, I.R.R. (2011). Food in the contemporary context: Consumption, political action and sustainability. Ciencia & Saude Coletiva, 16(1), 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232011000100014 Preiss, P., Charão-Marques, F., & Wiskerke, J.S. (2017). Fostering sustainable urbanrural linkages through local food supply: A transnational analysis of collaborative food alliances. Sustainability, 9(7), 1155. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071155 Pulici, C. (2012). Le solennel et le parcimonieux dans l’alimentation. Les pratiques gastronomiques comme source de distinction des élites brésiliennes. IdeAs. Idées d’Amériques, 3. https://doi.org/10.4000/ideas.441 Sauer, S. (2018). Soy expansion into the agricultural frontiers of the Brazilian Amazon: The agribusiness economy and its social and environmental conflicts. Land Use Policy, 79, 326–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.08.030 Sgarbi, G. (2019). Sustainability: “This is just the beginning”. In conversation with the Locavore chefs. William Reed Ltd. Retrieved 12 March 2020, from https://www.the worlds50best.com/stories/News/eelke-plasmeijer-locavore-sustainable-restaurant- award-just-getting-started.html Sloan, P., Legrand, W., & Hindley, C. (2015). The Routledge handbook of sustainable food and gastronomy. Routledge. Slow Food Cerrado. (2019). Slow food cerrado: Sobre. Retrieved 18 March 2019, from https://www.facebook.com/SlowFoodCerrado/ Sternadt, D., Mellado, J., Rivas-Mariño, G., & Moyano, D. (2021). Tasty and wastefree food – The alternative to improve the use of public resources in School Feeding Programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean: Case studies in three countries. FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4910en Valette, E., Schreiber, K., Conaré, D., Bonomelli, V., Blay-Palmer, A., Bricas, N., & Lepiller, O. (2019). An emerging user-led participatory methodology. Mapping impact pathways of urban food system sustainability innovations. In A. Blay-Palmer, D. Conaré, K. Meter, A. Di Battista, & C. Johnston (Eds.), Sustainable food system assessment: Lessons from global practice (pp. 19–41). Routledge. Vinuto, J. (2014). A amostragem em bola de neve na pesquisa qualitativa: um debate em aberto. Temáticas, 22(44), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.20396/tematicas.v22i44.10977 Zanella, M.A. (2020). On the challenges of making a sustainable kitchen: Experimenting with sustainable food principles for restaurants. Research in Hospitality Management, 10(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/22243534.2020.1790207 Zaneti, T.B. (2017). Cozinha de raiz: as relações entre chefs, produtores e consumidores a partir do uso de produtos agroalimentares singulares na gastronomia contemporânea [PhD thesis, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul]. UFRGS LUME Digital Repository. https://www.lume.ufrgs.br/handle/10183/164708 Zaneti, T.B., & Balestro, M.V. (2015). Valoração de produtos tradicionais no circuito gastronômico: lições do Cerrado. Sustentabilidade em Debate, 6(1), 22–36. https:// doi.org/10.18472/SustDeb.v6n1.2015.10709 Zaneti, T.B., & Schneider, S. (2017). Muito além de ingredientes: A contribuição da gastronomia para o fortalecimento da agricultura familiar - o caso da relação entre chefs, agricultores e consumidores do Instituto Maniva, no Rio de Janeiro. In CLAEH & GEPAD (Eds.), Experiências inovadoras na agricultura familiar brasileira: atores, práticas e processos para o desenvolvimento rural (pp. 1–92). Departamento de Publicaciones del CLAEH. DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441-4 4.1 Introduction This chapter presents the application of the Urbal approach (see Chapter 1) in the Mexican context of the company Maizajo, which is working to set up an alternative distribution network for tortillas made from native maize, processed through nixtamalization. This process involves cooking the maize kernels in an alkaline solution, usually limewater. The maize is then milled after soaking overnight to obtain a wet dough (masa) used to make tortillas and other maize products (Briones et al., 2000). The company’s premises consist of a production unit, a mill located on the outskirts of Mexico City, which processes native maize harvested directly by local farmers. The products obtained, mainly tortillas, are sold to restaurants in Mexico City. The background of the two partners behind the project, who both trained in gastronomy, facilitates access to this outlet. Maizajo is an urban-based initiative. More importantly, it is a market-chain innovation. The company was born out of the observation that the quality of the tortillas sold in the capital was deteriorating, which was seen as unfair to consumers who were unable to obtain quality tortillas. The quality of tortillas and their preparation methods have evolved considerably over time as production has had to adapt to extremely high demand, especially in Mexico City. At present, the tortilla market in Mexico is largely controlled by major food companies (Maseca and Minsa, the main suppliers of maize flour) (De Ita, 2007). This industrial configuration emerged in the 1950s and has lastingly disrupted the tortilla trade.1 Unlike nixtamalized tortillas, tortillas sold by these companies are made from maize flour. There are also many tortillas on the market in the capital that are dyed with artificial colouring. These processes are used to mimic the colours of tortillas made from native maize—which can range in colour from pink to blue depending on the variety—when most tortillas are made from selected hybrid seeds. The number of processing mills has drastically reduced, making more room for industrial tortillas (Cerra, 2020; Rubio & Rubio, 2013) and intensifying the competition between the food companies and the processing mills offering fresh dough (Sánchez, 2017). Thus, the 4 Traditional tortillas in Mexico Opportunities and challenges for producers and consumers Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. 56 Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall initiators of the project have positioned themselves on a very competitive market, seeking to revive processing and distribution activities that were losing ground. Maizajo is also driven by the desire to foster better collaboration between the market and farmers and to build relationships of trust between the different partners. The vision of the initiative, or its narrative (Devaux et al., 2009), is to offer a new way to improve the prospects of small farmers on agricultural markets (Shepherd, 2007), while responding to urban demand for higher quality foods that meet increasingly stringent safety standards and contributing to the renewal of food processing models. The initiative’s model of collective action tends to involve not only small farmers, but other stakeholders as well. Here, the intermediary is a food processing industry player, a type of actor that does not tend to be found in collective action, or in initiatives guided by a participatory market chain approach (Devaux et al., 2009). Unlike grassroots innovations, Maizajo is a market-based innovation, and it is not striving to change values in the system (Gernert et al., 2018). Rather, it aims to generate more benefits for small farmers as well as other market chain actors. According to classic definitions, innovation—the introduction of something new into an economic and social organization—is more than ever a factor that drives the competitiveness of companies. Innovation allows for reducing costs, improving productivity or product quality, and creating new markets in a context of globalized competition (Porter & Heppelmann, 2014). For Maizajo, innovation means positioning itself competitively on an already saturated market, standing out with the quality of the products it offers. In using a traditional transformation process, Maizajo is endeavouring to connect the past with the present. Nixtamalization predates the Spanish conquest, yet it is intertwined with contemporary knowledge, technologies, and questions (e.g., concerns about the hygiene of the process). During this process, dry maize kernels are boiled in an alkaline solution and then rinsed. The method softens the kernels and forms a paste, the “nixtamal”, which is then used to cook tortillas. Nixtamalization has particularly interesting nutritional benefits, as it releases niacin, an amino acid that is lacking in maize. A niacin deficiency can cause pellagra, a disease involving skin, digestive, and nerve problems. Beyond tortillas, nixtamal is the core ingredient of many other products derived from maize, including pozole (a traditional soup made from nixtamalized maize grains), atole (a drink made by boiling and diluting the paste in water, possibly flavoured with ground fruit or chocolate), and tamales. With this method, Maizajo has the particularity of being a retro-innova- tion, a term generally denoting the deliberate revival of historical practices, ideas, and/or technologies (Zagata et al., 2020). In this process, old (retro-)elements become drivers for new (innovative) ideas. According to Rogers (1962), what matters is not whether an idea is objectively new, but how people perceive the idea: “If the idea seems new to the individual, it is an innovation” (Rogers, 2010, p. 11). Traditional tortillas in Mexico 57 This concept is relatively central to contemporary discussions on rural development and agricultural transition (Zagata et al., 2020). Often, retroinnovation opposes modernist agricultural practices and generates specific knowledge systems that represent a “starting point of transition” (Stuiver, 2006). Stuiver demonstrated early on that retro-innovation is a practice that has been developed to counter problematic trends in the agricultural sector. A very similar dynamic can be witnessed in the context of food processing. The rise of nixtamalization is a response to the generalized industrialization of tortillas. Maizajo’s idea was born out of the lack of quality tortillas accessible to all on the capital city’s market and grounded in discontent with the present regime (Stuiver, 2006). Developing and disseminating nixtamalization appears to constitute a critical practice, “an active effort to counter prevailing modernisation trajectories in the agri-food sector” (Zagata et al., 2020, p. 643). This criticism of the current system represents the trigger for change in Maizajo’s practices (Sutherland et al., 2012). The Maizajo Urbal Food Innovation Lab (UFIL) has positioned itself within a specific gap in the market: a demand for products that are non-industrialized but also meet the agroindustry’s strict hygiene and quality standards. The basic attributes of retro-innovation are also consistent with territorial strategies for rural development (Zagata et al., 2020). Maizajo’s vision aligns with this dimension of the concept, as it claims to work to empower the rural sector on the fringes of the capital. The UFIL is currently largely positioned on a niche market, selling its tortillas to restaurateurs in Mexico City. However, the project leaders’ ambition is to extend their model and contribute to a profound change in the eating habits of the inhabitants of the Mexican capital. Geels and Schot’s (2007) work shows how initiatives can emerge in niches that allow them to mature or be eliminated and can then grow, spread in their original form or in a new form, and ultimately change the dominant sociotechnical regimes. With the Urbal approach, we endeavoured to highlight the factors crucial to achieving the objectives of the initiative, allowing it to become self-sustaining. We also borrow from Geels to identify other factors that support the maintenance and growth of an innovation, such as “politics and power”, “cultural discourse and framing struggles”, and “policy analysis” (Geels, 2019, p. 187). The analysis of these factors was made possible by the methodology chosen, which considers all the actors of the supply chain, as well as external factors that can foster or hinder the innovation’s development. This chapter considers all the characteristics of the UFIL (an innovation that revives old processes, with food processing at the core of the initiative) to highlight the impacts of the innovation on producers and consumers, as well as observed or potential barriers. In Section 1, we first reflect on the particularities of the product (maize and nixtamalized paste) and the company (as a processor, a category of actors often forgotten in studies on food systems). Before analysing the results of our research, we outline the different stages of the 64 Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall with the constraints of production. To meet the expectations of the company’s founders, we broadened the reflection carried out as part of the Urbal framework to consider the production-related dimension of the initiative’s activities. 4.5 Results from the impact pathways: Shedding light on the core of the initiative This section highlights how the Urbal approach, through the collective identification of impact pathways, can draw attention to specific aspects of the initiative and ultimately reveal the core of the food system innovation. According to Devaux et al. (2009), a number of factors can influence the performance of innovation systems, such as the external environment, the range of actors involved, the values and attitudes of the key actors, institutional arrangements, and patterns of interaction. Different factors can also trigger the innovation, such as changes in policy, markets, and technology. The aim of the Urbal workshop was to identify and explore these factors collectively. Any innovation process goes through periods of acceleration, slowdown, and crisis, and not all innovations are viable—a selection process occurs (Nelson, 1993). The workshop strove to develop awareness, within the UFIL network, of its position in the institutional environment, using interactive learning and a monitoring approach (Schuetz et al., 2009). It shed light on the resources and competences available to the UFIL to foster innovation, including institutional features such as actors’ norms and rules (Edwards, 2000). Section 4.5.2 presents some of the main results of the workshop. Maizajo takes part in the food system by promoting a specific marketing circuit, and therefore has several potential and expected impacts on sustainability. Most significantly, the initiative reduces the number of intermediaries between maize producers and the buyer, with positive repercussions on the economic dimension of sustainability. As a food distributor, it must play a role in food security. At the same time, Maizajo tends to communicate on the nutritional value of its product, especially the nutritional value derived from the use of nixtamalization to process the maize kernels. The project also has potential impacts on the sociocultural and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The product is central to Mexican gastronomy and its history. The nixtamalization process is a distinctive characteristic of Mesoamerican cooking that has survived to this day (Fernández Suárez et al., 2013). Maizajo is contributing to spreading the nixtamalization process so as to promote traditional Mexican expertise. 4.5.1 An innovation that addresses food security… for whom? The impact pathway analysis shows that Maizajo’s activities can affect several dimensions of sustainability (Figure 4.1). Among them, food security is the one that was mentioned most often, in connection with both opportunities and risks, for the producers as well as consumers. We define food security based on the five A’s of food security identified by Cecilia Rocha: food availability, accessibility, adequacy, acceptability, and agency (Chappell & LaValle, 2011; Rocha, 2007).3 Furthermore, Hammelman and Hayes-Conroy (2015) have suggested Traditional tortillas in Mexico 65 Figure 4.1 Impact pathway for the activity “Nixtamalization” based on the results of the first exercise in the workshop. It shows the different stages leading to impacts, as well as the conditions and obstacles along the way. 66 Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall adopting a more comprehensive understanding of cultural acceptability in the context of food security, informed by “human rights-based approaches, cultural values evident in production and consumption processes, the importance of interweaving multiple knowledges, and challenging decision-making powers in today’s corporate food regime” (p. 43). Spreading better quality tortillas, a staple of the national diet, seems to logically lead to an improved diet. However, this spread is subject to many constraints and requires adjustments and support in order to break out of the niche market in which Maizajo is currently positioned. In particular, the group discussions highlighted the importance of education on the taste, texture, and storage of nixtamalized tortillas compared to flour tortillas. It is also necessary to support consumers in re-learning to recognize the taste of a nixtamalized tortilla. A similar observation applies to cooks, as well as suppliers of prepared food in the broadest sense—from the person in charge of a household’s food supply to the chef at a restaurant to the street vendors who abound in Mexico City. It is necessary to facilitate these food actors’ integration of nixtamalized tortillas in their preparations and teach them how to handle them properly so as to reduce the risk of losses (see the map of actors in Figure 4.3 to understand the significant role played by actors from different sectors in the development of Maizajo’s activities). It is important to note that the discussions focused on the place of food system actors who typically receive little attention: the food processors, especially the local mills. These mills, once central to the distribution of tortillas, are now disappearing in the capital (Cerra, 2020). In order to achieve the impact of “improving food security” for the inhabitants of the capital, Maizajo cannot act alone. Its goal is to share its model with other processors. However, this dissemination must go hand in hand with political support in order to restore these establishments’ central role. This is not a recent concern: as early as 2017, the processors’ trade associations turned to the Mexican authorities to be better taken into account in the aid schemes for alternative industries. In terms of risks, Maizajo’s activities may have several unintended adverse effects on food security. For example, the attractive prices offered by Maizajo may cause farmers to sell their entire crop, without saving any seeds for their own consumption. Producers, who are suppliers of quality grains, could be forced to buy flour tortillas from classic market chains, which are of a lower quality and less nutritious. The introduction of a staple food in a specialised market channels has already been highlighted as a risk factor for producers in the case of quinoa in Bolivia (Jacobsen, 2011). The representative of a consumer association present at the workshop also pointed to the example of the sale of Mexican coffee to agroindustry, which had the effect of impoverishing producers and weakening the country’s food sovereignty. Similarly, the creation of new opportunities for native maize may lead to increased demand for this crop, at the expense of other crops for household consumption, and even to the detriment of milpa.4 Another risk concerns not the producers, but the processors. To make nixtamalized tortillas widely available, Maizajo is striving to make them meet a number of sanitary standards regarding the traceability of the seeds’ origin and the control of production systems (see Figure 4.2). These standards have Traditional tortillas in Mexico 67 Figure 4.2 Detailed pathway leading to an intermediate effect (standardization of transformation processes) based on the results of the second exercise in the workshop. It details a specific pathway from the activity to the intermediate effect chosen by the participants. More specifically, it sheds light on the multiple barriers and levers at play. 68 Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall also been identified as a condition for the success of impact pathways. At the same time, they represent a barrier for many small-scale processing mills, which do not have the necessary means to adopt and meet these standards. This example of the contradictory effects associated with the implementation of regulatory standards highlights one of the roles of the group discussions, where ambivalent effects have been pointed out by actors with different perspectives. This shows the importance of involving a diverse range of actors in social learning. Thanks to the Urbal method, we realized that the impacts of the initiative related to downstream activities rather than upstream ones. The steps focused more on grain processing than on production and the modalities of collection. While we had wished to focus on the links between producers and the initiative, the process of defining the impact pathways highlighted the fact that this concern was secondary in the conduct of Maizajo’s activities. Surprisingly, this interest in downstream activities was shared not only by the managers of the initiative but also by the other actors involved. Maizajo’s innovation lies above all in grain processing and the nixtamalization technique. Furthermore, generalizing nixtamalized tortillas is more of a priority for the project’s promoters than ensuring fairer incomes for local producers. 4.5.2 Results derived from the perspectives shared by stakeholders Given the nature of the innovation, the workshop participants’ attention was directed to the overall supply chain capacity—not just the producers—and the degree to which the chain in its entirety can compete/enter the market. Since our methodology focused on actors, we wanted to take this opportunity to create an ad hoc stakeholder forum to identify the current and potential future roles of all the actors across the supply chain, including those who were absent from the workshop (see Figure 4.3). The aim was particularly to prepare the second workshop included in the Urbal approach by shedding light on the institutional and macroeconomic environments.5 These play a role through the rules, norms, and values that support the dominant trajectory or allow niche innovations to flourish (Faure et al., 2018). The importance of involving a diverse range of actors has been highlighted by a large number of studies on collective action. As Devaux and colleagues point out, innovation is stimulated by the interaction of individuals and groups with different backgrounds, interests, and perspectives (Devaux etal., 2009). Figure 4.3 shows all the actors mentioned during the exercise concerning stakeholders and distinguishes between the different types of actors most frequently mentioned in relation to the conduct of activities. We organized the actors into six categories. The producer/processor/consumer triptych is the most significant. A particular feature of the innovation is the increased presence of processing actors, who are rarely mentioned in food system innovations. As Maizajo is a processing actor, this finding is not surprising. However, this category encompasses a wide variety of actors, present on many different scales and markets (from street vendors to chefs at upmarket restaurants). The Traditional tortillas in Mexico 69 Figure 4.3 Map of actors. 70 Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall workshop exercise regarding actors (mentioned above) illustrated processing actors’ importance in the food system and the value of including them in food innovations. However, Figure 4.3 also highlights the role of the education sector, particularly in research and support for innovation. Participants stressed the role of universities not only in supporting alternative market initiatives but also in conducting research on native seeds and providing technical guidance. According to the literature on governance, policymakers should play a key role in facilitating the interaction, discussions, learning processes, and information sharing surrounding an innovation (Smith et al., 2005). There are therefore high expectations of government support, particularly in the form of standards for native seeds and nixtamalized dough. Governments and policymakers can provide long-term direction and formulate specific policy targets, which enable action and accountability (Kattel & Mazzucato, 2018). Depending on the composition of each group, the actors identified varied. The group that included a UNAM6 researcher thus placed greater emphasis on the role of universities in the dissemination of more sustainable food models. Likewise, the group that included a member of an association for the protection of native maize seeds pointed to the importance of certification bodies or policies for the public dissemination of information about the characteristics of native seeds. This exercise provided an opportunity to think about the population left out and their possible integration: not only the marginalized population but also powerful actors that could possibly intervene to support the project and its scaling. This in turn raised the question of how to reach and involve these actors, and how to broaden the scope of action for food justice. Experts present at the workshop suggested a variety of potential developments. The CIMMYT representative pointed to the possibility of extending the process to hybrid, selected seeds, which could provide security for producers, while members of Mexican maize protection associations stressed the importance of keeping native seeds at the heart of the process. Meanwhile, the food systems researcher discussed possible ways of marketing the tortillas to move away from systematically involving restaurant owners. This diverse range of actors allowed for different kinds of issues to emerge, which the UFIL leaders can reflect on in order to enhance their decision-making regarding the initiative. 4.5.3 The effects of the COVID-19 health crisis on the company’s market orientation The COVID-19 crisis forced Maizajo to reduce its native maize supply. For the producers, this has meant fewer orders from the company. Contrary to expectations, producers were not so concerned about losing this buyer, or even about the direct consequences of the recession (Leloup & Le Gall, 2020). The Traditional tortillas in Mexico 71 feedback from the producers revealed continuity mechanisms more than clear sudden changes in their organization (e.g., production factors such as rainfall, access to inputs, and government support remained primary concerns). The continuation of the producers’ activities and the continuity of their concerns, despite the loss of a buyer that positions itself as an agent of fairer trade, demonstrate the relatively low impact of such an enterprise on the territories where the maize is grown. Market outlets are not a factor limiting their activity. While Maizajo’s prices are certainly attractive, other opportunities are available to the producers. What matters to them is selling their produce; the profits afforded by a higher price are secondary. The health crisis has highlighted the fractious relationship between the producers and the initiative, but there were warning signs. The relationship with producers is central to the vision of the initiative and it is part of the discourse and symbolism developed by Maizajo (Plowman et al., 2007). This has remained the case throughout the innovation process, as partners had left and joined the network. In the case of Maizajo, the narrative has remained the same, although the activity has changed radically. The company continues to project the image of locally grown maize and remuneration for local producers, even if this is not core to its current activity. Its focus has shifted downstream, while it continues to sell itself thanks to its upstream activities. 4.6 Conclusion: Upstream and downstream challenges The company’s vision is to impact all segments of the marketing chain, from improving the living conditions of producers to enhancing the Mexico City population’s food supply. The methodology proposed by the Urbal approach shed light on the impact pathways of the UFIL’s activities to promote sustainability, as well as the accelerators, conditions, and obstacles along the way. During the workshop, by exploring the levers for and barriers to conducting an activity, and thanks to the presence of a range of actors (some of whom were sceptical of the initiative), we were able to identify many points of caution. While the UFIL can have positive impacts on consumer nutrition (health dimension of sustainability) and on the preservation of seed diversity (social dimension, environmental dimension), stakeholders are also aware of the potential negative effects of Maizajo’s activities. For instance, this chapter provided an in-depth discussion of the impacts of “retro-innovation”. The analysis of impact pathways enabled us to highlight some of the dangers of this type of innovation. By reviving old processes in urban neighbourhoods, which are still used in rural areas of Mexico, the company is at risk of causing a trend towards the gentrification of nixtamalized tortillas. The modernization of this process and its adaptation to align with sanitary and legal requirements, including stringent hygiene and administrative standards, may push out the actors contributing to maintaining the process in the first place (e.g., local mills, informal tortillerias). In this case, the impact of the UFIL could 72 Héloïse Leloup and Julie Le Gall negatively affect the economic wellbeing of different stakeholders, from small food processors to low-income consumers. Beyond the impact pathways, the Urbal methodology highlighted Maizajo’s main priorities, with processing as its core business. The company’s initial concern regarding the weakness of its relationship with producers was confirmed during the diagnosis and the workshop. This is one of the main contributions of this UFIL: it shed light on the difficulties, for the productive sector, of integrating appropriate food innovations arising from urban areas. There are still many barriers to the widespread adoption of the innovation by producers. Many producer profiles remain excluded from the marketing circuit proposed by Maizajo. While the initiative highlights the continuity of relations with producers as a guarantee of the quality of the final product, this aspect of Maizajo’s activities is probably the most uncertain. The fragility of the relationship between the processor and the producers reflects the risks raised by this kind of initiative surrounding the economic dimension of sustainability, such as the fragility of outlets for producers and poor resilience of the relationship in case of crises, as the health crisis of 2020 confirmed. Box 4.1 On the role of chefs in food system sustainability Maizajo is an innovation that was envisioned by chefs. As outlined in Chapter 3 (Brazilian case) of this book, chefs contribute to creating a gastronomic identity and can play an influential role in shaping a more sustainable food system for the future. While Maizajo’s initiators have a keen understanding of the possible outlets and potential of a nixtamalized tortilla on the capital’s market, they are less familiar with the realities of the productive sector. This discrepancy was confirmed during the diagnostic phase and in their response to the health crisis as the project leaders naturally turned to the sale of prepared meals to eat at home. The two leaders had expertise in cooking and pastry making. Given this context, what role can chefs play in supporting sustainable food initiatives? Klerkx et al. (2010) highlight the role of “boundary spanning actors” in “enhancing adaptive management capacity for effective reformism”. Chefs, and gastronomy in general, can be influential and powerful actors who help create a conducive institutional environment when the latter is not supportive of change (Klerkx et al., 2010). In the case studied, the food craze in Mexico represents an opportunity to develop innovations around food systems. Chefs can showcase producers’ know-how and become ambassadors of a country’s food heritage (Matta, 2015). In this context, chefs, although they are disconnected from the realities of production, can create an environment favourable to the development of innovations that promote better production conditions. In food sustainability, gastronomy can play the role of an “innovation broker”. Traditional tortillas in Mexico 73 Notes 1 Our interviews with trade associations for tortilla and producers as well as the UFIL itself revealed a telling figure: around 90% of the tortillas sold in Mexico City are manufactured by these companies. However, we were not able to corroborate these statements with official figures. 2 Centro International de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo—International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. 3 From Chappell and LaValle (2011, p. 36): “Availability refers to the sufficiency of a food supply to meet people’s needs; Accessibility refers to people’s economic and physical ability to acquire food; Acceptability addresses the cultural and nutritional suitability of the available food; Appropriateness evaluates the ecological sustainability and the safety of a food supply; Agency is the ‘right to knowledge, and knowledge of rights’ – access to accurate information on food supply, quality, and safety in order to make informed market choices, rights to such information and to the other aspects of food security, and a competent sociopolitical system to guarantee these rights”. 4 An agricultural technique which consists in combining complementary crops, usually squash, beans, and maize. The word has come to be used in Mexico to refer to a small agricultural plot on which this technique is practised. 5 Due to the COVID19 health crisis that occurred in 2020, we were not able to implement the 2nd workshop included in the Urbal methodology. Indeed, we were not in position to guarantee the necessary safety distances for a public event. Our results are therefore based on the results of the diagnostic phase and the first workshop. 6 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico—National Autonomous University of Mexico. References Blay-Palmer, A. (2005). Growing innovation policy: The case of organic agriculture in Ontario, Canada. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 23(4), 557– 581. https://doi.org/10.1068/c17r Boege, E. (2008). El patrimonio biocultural de los pueblos indígenas de México: Hacia la conservación in situ de la biodiversidad y agrodiversidad en los territorios indígenas. Briones, F. C., Iribarren, A., Peña, J. L., Rodriguez, R. C., & Oliva, A. I. (2000). Recent advances on the understanding of the nixtamalization process. Superficies y vacío, 10, 20–24. Cerra, D. (2020, January 12). Sobre los casi extintos molinos de nixtamal (y por qué comprarles masa). local.mx. https://local.mx/ciudad-de-mexico/molinos-nixtamal/ Chappell, M. J., & LaValle, L. A. (2011). Food security and biodiversity: Can we have both? An agroecological analysis. Agriculture and Human Values, 28(1), 3–26. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10460-009-9251-4 Conklin, B. A., & Graham, L. R. (1995). The shifting middle ground: Amazonian Indians and eco-politics. American Anthropologist, 97(4), 695–710. https://doi.org/10.1525/ aa.1995.97.4.02a00120 De Ita, A. (2007). Catorce años de TLCAN y la crisis de la tortilla. Programa de las Américas, Reporte Especial. Demeulenaere, E. (2014). A political ontology of seeds: The transformative frictions of a farmers’ movement in Europe. Focaal, 2014(69), 45–61. https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl. 2014.690104 80 Marlène Perignon et al. approach aimed to shed light on the IPs by taking into account the perspectives of diverse stakeholders concerned by the programme to provide insights on what impacts should be expected and how/why they could be achieved. 5.2 Methodology The MCA case study was carried out in three steps, guided by the Urbal methodological framework. First, a study characterized and provided a better understanding of the MCA programme, its innovative activities, timeline, and stakeholders. The research team then carried out a multi-stakeholder participatory workshop to collectively identify the main impacts and IPs of a set of innovative activities. Faced with the legal and practical difficulty of directly involving school children in the workshop, the research team decided to conduct a separate study to collect their views. The research team analysed all the data collected to develop a more detailed and explicit understanding of the IPs of activities and produce a synthetic map showing barriers to and levers of the impacts. Finally, the research team organized a second workshop, during which this analysis was presented and informed a discussion about strategies to scale out an innovation such as the MCA programme. 5.2.1 Characterization of the programme (activities and stakeholders) The study was carried out from mid-January to early May 2019, drawing on a range of sources. The Urbal project research team benefited from the direct support of the Montpellier Food Policy Director, who is also the Montpellier School Catering Director and the main MCA designer. The Food Policy Director helped to provide access to documents, made himself available to answer questions, and connected the Urbal intern in charge of carrying out this first stage of the research with an intern at the FPD. The initial data sent by the FPD comprised of documents in various formats (PowerPoint presentations, internship reports, documentary notes, maps, teaching scenarios) and of different kinds, such as urban food policy benchmarks, food waste management documentation, action plans, decisions made by the MCA steering committee, engagement letters from the Mayor, progress reports and evaluations of the measures’ implementation, press releases, etc. These documents were organized and categorized. Interviews with the Food Policy Director completed this data. This material was used to produce three main documents: 1. A timeline of the different measures implemented as part of the MCA programme from 2014, when the first food waste measurement operations were launched, to the end of 2019 2. A list of the activities carried out as part of the MCA programme from 2016 to 2020 (see Table 5.1) 3. A map representing the main actors and categories of actors involved in the MCA programme (see Table 5.2) Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 81 Table 5.1 Complete list and description of the MCA programme activities Axes Activities Pillar 1: Food procurement policy 1. More targeted allotment by product or family of products: the sizeof the batches ordered is reduced and products are unbundled to encourage smaller local producers to respond to calls for tenders 2. Specification of higher quality standards for public contracts: this activity allows for the integration of quality criteria such as organic certification and other quality labels 3. Working group on local outlets: these multi-stakeholder groups, which include farmers, meet regularly to structure and facilitate the local response to calls for tenders 4. Administrative services cooperative supporting local producers: this service offer aims to strengthen local farmers’ capacity to respond to public calls for tenders Pillar 2: Production management 5. Creation of fruit and vegetable processing stations: this production tool makes it possible to use a greater number of first-range products (raw agricultural produce that has not yet been processed) in the production of meals 6. Improvement of recipes and portion weights: these adjustments are made dish by dish, guided by preliminary studies of the meal leftovers, to minimize food waste 7. Reorganization of the booking system: an online platform is set up to allow parents to book meals for a shorter period than before (6weeks) 8. Seasonal menu cycles: this menu design aims to promote local and seasonal products and is supported by communication targeting the parents and children 9. Four-component meals (replacing the usual five-component meals): this simplification of the meal structure was informed by a study of meal leftovers to minimize waste 10. Food donation agreement with charities: this agreement with local charities facilitates the recycling of production surpluses through food aid Pillar 3: Meal distribution 11. Nutrition training for staff: these training courses are accessible to kitchen and facilitation staff and provide them with nutritional knowledge and skills 12. Hospitality and service training for staff: these training courses are accessible to kitchen and facilitator staff and provide them with hospitality knowledge and skills 13. Cutting kit: this set of tools is designed to facilitate the work of kitchen staff and allows for cutting fruit directly at the table 14. Limiting cutting work to one task per meal: this action aims to facilitate the work of kitchen staff 15. Experiment with self-service restaurants: this experiment aims to minimize waste by allowing children to choose dishes according to their taste preferences (Continued ) 82 Marlène Perignon et al. 5.2.2 Identification of impact pathways by the stakeholders Based on the set of activities identified in the first stage of the study, the research team organized a participatory workshop, but decided to focus on just 12 activities, spanning all four MCA pillars and from among those with the most potential for impact. This allowed the participatory exercise to be conducted during a few hours’ workshop covering a limited but comprehensive range of activities. 5.2.2.1 Participatory workshop We organized the participatory workshop on Wednesday 26 June 2019, in a large classroom designed to accommodate 50 people, from 5: 00pm to 8: 00pm (in other words after the end of the workday, but not too late). The chosen location was on the campus of the agronomic school of Montpellier, close to the city centre and easily accessible. We informed the participants that drinks and snacks would be provided during the workshop and that a friendly, more informal chat would follow. The invitation mentioned the event’s title: “What are the impacts of ‘Ma Cantine Autrement’?” Based on the inventory of relevant actors carried out in the previous stage, we wished to bring together a diverse range of protagonists: the Director of Food Policy and School Catering; people working in Axes Activities Pillar 4: Sustainability awareness 16. Eco-citizen meal (without any animal-based food): this menu, which was initially served monthly, is coupled with communication on limiting environmental impacts and on nutritional quality 17. Bio-compostable food containers: these plant-based containers, which hold portions for an entire table, replace plastic containers 18. Generalization of waste sorting and biowaste recovery: this action is aimed at better sorting the different types of waste while involving the children 19. Sorting table with an integrated scale: this device makes the quantities of waste generated by meals visible to all 20. Educational booklet and interactive map: these communication tools are designed to raise parents’ and children’s awareness of MCA actions and can be used as a teaching device during school time 21. Educational theatre play “Opération Brocoli”: this recreational play aims to raise the children’s awareness of the sustainability issues and challenges surrounding food 22. Teaching activity on taste run by dietitians: this activity strives to expand the children’s palate by enabling them to open up to new tastes 23. Communication sent to parents with proposed evening menus: this communication tool suggests menu and recipe ideas for dinner meals at home Table 5.1 (Continued) Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 83 production at the CPU; a dietitian from the FPD; farmers/producers supplying the CPU; a person working at Montpellier’s Market of National Interest (Montpellier wholesale market); a person from the Chamber of Agriculture; representatives of non-profits interested in MCA (organizations that can benefit from the production surpluses, such as Saint Vincent de Paul, or that are working to improve the sustainability of school catering, such as Greenpeace); parents, including some involved in a non-profit promoting the use of organic and local food in Montpellier’s canteens (named Collectif Cantines); organizers of extracurricular activity (managers and facilitators); maintenance staff (school operations managers, maintenance, and catering staff); and expert researchers of sociology, economy, nutrition, and agronomy. In order to run the workshop efficiently, we chose to limit participation to 20 people. We faced difficulties in inviting facilitators of extracurricular activities, actors who play a crucial role in canteens since they are in charge of facilitating mealtimes. They are employed by the municipality, more precisely by the Table 5.2 Main groups of actors involved in the MCA programme Institutional actors Actors whose decisions and support have direct effects (mayor, elected representatives, municipal service departments, etc.) or indirect effects (local chamber of agriculture, Regional Department of Food and Agriculture, Environmental and Energy Management Agency, etc.) on the implementation of the MCA programme. Field actors Actors that are directly involved in running school catering and the MCA programme on a daily basis (FPD, cooking staff, facilitators of extracurricular activities and school support staff, dietitians, composting centre, waste treatment plant, Montpellier Market of National Interest, National Centre for Local Civil Service, etc.). Economic/industrial actors Actors that are directly involved in the production of meals (suppliers, CPU, etc.). Financial actors Actors that fund the MCA programme (municipality, Regional Department of Food and Agriculture, Environmental and Energy Management Agency, etc.). Non-profit/foundation actors Social organizations that are partners of the MCA programme (charities, local farming organizations, etc.). Social actors Children, parents, parent associations, voters, etc. Research actors The Urbal research team, researchers from the MoISA research unit, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, and the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems. Network actors Actors involved in structuring the local sustainable food network. 84 Marlène Perignon et al. Department of Education, which was not willing to let them take part in the workshop for fear that they might voice criticism. This may have had to do with the fact that an election was coming up—which also explained the Department of Education’s lack of involvement in the MCA programme—and with the power asymmetry between the FPD and the Department of Education, a much bigger branch of the municipal services. We ultimately decided to conduct separate interviews with extracurricular activity facilitators to collect their views about the activities’ impact pathways. Some of the statements collected were quoted during the workshop. In order to reach the target of 20 workshop participants, we sent an invitation to about 40 people. Thirteen people attended the workshop. Although this was fewer than expected, it was enough to organize the workshop following the desired structure, that is, with plenary sessions at the start and end of the workshop, and with working group sessions. In practice, the workshop was structured as follows: 1. First, we held a plenary session to present the Urbal approach, the IP concept, the dimensions of sustainability, and the set of 12 innovative MCA activities. 2. We then split the participants into groups—the core stage of the workshop. We had three groups of three participants, and one group of four participants. Each group worked on three activities and had its own table, with one facilitator per table, and moved to a different table once, in order to produce cumulative views about another set of three activities (Table 1: (a) more targeted allotment by product or family of products, (b) more organic and local products, and (c) alternative eco-citizen meal (without any animal-based food); Table 2: (a) four-component meal, (b) improvement of recipes and portion weights, and (c) reorganization of the booking system; Table 3: (a) staff training, (b) cutting kit, and (c) bio-compostable food containers; Table4: (a) generalization of waste sorting and biowaste recovery, (b) sorting table with an integrated scale, and (c) educational booklet and interactive map). We endeavoured to have diverse groups, with one expert, one person directly involved in MCA, and one parent or non-profit member per group. Each group spent 45 minutes discussing the first set of three activities before rotating and spending 30 minutes on the second set of activities, which had been discussed by a previous group. Each group thus worked on six activities in total. After the rotation, each group arrived at a new table was briefed on what had been said by the previous group. We used paperboards to summarize and transcribe the discussions in real time, making sure that all participants agreed on the formulation. The facilitator at each table was in charge of facilitating, audio-recording and transcribing the discussion. 3. Finally, the third stage brought all the participants together again in a plenary session. While the aim was initially to collectively discuss the synergies between the activities, this time essentially allowed the participants to share their thoughts on the workshop, their surprises regarding certain impacts, their learnings, or their assumptions that had been confirmed. Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 85 The workshop ran smoothly, and participants shared positive feedback about the event and were unanimous on the importance of such multi-stakeholder spaces—which previously did not exist—surrounding school catering. 5.2.2.2 Interviews with children and observational work Before organizing this workshop, we had to make a decision regarding a sensitive question: should school children be invited to the workshop? While school children could indeed be considered as the main actors impacted, it seemed very difficult to involve them directly, due to legal considerations and the difference in language used. We therefore decided to conduct a separate study with school children before the workshop, so as to be able to share some of their statements during the workshop and to aggregate their views on the activities’ impact during the analysis stage following the workshop. We conducted a qualitative study with children at several schools in Montpellier. With the support of facilitation staff, eight group discussions with five to eight children, each lasting about 30 minutes, were carried out “to talk about the canteen”, as was announced to the children. We were also able to take part in three sessions of the children’s municipal council, with time dedicated to discussing what the children knew and thought about the MCA activities. Each session brought together the elected representatives of the children from four different schools. Eight children took part in the first session, five in the second session, and 12 in the last one. This study was completed by in situ observations and by discussions with about 45 different children in total, while sharing meals with them at their canteens, around tables of six to eight children. While we did quote some of these field data during the workshop, their analysis took place largely after the workshop. 5.2.3 Synthesis/mapping of the impact pathways and identification of barriers and levers by the research team Based on the material produced in the workshop, the separate fieldwork with school children and the additional interviews, the research team worked on drawing the IP maps of each of the 12 activities. The raw data from the workshop, namely 12 paperboards showing an activity at their centre and boxes listing the effects associated with this activity, could be hardly called “IP maps”. They could better be described as “effects maps”: for the most part, the intermediate effects leading to the long-term effect or impact, in other words the concrete pathways from the activity to its impacts, were not made explicit. The research team analysed the raw material, listening to the audio recordings when the notes taken during the workshop or the interviews were not sufficiently clear. In order to arrive at readable impact pathways, the research team often had to reformulate the impacts in a clearer, more precise way and state the intermediate effects that were not explicitly mentioned by the workshop participants. In some cases, the research team also added some obvious impacts that 86 Marlène Perignon et al. had not been identified during the workshops but were documented in the scientific literature. This analytical step amounted to a translation process, balancing two distinct requirements: to capture all the information provided by the participants and remain true to what they meant, while also producing significant and precisely defined IPs that could be understood unambiguously. This analytical step also involved situating barriers, levers, and possible bifurcations as milestones on the pathways from activities to their impacts. Some of these levers, barriers, and bifurcations had been identified by the participants during the workshop, but were mainly identified and formulated by the research team based on the scientific literature and the raw data. In fine-tuning the formulation and identification of hypothetical or documented barriers, levers, and bifurcations, we made the choice to essentially strike a balance between the participatory spirit of Urbal and the value added by the knowledge in the literature. This balance was informed by the availability and allocation of time and human resources to the workshop, on the one hand, and to the analysis by the research team on the other. The result of this analytical step consisted of 12 IP maps—one for each activity—and a global map synthetizing the overall impacts of these 12 activities (the IP maps of two activities are shown further in this chapter). Each identified impact was assigned to one or several of the five different dimensions of sustainability addressed in the MCA case study: environmental, health, socio-cultural, governance, and economic. 5.2.4 Identification of strategies to support the programme’s effectiveness, and conditions for its scaling out Based on this synthetic IP mapping and working in close collaboration with the FPD, the research team decided to collectively further the discussion on the conditions of success and on the issues involved in scaling out the MCA programme, that is, in transferring the concept and methods of MCA to implement the programme in other territories or communities. At the time of the project, the MCA programme implemented in the city of Montpellier was starting to be seen as an inspiring proof of concept for other French cities, and several communities asked the FPD to share its experience. The municipality’s commitment to improving school catering in support of greater sustainability, which began in 2016, anticipated and in several ways even exceeded the recommendations of the 2018 EGalim Law. The FPD expressed the need to reflect on how the programme could be efficiently transferred to other contexts. The decision was thus made to explore the question of scalability collectively, as part of the Urbal study. To this end, the research team organized a second workshop on Tuesday 3 December 2019, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. It invited 74 people: the attendees from the previous workshop (N = 13); the people who had been invited but had not participated (N = 26); and other people whose presence had been identified as relevant given their involvement in programmes similar to MCA or activities associated with the programme (N = 35). A total of 24 people attended this workshop, spanning a diverse range of positions and forms of involvement with Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 87 school catering and the MCA programme. It is worth noting that we were once again unable to secure the attendance of teachers from the schools involved and that two children were present with a parent. The event’s objective was twofold: 1) To share and discuss the results of the previous workshop; and 2) To organize a debate around two major crosscutting questions that had emerged from the IP mapping: (a) how to foster the involvement of all stakeholders and ensure the success of the programme “Ma Cantine Autrement” for a more sustainable food system; and (b) what are the major barriers to and conditions of transferability of the MCA programme? The workshop was organized in three stages. First, a plenary session was held, in which the research team presented Urbal and the MCA programme and summarized the findings from the previous workshop, stressing the issues that appeared to be common to several MCA activities (see Section 5.4.2). The second stage of the workshop was dedicated to discussing the major crosscutting questions around involvement and transferability. The participants were split into two diverse groups of 11 and 12 people respectively, each at a separate table. For 45 minutes, one group worked on Question (a) while the other worked on Question (b). The two groups then swapped tables to spend 25minutes discussing the other question, so that the discussion was cumulative. Each table had a facilitator moderating the discussion and another research team member taking notes on a paperboard. The third and final stage consisted of a plenary session to summarize the discussions and collect the participants’ feedback about the workshop. We concluded with more informal discussions over refreshments. After the workshop, the research team analysed the results and synthesized them in a 10-page document that was sent to all the participants and published as a working paper on the MoISA research unit’s website. 5.3 Results and discussion 5.3.1 What are the impacts of MCA? Who do they affect and how/where do they materialize? The IP analysis (Douthwaite et al., 2007) highlighted the inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of each of the 12 MCA activities studied. Inputs refer to the resources (material, financial, etc.) used to implement an activity; outputs refer to the immediate effects produced by the activity; outcomes refer to the changes or intermediate effects resulting from the outputs; and impacts refer to the long-term effects generated by the activity (Barret et al., 2018; Walker et al., 2008). Figure 5.1 provides an example of the raw data from the workshop. Thissheet summarizes the discussion on one of the MCA activities (the implementation of four-component meals). It was completed by audio recordings. Figure5.2 shows the final version of the IP map for this same activity. 88 Marlène Perignon et al. Figure 5.1 Sheet summarizing the workshop discussion on the activity “Implementation of four-component meals”. Source: Roudelle, 2019. Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 89 Figure 5.2 Impact pathway map of the MCA activity “Implementation of four-component meals”. 96 Marlène Perignon et al. In the MCA workshops, the research team failed to fully apply these principles, as no child was present in the first workshop, and no teacher attended either of the workshops. The workshop facilitation method could have been adapted so as to directly involve children, and a solution could have been found to reach teachers and motivate them to attend. Teachers’ attendance was difficult to secure due to the strong separation between extracurricular activities and school, in terms of both the times of days when they take place and the administrations governing them. Ultimately, the research team was constrained by this limitation and was unable to overcome it. Yet some teachers are very interested in food and are even involved in educational projects on the topic. If they took part in the MCA programme and the city of Montpellier’s food policy, they could play an active role in this innovation towards more sustainable food. 5.4.1.2 Learnings about the preparation of the workshops The preparation of the workshops could have been improved to facilitate the participants’ contribution to the mapping, and consequently facilitate the analysis work performed by the research team. It appears crucial to very precisely define the different activities discussed during the workshops, so as to be able to easily explain them to the participants and avoid any ambiguity in the formulation of the impacts. Moreover, as mentioned above, the first workshop produced raw material that could not really be considered as IP maps, but only maps of impacts, without intermediate effects or causality chains. To focus the discussion more directly on IPs, or even the barriers, levers, and conditions of success, and thus make better use of the workshop time, it would be more beneficial to prepare the IPs upstream, perhaps with the MCA programme designer, and to have them discussed and validated collectively during the workshop. The participants could thus be shown IP maps—at least the most obvious ones. Finally, a phrasing rule could also facilitate the post-workshop analysis significantly, namely asking the participant to systematically define the impacts following this simple formula: who/what does what to who/what? Both the FPD and the research team saw the second Urbal workshop as a good opportunity to collectively explore the conditions required to scale out the programme. It is important to note, however, that this was optional and that other topics could be explored, depending on the context in which the innovation is deployed. 5.4.1.3 Summary of the methodological and conceptual recommendations to facilitate the mapping of impact pathways The IP analysis highlights the inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of an action. To facilitate the IP analysis, we recommend categorizing inputs as either conditions of implementation (i.e., necessarily required to implement the activity) Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 97 or implementation facilitators (i.e., not required but conducive to implementation), and to identify whether they are context-related, material, or organizational inputs. For the outputs and outcomes step, we recommend specifying which group of actors they affect, and categorizing them as either positive or negative effects. In addition to this, negative effects should be categorized as either avoidable or unavoidable effects, in order to subsequently identify how the former could be avoided, and how the latter could be alleviated. As a last step in the analysis of impacts, we recommend identifying the sub-dimensions that could be affected by the activities targeting each sustainability dimension. As much as possible, the set of sub-dimensions identified should be standardized across the different activities studied, to make the maps easier to read. Finally, we recommend identifying the barriers and enablers associated with each IP and categorizing them as 1) conditions of success (required to reach the expected impact), 2) impact facilitators (not necessary to reach the impact but conducive to achieving it), or 3) barriers (i.e., factors that limit the efficacy/ performance of the programme). 5.4.2 Learnings and prospects for the MCA stakeholders 5.4.2.1 Learnings on the impact pathways of the MCA programme The Urbal approach allowed the research team to identify the different groups of actors directly or indirectly impacted by the MCA actions. While children and canteen staff were the most directly affected by the programme, intermediate effects and impacts reached a wider pool of actors, in particular parents. The programme has the potential to have an effect on the five dimensions of sustainability, especially the environmental and social dimensions. The analysis highlighted that most negative impacts categorized as “avoidable” pertain to the governance dimension, and mainly involve a loss of confidence in the school canteen quality caused by a lack of understanding of the activities implemented. Clearly informing the actors (children, parents, canteen staff) about the objectives and expected benefits of each activity implemented was thus identified as a major condition of success. This in turn underscored thedecisive role of canteen staff—as key points of contact for children and parents—in ensuring the programme’s success. When discussing ways of improving communication and the information on the programme, participants showed a strong interest in forming a multi-actor committee bringing together all school canteen stakeholders. The IP analysis also highlighted the complementarity of different MCA activities, which particularly allowed for balancing the cost of the programme by combining activities involving higher costs with ones that afford budget savings. Furthermore, complementarity was found to mutually enhance the results of different activities, or to offset negative effects with positive effects, either within a same activity or across several activities. 98 Marlène Perignon et al. 5.4.2.2 After the impact pathway mapping: Identifying indicators for a quantitative assessment of impact For stakeholders requiring a quantitative evaluation system, the in-depth and nuanced analysis, using collective intelligence, of the processes of change induced by a programme (IPs) can play an important role in the preparation or improvement of quantitative sustainability assessments (Chapter 10). The development of a standardized quantitative evaluation framework to document and monitor the impacts of MCA, and if necessary adjust actions, was requested by the FPD. Quantified indicators carry great weight in the evaluation of public policies. But the core question remains: what should be measured and how? The Urbal qualitative approach helps to answer this question by identifying socially relevant indicators. Focusing on the processes of change rather than on the results, and building on multi-stakeholder dialogue, the Urbal approach can guide the choice of indicators by prioritizing certain key elements that support or hamper the achievement of sustainability objectives, and by taking into account the context and the views of stakeholders. The FPD already had a basic set of indicators to assess the results of the MCA programme, and intended to demonstrate the implemented actions’ alignment with and contribution to the multi-scale normative frameworks on food sustainability to which it has committed, including the agri-food policy of Montpellier (called P2A, “politique agroécologique et alimentaire”), the French Food law (EGalim), and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. To meet the FPD’s needs, it therefore seemed valuable to test the usefulness of the knowledge acquired through the application of the Urbal approach by refining a set of existing MCA indicators, so as to enhance their relevance and better align them with the three abovementioned normative frameworks. The last chapter (Chapter 11) of this book discusses the study of the use of Urbal results to guide the development of relevant indicators, and the experiment conducted around Ma Cantine Autrement. Acknowlegment The authors thank Luc Lignon, Director of the Food Policy Department of the city of Montpellier, France, for his contribution to the content of this chapter. Note 1 The Markets of National Interest (“Marchés d’intérêt national”, MINs) are wholesale markets located near major cities. There are about 20 such markets in France. The MIN status, created in 1953, is a public service status. The management of MINs can be carried out directly by a public authority, or it can be delegated to a public or private actor. The best-known MIN is that of Rungis, which supplies Paris and the Ile-de-France region. The Montpellier MIN was created in 1965. Role of school canteens in building sustainable food systems 99 References AMORCE-ADEME. (2019). Réduire le gaspillage alimentaire en restauration collective Recommandations et bonnes pratiques pour ajuster les grammages des portions [Brochure]. https://librairie.ademe.fr/dechets-economie-circulaire/769-reduire-le-gas pillage-alimentaire-en-restauration-collective-recommandations-et-bonnes-pratiques- pour-ajuster-les-grammages-des-portions.html ANSES. (2017). Étude Individuelle Nationale des Consommations Alimentaires 3 (INCA 3) [Research Report]. ANSES. https://www.anses.fr/fr/system/files/NUT2014 SA0234Ra.pdf Barret, D., Blundo-Canto, G., Dabat, M.-H., Devaux-Spatarakis, A., Faure, G., Hainzelin, E., Mathé, S., Temple, L., Toillier, A., Triomphe ,B., & Vall, E. (illus.) (2018). ImpresS ex post. Methodological guide to ex post impact evaluation of agricultural research in developing countries. CIRAD. https://doi.org/10.19182/agritrop/ 00006 Caillavet, F., Darmon, N., Dubois, C., Gomy, C., Kabeche, D., Paturel, D., & Perignon, M. (2021). Vers une sécurité alimentaire durable : Enjeux, initiatives et principes directeurs [Research Report]. Terra Nova. https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03466621 Chiaverina, P., Raynaud, E., Fillâtre, M., Nicklaus, S., & Bellassen, V., (2022). The drivers of the nutritional quality and carbon footprint of school menus in the Paris area. Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization. https://doi.org/10.1515/ jafio-2021-0051 CNA. (2017). Les enjeux de la restauration collective en milieu scolaire. Conseil National de l’Alimentation. Comoretto, G., Lhuissier, A., & Maurice, A. (Eds.). (2020). Quand les cantines se mettent à table… Commensalité et identité sociale. Quae. Douthwaite, B., Alvarez, S., Cook, S. E., Davies, R., George, P., Howell, J., … Rubiano Mejía, J. E. (2007). Participatory impact pathways analysis: a practical application of program theory in research-for-development. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation. https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/43925 FAO. (2017). Nutrition-sensitive agriculture and food systems in practice. Options for interventions. FAO. http://www.fao.org/3/i7848en/I7848EN.pdf GEM-RCN. (2007). Recommandation relative à la nutrition du 4 mai 2007. Groupe d’Etude des Mearchés de Restauration Collective et de Nutrition (GEMRCN). Observatoire économique de l’achat public. GEM-RCN. (2011). Recommandation nutrition Groupe d’Etude des Marchés de Restauration Collective et de Nutrition (GEM-RCN) (completed and updated on 10 October 2011). Obeservatoire économique de l’achat public. https://www.economie. gouv.fr/files/files/directions_services/daj/marches_publics/oeap/gem/ARCHIVE- nutrition/nutrition.pdf?v=1553682981 GEM-RCN. (2015). Recommandation Nutrition. Groupe d’Etude des Marchés de Restauration Collective et de Nutrition (GEM-RCN). Version 2.0, July 2015. Observatoire économique de l’achat public. https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/directions_ services/daj/marches_publics/oeap/gem/nutrition/nutrition.pdf Guillot, L., & Blatrix, C. (2021). Alimentation, État et territoires. Diffusion et reconnaissance des Projets Alimentaires Territoriaux en France (2014–2021). Géographie, économie, société, 23(4), 437–459. 100 Marlène Perignon et al. Lamine, C., Garçon, L., & Brunori, G. (2019). Territorial agrifood systems: A Franco-Italian contribution to the debates over alternative food networks in rural areas. Journal of Rural Studies, 68, 159–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.11.007 Lepiller, O., & Valette, E. (2021). Urban food innovations. Scaling and social inclusion issues [Policy Brief]. So what?, 14, 1–4. https://www.chaireunesco-adm.com/14-Urban- food-innovations-scaling-and-social-inclusion-issues Poinsot, R. (2021). Place de l’offre végétarienne en restauration scolaire pour concilier nutrition et environnement : Le cas français [PhD thesis, Université de Montpellier]. http://www.theses.fr/2021MONTG040 République Française. (2011a). Décret n°2011-1227 du 30 septembre 2011 relatif à la qualité nutritionnelle des repas servis dans le cadre de la restauration scolaire. https:// www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000024614716?r=JWhFQNLUWa République Française. (2011b). Arrêté du 30 septembre 2011 relatif à la qualité nutritionnelle des repas servis dans le cadre de la restauration scolaire. https://www.legi france.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000024614763?r=IZnvkGtjJY République Française. (2018). LOI n° 2018-938 du 30 octobre 2018 pour l’équilibre des relations commerciales dans le secteur agricole et alimentaire et une alimentation saine, durable et accessible à tous. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT 000037547946?r=RhKFAwh9JM Roudelle, O. (2019). Les impacts d’un projet de restauration scolaire « durable ». Master thesis, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, 274 p. Sanz Sanz, E., Cardona, A., & Napoléone, C. (2022). Motivations of public officials as drivers of transition to sustainable school food provisioning: Insights from Avignon, France. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 35(2), 6. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10806-022-09880-9 Walker, T., Maredia, M., Kelley, T., La Rovere, R., Templeton, D., Thiele, G., & Douthwaite, B. (2008). Strategic guidance for ex post impact assessment of agricultural research. Report prepared for the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment, CGIAR Science Council. Science Council Secretariat. WFP. (2020). State of School Feeding Worldwide 2020. World Food Programme. DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441-6 6.1 Introduction Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) are seen as possible sustainable alternatives to long globalized food supply chains. Different SFSC models in the literature are built on the multidimensional concept of proximity, which refers not only to geographical closeness but also to the relationship between supply chain actors (relational proximity) and the degree of information sharing upstream and downstream (information proximity). The three dimensions of proximity can produce different sustainability impacts. This chapter investigates the innovation of introducing SFSC products in the school canteen meals served by Milano Ristorazione (MiRi) in Milan, based on the Urbal framework and the concept of SFSC. We explore this innovation by drawing on interviews with MiRi representatives as well as the results of a participatory workshop with 20 stakeholders. To corroborate our findings, we analyse the MiRi’s meal delivery service from production centres to school canteens. We conclude that the geographical proximity of MiRi’s food suppliers and kitchen centres to school canteens is not sufficient to guarantee the sustainability of locally sourced products and short-distance logistics systems, but that new forms of vertical cooperation and information sharing constitute key levers for sustainability. Finally, the Urban Food Innovation Lab (UFIL) provides learnings for practitioners and policymakers, towards a new participatory approach for the development of procurement tenders focused on sustainability. 6.2 Short Food Supply Chains and sustainable development: Insights from the literature Consumers are increasingly asking for high quality standards, product variety, and food safety guarantees, along with information on the origin of products and the sustainability of the whole value chain (Jarzebowski etal., 2020). However, agri-food supply chains operating on the global market must contend with growing distances upstream and downstream of the value chain, 6 The potential of Short Food Supply Chains for sustainable urban agri-food systems The UFIL of Milano Ristorazione Giulia Bartezzaghi and Federico Caniato This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. 102 Giulia Bartezzaghi and Federico Caniato particularly involving long geographical distances and multiple intermediaries, which present challenges for supply chain control and affect consumer trust. SFSCs have emerged as possible sustainable alternatives to global food supply chains. SFSCs are characterized by short geographical distances (Engelseth, 2016), fewer intermediaries, a stronger relationship between producers and consumers (Todorovic et al., 2018), and information closeness (Renting etal., 2003; Caniato etal., 2012). Geographical proximity “expresses the kilometric distance that separates two units (e.g. individual organizations or towns) in geographical space” (Torre & Rallet, 2005, p. 4). Relational proximity is defined in terms of the number of intermediaries along the chain (Bos & Owen, 2016; Malak-Rawlikowska etal., 2019) and the type of contractual agreements in place between supply chain actors (Edelmann et al., 2019). Information proximity is measured according to the type of information shared along the chain (such as product origin, product quality, sustainability practices, and protocols observed), the accessibility of the information, and the level of visibility over products, practices, and processes along the value chain (Garcia-Torres etal., 2019). Sustainability has come to be closely associated with SFSCs, as has been highlighted by EU Regulation 1305/2013, which defines these supply chains as a production model that generates economic, social, and environmental benefits. Even though SFSCs are considered as alternatives to global and unsustainable food chains, there is often a lack of evidence regarding the actual sustainability of these “shorter” food supply chains. SFSCs’ contribution to the sustainability of food systems should not be taken as a given. The different levers of proximity can reinforce or cancel each other out, generating multiple and interdependent economic, social, and environmental impacts that can also offset one another. For example, SFSCs are often associated with environmentally sustainable practices, as small-scale farming is considered to use less energy than large-scale, industrial agriculture (Woodhouse, 2010). Moreover, the shorter travelling distances can facilitate the prevention of food waste (Jarzebowski etal., 2020). On the other hand, SFSC producers might face economic barriers in accessing the market which, among other things, can stem from a weak organization and limited infrastructure, two key factors affecting competitiveness (Yacamán Ochoa etal., 2019). Another example is that SFSCs help connect urban and rural areas, enhancing rural development and the revitalization of local communities (Jarzebowski etal., 2020). However, proximity does not automatically imply positive effects on working conditions. Furthermore, the concept of sustainability is associated with the notion of resilience, defined by Rice and Caniato (2003) as “the organisation’s ability to react to an unexpected disruption”. Resilience can be considered as a shortterm enabler to achieve long-term sustainability (McDaniels etal., 2008): in many cases, resilience and sustainability are affected by the same management practices (Macfadyen etal., 2015). In the context of agri-food supply chains, resilience relates to the ability to maintain the “function” of the system The potential of Short Food Supply Chains 103 (Tendall etal., 2015), that is, to guarantee the availability, stability, and accessibility of food over time (FAO & UNICEF, 2020). The concept of resilience is currently gaining momentum, following the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that posed serious threats to the continuity of the agri-food supply chain, as it did in other industries (Cullen, 2020). However, there is no clear consensus on the most relevant factors for achieving resilience in agri-food supply chains (Stone & Rahimifard, 2018). According to Stone and Rahimifard (2018), the qualities central to agri-food supply chains’ resilience are collaboration, flexibility, agility, visibility, adaptability, and redundancy and each organization can determine which dimensions of resilience to leverage in a given context, building different resilience strategies. In this regard, SFSCs can play a crucial role in the resilience and sustainability of the agri-food supply chain, by leveraging geographic, relational and/or information proximity. 6.3 The Milano Ristorazione UFIL: Introducing products from Short Food Supply Chains in school canteens in Milan Given the rapidly evolving regulatory environment and the continuous changes in food consumption habits, the development agendas of cities around the world have started to prioritize reducing the distances between producers and final consumers by creating linkages between urban, peri-urban, and rural areas, as well as promoting more sustainable diets, starting in school canteens. In 2014, the Milan Municipality established a Food Policy Office in charge of developing a comprehensive food policy strategy for the city of Milan, based on a Memorandum of Understanding signed with the philanthropic organization Fondazione Cariplo. The Milan Food Policy was developed around five priorities: 1) ensuring the supply of healthy food and sufficient drinking water as primary nourishment for everyone 2) fostering the sustainability of the urban food system in Milan, by enabling the conditions necessary for the management of a sustainable food system and promoting the local production and consumption of fresh and seasonal quality food 3) understanding food, by increasing consumer awareness surrounding healthy, safe, culturally appropriate, and sustainable food 4) fighting waste 5) supporting and promoting scientific agri-food research Since 2015, the Milan Food Policy Office has promoted the development of an international pact on Urban Food Policies—the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP), now signed by more than 210 cities worldwide—with a view to disseminating best practices for urban food policies and activating joint actions towards more sustainable food systems. Moreover, in 2018 the Milan 104 Giulia Bartezzaghi and Federico Caniato Municipality joined the “100 Resilient Cities” programme pioneered by The Rockfeller Foundation, which supports cities around the world to integrate resilience measures into their urban development strategies, so as to be able to prevent and face existing and emerging environmental, social and economic urban shocks and stresses (for instance, relating to poverty, unequal access to public services, flooding, air pollution, and climate change). Like the other cities involved in the programme, in 2017 Milan appointed a Chief Resilience Officer in charge of leading the city’s resilience efforts, coordinating actions with the other Milan Municipality departments. Within this framework, MiRi operates as a large public company owned by the Milan Municipality that manages catering for a wide network of public schools and prepares meals for nursing homes, the elderly at home, disability centres, immigration centres, and affiliated private schools in Milan. Its priority mission is to offer children safe, healthy, and nutritious food at school, along with educational activities on adequate nutrition and sustainable consumption. MiRi provides an average 85,000 meals per day, prepared in 26 kitchen centres and distributed to a network of 437 school canteens. It employs 815 people directly (in its kitchens, its offices, etc.), and another 2,900 indirectly (distributing food in the schools, providing cleaning services, etc.) (Milano Ristorazione, 2021). It offers more than 8,500 differentiated ethnic and religious menus (e.g., vegetarian, vegan, pork-free, etc.) and over 2,100 healthspecific diets to cater to the multiple cultural practices and specific nutritional diets of its consumers (e.g., for diabetes, celiac, or other allergies). Over the last few years, MiRi has actively promoted several activities and innovative projects to enhance the sustainability of the whole food chain of the school canteens, from product procurement and logistics to waste management and food education for children and parents. For instance, MiRi has replaced plastic tableware with a biodegradable and compostable alternative, has facilitated the procurement of local and organic products in its public tenders, and has introduced Fair Trade products. This commitment to sustainability is driven by the food policy strategy adopted by the Milan Municipality and is supported by the MiRi senior management’s strong commitment to sustainability as well as the obligation to align with current regulations governing public administration at city, national, and European levels, which set strict mandatory requirements regarding food safety, green procurement, and carbon emissions reduction. MiRi’s public procurement policy and meal distribution system for school canteens can strongly impact the sustainability of the local urban food system, mainly by regulating the procurement and logistics processes involving suppliers through long-term contracts and tenders. In addition to this, MiRi tenders often define best practices that are then adopted by other Italian municipalities. Furthermore, MiRi’s catering service and sustainability awareness initiatives reach a vast population of schoolchildren and their families in Milan. In line with its strategic food policy goals, the Milan Municipality has invested in defining and implementing a Rural Development Plan aimed at The potential of Short Food Supply Chains 105 reconnecting the city of Milan with the metropolitan productive agricultural areas, thus facilitating access to sustainably produced food through public tenders. As part of this, in 2016 the Milan Municipality launched a 12-month pilot initiative in collaboration with the Milan Agricultural District (DAM) and MiRi to establish new arrangements between public administrations and local agricultural enterprises for the development of experimental procedures. Thanks to this institutional innovation, MiRi was able to secure a whole year’s supply of rice from the DAM agricultural enterprises (180 tons/year, for a value of €300,000/year), thus introducing this locally sourced product in school canteen menus. Building on the results of this experiment, over the last few years MiRi has been working to scale out the strategy adopted with rice to other 19 food supply chains—including fresh pasta, potatoes, zucchini, lentils, and chickpeas—extending the network of suppliers and partner stakeholders as part of the “Matera Alimenta Urbes” project. This has involved several joint actions on the local territory, including the redevelopment of agricultural land, the modernization of agricultural infrastructure and machinery, the creation of an urban food market with “zero-kilometre” products, and an intense education and communication campaign targeting the school community and civil society. Given this overall context, the innovation of interest here is the introduction of SFSC products in the menus of the school canteens served by MiRi in Milan. According to the definition of “Short Food Supply Chains” found in the literature, distances between rural and urban areas, as well as distances between producers (agricultural enterprises) and consumers (schoolchildren), can be reduced by mobilizing different proximity levers such as: 1) the sourcing of food that is produced locally, in other words food that is close to the points of consumption (i.e., geographic proximity); 2) the disintermediation of the value chain through new organizational/cooperation frameworks, such as the contractual agreements between MiRi and DAM agricultural companies (i.e., relational proximity); and 3) the sharing of information on products’ origin and the associated supply chains, and the development of educational campaigns targeting the school system, institutions, and supply chain actors (i.e., information proximity). There is however still not a widely shared definition of “local products” within regulation on public procurement. As a result, the boundaries of geographical proximity cannot be clearly identified. The “zero-kilometre” concept is commonly associated with food that is produced within 70 kilometres of the point of consumption, but the definition of “local production” could be extended to cover the whole Milan metropolitan area or the Lombardy Region. Moreover, shortening the supply chain might require some effort from different stakeholders and generate a range of sustainability impacts. Locally produced or zero-kilometre products are not necessarily sustainable; their sustainability depends for instance on how they are produced, transported, and distributed. According to the Urbal framework, sustainability has multiple dimensions, pertaining to the environment, food safety, food security, the 112 Giulia Bartezzaghi and Federico Caniato 4) the selection of products from surplus food sources and/or products nearing their expiry date 5) the introduction of Participatory Guarantee Systems, considered as alternative product certification schemes, which involve the direct participation of producers and consumers in the definition of product specificities as well as the development and implementation of certification procedures. In other words, these are locally oriented product quality protection systems, whereby producers are certified with the active participation of stakeholders and on the basis of trust and reciprocal control, interdependence, and knowledge sharing along the food supply chain 6) the selection of food packaging solutions that ensure food quality and safety while also protecting the environment through the use of recyclable materials The introduction of new criteria for supplier selection that favour locally produced, seasonal, and sustainably produced ingredients implies geographical closeness between production and consumption, as well as new types of vertical agreements reinforcing relational proximity upstream. Moreover, the sharing and certification of information along the value chain through new participatory guarantees systems contribute to reducing distances upstream and downstream (information proximity). These changes lead to several impacts on the different dimensions of sustainability: 1) promoting small-scale producers and the local economy 2) reducing the amounts of surplus food and food waste at production sites 3) guaranteeing safe and decent working conditions for producers and fostering sustainable economic growth 4) minimizing the supply chain’s environmental footprint to protect biodiversity and reduce carbon emissions 5) increasing consumers’ and supply chain actors’ awareness surrounding food quality and the value derived from food products’ origin and the activities of their upstream supply chain 6) promoting a more transparent and participatory supply chain In this respect, new regulations and increased transparency in the certification and verification of information regarding products and processes (relational proximity)—also enabled by digital technology—can be drivers of sustainability impacts. On the other hand, the limited perception of the added value of products from SFSCs, the lack of incentives for the various stakeholders, and the lack of a collaborative approach among supply chain actors can be barriers (and can affect both relational and information proximity). Regarding the definition of product purchasing volumes, the main changes arising from the activity consist of: 1) the revision of purchase quantities and delivery times according to product availability and seasonality The potential of Short Food Supply Chains 113 2) the development of networks of local producers, such as aggregation platforms and cooperatives 3) the revision of the volumes specified in procurement tenders and sourcing contracts to favour smaller-scale production and production on demand 4) the expansion of the supplier base by increasing tenders’ visibility and accessibility through ad hoc communication campaigns The revision of the product volume and delivery time criteria in procurement tenders and sourcing contracts to favour small-scale suppliers, along with the development of new forms of producer aggregation, contribute to strengthening the relational proximity of supply chain actors. Greater information sharing on public tenders to broaden the supplier base provides a way to foster information proximity. The expected sustainability impacts are: 1) the inclusion of a greater number of suppliers with more diverse profiles, and the economic survival of small-scale suppliers 2) the promotion of local products and the local territory 3) guaranteed availability and regularity of the product supply and food quality 4) greater transparency and participation along the supply chain We identified different drivers and barriers surrounding these impacts. Increased attention paid by consumers to local and sustainable products and the inclusion of small-scale producers can be a driver of impact and foster information proximity by enabling consumers to access relevant information on the product and its upstream supply chain. Conversely, the need to supply significant volumes of products to ensure food availability and the regularity of the food service, along with the inclusion of pre-defined size and quality standards within public tenders, constitutes barriers. The latter pertain to the selection criteria and the types of vertical agreements reached with suppliers, and therefore to the relational dimension of proximity. With regard to the third activity selected, namely the introduction of products from SFSCs in school canteen menus, the main changes arising from the activity are: 1) the introduction of new products to allow for a more varied diet, which can in turn improve consumption habits 2) the promotion of educational activities and awareness initiatives for children and teachers, focused on sustainable and healthy diets (including “short supply chain” products) 3) the repurposing of edible and safe surplus food in school meals These activities may mobilize all three dimensions of proximity. The introduction of sustainably produced ingredients implies geographical closeness as well as new contractual agreements and relational dynamics with suppliers. 114 Giulia Bartezzaghi and Federico Caniato Education campaigns targeting schoolchildren and teachers help to reduce distances downstream by sharing valuable information and raising awareness. These changes lead to the following sustainability impacts: 1) social consciousness and awareness, contributing to lasting changes in consumer habits 2) the promotion of healthier diets for children 3) the promotion of the local economy and local identity 4) reduced food waste and a smaller environmental footprint In this respect, proper and tailored communication along with education initiatives for consumers can be a driver of impact, which increases information proximity. On the other hand, cultural resistance to change in habits can constitute a barrier (again linked to information access and sharing). 6.6 Discussion of the results The UFIL revealed that suppliers’ geographical proximity to consumers is not the only lever available to reduce distance along the value chain: all three dimensions of proximity can be mobilized. The geographical dimension should be integrated through new forms of producer aggregation and supply chain cooperation schemes (relational proximity) and by promoting information sharing and transparency along the supply chain, from producers to consumers (information proximity). The impacts that can be generated are multiple and interconnected. Different enablers and barriers may arise, mostly associated with social awareness, the regulatory environment, supply chain relationships, and consumption habits. In order to corroborate these results, we here also analyse the logistics service for meal deliveries from MiRi’s kitchen centres to the school canteens, following the Urbal approach and based on the SFSC concept. This activity was selected as a benchmark for two reasons. First, as with product procurement, the logistics service contract is granted by MiRi to third-party logistics service providers through a public tender process. Second, in line with its sustainability commitments, MiRi recently started to focus on improving its logistics service and network, making it more sustainable and resilient to urban shocks by innovating with the mandatory and incentive criteria included in the tender. The network of stakeholders involved in this logistics service includes MiRi’s own staff, schoolchildren and their families, teachers, the school kitchen staff, the Milan Municipality administration, logistics service providers and experts, and technology providers (of vehicles and measurement/monitoring tools). Based on a preliminary analysis of the context as well as interviews with MiRi representatives and relevant stakeholders, including logistics providers and an external expert, the research team found that innovations around the The potential of Short Food Supply Chains 115 logistics tender process can have an effect on several of the sustainability dimensions and sub-dimensions identified in the Urbal framework: • Environment: non-renewable sources and pollution. The logistics tender can integrate carbon emission reduction criteria and reconsider the means of transportation used in favour of more sustainable solutions (e.g., methane-CNG, hybrid CNG-diesel, electric vehicles), and MiRi’s transportation plan can be reviewed. • Food security: availability and regularity. The logistics tender should introduce requirements to ensure a continuous and regular meal distribution service to all school canteens in the network on a daily basis. One key strategic lever is the duration of contracts. • Economy: resilience and decent employment. Resilience is here understood as logistics providers’ ability to promptly respond to unexpected events, such as road congestion due to a car accident or difficult mobility following flooding or snowfall, to guarantee the regular delivery of meals to schools. In this regard, in addition to back-up vehicles in the fleet for emergencies, an incentive criterion could be added to the tender to encourage the introduction of an operative unit for the coordination and management of unexpected events and emergencies. From an economic perspective, it is important to consider the trade-off between the desire to invest in more environmentally sustainable logistics services and infrastructure, on the one hand, and the need for an economically efficient logistics system with rigid budget constraints on the other. Moreover, truck drivers must be guaranteed fair working conditions. This could be addressed in the contracts with logistics providers, taking into account different aspects of social sustainability such as appropriate remuneration, training programmes on proper posture when driving and handling goods, forms of integrative insurance, etc. • Governance: transparency and accountability. The logistics tender could introduce measurement and monitoring systems to ensure the transparency and traceability of the logistics service and track energy consumption and carbon emissions. • Social-cultural: inequality. The logistics tender could include measures to promote diversity and reduce inequality in the work environment. The analysis of the possible sustainability criteria to be included in the logistics tender reveals that the kitchen centres’ geographical proximity to the point of consumption (school canteens) is not sufficient to ensure the sustainability of the logistics service and that other variables should be taken into account at the same time. For example, the reduced geographical distance involved in the meal delivery from MiRi kitchen centres to school canteens says little about the type of labour contracts adopted by the logistics providers or the amount 116 Giulia Bartezzaghi and Federico Caniato of carbon emissions generated by the vehicles used for the logistics service. Thenature and extent of the organizational arrangements between MiRi and the logistics suppliers, and between the latter and their employees, as well as the availability, accessibility, and visibility of information along the value chain up to the final consumers, can play a crucial role in reducing distances and making the logistics chain more sustainable and resilient. 6.7 Conclusions The UFIL of MiRi proves that the geographic closeness of producers (both MiRi’s food suppliers and the kitchen centres) with the point of consumption (school canteens) does not automatically ensure the sustainability of locally sourced products and short-distance logistic systems. The adoption of other sustainability-oriented criteria relating to the selection of products and suppliers (e.g., favouring the supply of seasonal and fresh products, the repurposing of safe and edible surplus food that does not meet commercial standards, fair working conditions, and social integration), as the well as new forms of cooperation between supply chain actors, are key to shifting towards more responsible production and consumption patterns. Moreover, a proper communication and education strategy is needed to foster transparency in the supply chain, increase awareness, and change consumption habits. Thus, relational and information proximity can support geographical proximity to achieve a more sustainable food system. The sustainability impacts generated by these changes are multiple and intertwined: above all, they involve support to small producers and local production economies, the preservation of cultural and food heritage, the reduction of food waste, the protection of biodiversity in natural ecosystems, and the fostering of innovative participatory production models. New certification schemes and information systems can be a driver of impact, while regulatory and administrative deficiencies, a lack of incentives for stakeholders, limited awareness of the supply chain, strict commercial standards on product quality, and cultural resistance can be barriers to the innovation process. In conclusion, the UFIL of MiRi contributes to the scientific debate on SFSCs and their potential for building more sustainable and inclusive food systems on an urban level. It provides interesting findings for food supply chain actors looking to build a SFSC and local policymakers wishing to incentivize SFSC schemes, by shedding light on the dimensions and levers of proximity involved and providing insights to support the development of a new participatory model for food procurement tenders and contracts with a focus on sustainability. References Bos, E., & Owen, L. (2016). Virtual reconnection: The online spaces of alternative food networks in England. Journal of Rural Studies, 45, 1–14. The potential of Short Food Supply Chains 117 Caniato, F. F. A., Luzzini, D. G., Crippa, L., & Golini, R. (2012). Short Supply Chain Configurations in the Italian Food Industry. In Esposito, E., & Passaro, R. (Eds.) Purchasing & supply management in a changing world (pp. 1–14). Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane. Cullen, M. T. (2020). COVID-19 and the risk to food supply chains: How to respond. FAO: Rome, Italy. Edelmann, H., Quiñones-Ruiz, X. F., & Penker, M. (2019). Analytic framework to determine proximity in relationship coffee models. Sociologia ruralis, 60(2), 458–481. Engelseth, P. (2016). Developing exchange in short local foods supply chains. International Journal on Food System Dynamics, 7(3), 229–242. FAO, & UNICEF (2020). WFP W. Food Security and Nutrition in the World. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 320. Garcia-Torres, S., Albareda, L., Rey-Garcia, M., & Seuring, S. (2019). Traceability for sustainability–literature review and conceptual framework. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 24(2), 85–106. https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-04-2018-0152 Jarzebowski, S., Bourlakis, M., & Bezat-Jarzebowska, A. (2020). Short food supply chains (SFSC) as local and sustainable systems. Sustainability, 12(11), 4715. Macfadyen, S., Tylianakis, J. M., Letourneau, D. K., Benton, T. G., Tittonell, P., Perring, M. P., … Smith, H. G. (2015). The role of food retailers in improving resilience in global food supply. Global Food Security, 7, 1–8. Malak-Rawlikowska, A., Majewski, E., Was, A., Borgen, S. O., Csillag, P., Donati, M., … Wavresky, P. (2019). Measuring the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of short food supply chains. Sustainability, 11(15), 4004. McDaniels, T., Chang, S., Cole, D., Mikawoz, J., & Longstaff, H. (2008). Fostering resilience to extreme events within infrastructure systems: Characterizing decision contexts for mitigation and adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 18(2), 310–318. Milano Ristorazione (2021). https://www.milanoristorazione.it/ Reed, M. S., Graves, A., Dandy, N., Posthumus, H., Hubacek, K., Morris, J., … Stringer, L. C. (2009). Who’s in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Management, 90(5), 1933–1949. Renting, H., Marsden, T. K., & Banks, J. (2003). Understanding alternative food networks: Exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development. Environment and Planning A, 35(3), 393–411. Rice, J. B., & Caniato, F. (2003). Building a secure and resilient supply network. Supply Chain Management Review, 7(5), 22–30. Stone, J., & Rahimifard, S. (2018). Resilience in agri-food supply chains: A critical analysis of the literature and synthesis of a novel framework. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 23(3), 207–238. https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-06-2017-0201 Tendall, D. M., Joerin, J., Kopainsky, B., Edwards, P., Shreck, A., Le, Q. B., … Six, J. (2015). Food system resilience: Defining the concept. Global Food Security, 6, 17–23. Todorovic, V., Maslaric, M., Bojic, S., Jokic, M., Mircetic, D., & Nikolicic, S. (2018). Solutions for more sustainable distribution in the short food supply chains. Sustainability, 10(10), 3481. Torre, A., & Rallet, A. (2005). Proximity and localization. Regional Studies, 39(1), 47–59. Woodhouse, P. (2010). Beyond industrial agriculture? Some questions about farm size, productivity and sustainability. Journal of Agrarian Change, 10(3), 437–453. Yacamán Ochoa, C., Matarán, A., Mata Olmo, R., López, J. M., & Fuentes-Guerra, R. (2019). The potential role of short food supply chains in strengthening periurban agriculture in Spain: The cases of Madrid and Barcelona. Sustainability, 11(7), 2080. DOI: 10.4324/9781003285441-7 7.1 Introduction Food systems in Vietnam are rapidly transforming, in a context of urbanization, economic growth, and trade liberalization. More specifically, with rising mistrust regarding food safety (Wertheim-Heck et al., 2015), the demand for quality food products is growing. Numerous cases of bacterial and chemical contamination and intoxication are reported yearly, along with instances of high use of chemical inputs and a growing number of food safety violations (Hernandez & Lundy, 2020). Scandals surrounding the misuse of fertilizers, pesticides, and food additives often make headlines in local newspapers and spread anxiousness among consumers (Figuié et al., 2019). Additionally, intensive and unsustainable agricultural practices have been blamed since the early 2000s for polluting and degrading agricultural soils, thereby affecting biodiversity, air quality, and water quality (DiGregorio et al., 2003). Sustainable food systems as an alternative production and consumption approach have not yet gained prominence in the public debate about food in Vietnam (de Koning et al., 2015). To address consumer concerns and health problems, the public authorities have strived to modernize the food sector. They set up a National Food Control System, with the adoption of the Vietnam Food Safety Law in 2010 and the introduction of voluntary private food safety standards (Pham & Dinh, 2020). Meanwhile, consumers have adopted different practices and strategies for buying and handling food in order to navigate the uncertainties around food safety (Wertheim-Heck et al., 2014). A recent study has shown that most Hanoi citizens look for safer food products and demand better food transparency and traceability (Ferrand et al., 2018). Yet many farmers following safety standards face difficulties in finding outlets where their products can be identified as safe and sold at premium prices. Moreover, the proliferation of food safety labels and the reported lack of control by public authorities or third parties have generated a general mistrust among consumers. Against this backdrop, many actors see e-commerce as an opportunity to connect consumers and producers for the trade of quality food products. The municipality of Hanoi recently launched a public platform to market certified 7 Studying the impact of e-commerce on the sustainability of food systems in Vietnam Michaël Bruckert, Olivier Lepiller, Denis Sautier, Nguyen Thi Tan Loc and Nguyen Thi Sau This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Studying the impact of e-commerce 119 low-chemical-input food products in the city, while many urban and periurban consumers use social media to buy food products online. The online purchase of food products is a recent practice that has so far received little in-depth attention from scholars. Most publications on the subject focus on consumer perceptions and behaviours (Morganosky & Cude, 2000; Quevedo-Silva et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2017) or implications for management (Murphy, 2002). However, some scholars working on agrifood systems have started to examine the opportunities and limits of leveraging e-commerce platforms, social media, and other digital technologies as instruments to improve the sustainability of food supply networks. Some researchers have assessed the ability of online food retailing to improve economic efficiency by increasing the convenience of order and delivery processes (Wang & Coe, 2021), lowering prices, and diversifying the range of goods on offer (Belton-Chevallier et al., 2014). Others have investigated the potential of e-commerce to facilitate market access for smallholders (Zeng et al., 2017), reconnect food producers and consumers in Alternative Food Networks (Bos & Owen, 2016; Holloway, 2002; Ilbery & Maye, 2006; Renting et al., 2003; Stephens & Barbier, 2021), convey information about the quality of food products (Martindale, 2020), facilitate trust-building mechanisms (Fritz, 2007), or democratize the governance of food systems (Chiffoleau et al., 2018). The impact of e-commerce on the sustainability of food systems has not yet been studied comprehensively in Vietnam. Several articles have highlighted the importance of convenience in the decision to buy online (see for instance Kim Dang et al., 2018; Pham et al., 2018). Studying food shopping practices in Hanoi, Wertheim and Spaargaren observe “a trend of buying online from farmers without direct personal contact” (2016, p. 664) but do not provide a detailed analysis of the drivers and consequences of this new practice. To bridge this gap, the Urbal research team in Hanoi used the Urbal methodology—which involves conducting interviews and carrying out workshops and innovation mapping with stakeholders—to help characterize and assess the impact of e-commerce innovation on food system sustainability in the region. The Urbal project approaches sustainability as a multi-dimensional concept with environmental, social and cultural, economic, health and nutrition, and governance dimensions (see Chapter 1 of this book). Using the Urbal method, we aimed to answer the following questions: Can e-commerce encourage the sale of quality food products? To what extent can it contribute to the sustainability of urban food systems? And how should market relationships be organized and regulated in order to achieve such goals? The Hanoi team focused on the online sale of “quality food” and studied two different types of e-commerce channels: 1) an informal and horizontal channel: the use of social media (such as Facebook or the more local application Zalo) to buy and sell food products 2) an institutional channel: a municipality-driven platform called Cho Nha Minh, intended for the sale of certified products 120 Michaël Bruckert et al. In the first section of this chapter, we introduce the e-commerce context in Vietnam and the two innovations we investigated following the Urbal approach. In the second section, we present the results of the discussions on the potential impacts that these innovations may have on different dimensions of sustainability. In the last section, we discuss these results and point out the limits of the Urbal process and the adaptations required in the local context. 7.2 Presentation of the two cases and the use of the Urbal approach 7.2.1 Urban food systems in Hanoi and the development of e-commerce The urbanization rate in Vietnam has been increasing by nearly 1% yearly, from 30% in 2010 to 37% in 2020 (O’Neill, 2022). In Hanoi, the capital city (with an urban population of 3.6 million), drastic changes have affected food sourcing and consumption practices. Most of the food consumed in Hanoi was long sourced from the fertile urban hinterland. Since the early 1990s, demographic growth, urban sprawl, competition over land use, trade liberalization, private sector investment, and public policies for retail modernization have resulted in longer food supply chains, growing volumes of imports, the development of food processing industries, and greater economic concentration in the food sector (Raneri et al., 2019). New urban ways of life and higher revenues have fostered a nutrition transition, with diets shifting towards more fish, meat, dairy products, fruit, fats, and processed products while consumers are increasingly demanding higher-quality products (Harris et al., 2020). Recent years have been characterized by the development of supermarket chains and convenience stores, which sell processed food but sometimes also fresh products (vegetables, fruit, and livestock products) certified as “safe” by State agencies. However, there is resistance to food system modernization in the “traditional” food sector, which is characterized by informal wet and open markets. As of 2018, between 85% and 90% of fresh farm products were still sold in wet markets and open markets and by street vendors (Loc & Moustier, 2016; The University of Adelaide, 2018). At the same time, online sales are booming across all industries. The general e-commerce sector has been expanding rapidly in Vietnam, reaching a value of USD 9.5 billion in 2019, representing 5% of the total retail market (Thanh, 2020). The physical distancing policies imposed by local authorities in 2020 to combat the COVID-19 pandemic reportedly boosted this growth. By 2018, 98% of people using the Internet had made purchases online (Saigoneer, 2018). Revenue from online “B2C” (business-to-consumer) sales in Vietnam ranked sixth worldwide (Deloitte, 2019). In 2019, the main actors on the market were Shopee.vn, VinID.net (the e-commerce site of VinGroup), Sendo.vn, Lazada. vn, Tiki.vn, and Lotte.vn. Among other products, food products are often sold online, and following the restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers turned to e-commerce platforms to sell their produce (VNS, 2021). While very few fresh food products are found on the aforementioned Studying the impact of e-commerce 121 B2C online platforms, “C2C” (consumer-to-consumer) e-commerce for food products is becoming increasingly popular in Vietnam. A survey carried out in 2016 showed that in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, 47% of people buy products on social media (VietnamNet, 2017). In Vietnam, an estimated 43.5 million people use Facebook on a regular basis (Degenhard, 2023). The most popular application for online sales is Zalo, an instant messaging and calling application that can be used both on smartphones and on computers. 7.2.2 The methodology used to apply the Urbal approach The two case studies were explored separately. For the first case study, in 2019 the research team carried out semi-directed interviews with 13 buyers and 6 sellers operating on social media. A participatory workshop was organized in December 2019 to discuss potential impact pathways of these activities, bringing together 24 stakeholders (vegetable, fruit, and meat sellers, fish and honey sellers, researchers, journalists, and governmental officials). The discussions focused on three main sets of activities, identified as important through interviews and a review of the literature, and on these activities’ experienced or possible effects: 1) market transactions (online orders, online payments, delivery) 2) trust building and information sharing (sharing opinions, evaluations and comments, posting information and interacting with customers, managing reputation and loyalty) 3) connecting producers and consumers (identifying sellers of specific products, reaching out to consumers) A second workshop was held in November 2020 to discuss the results. Ten participants attended, including producers, intermediaries, consumers, and public authorities, some of whom had already attended the first workshop. Additional interviews were carried out in early 2021 with 8 buyers and 7 sellers to further explore the question of trust in the context of online retail. In total, individual interviews were carried out with 21 buyers and 13 sellers. Among these 13 sellers, five were professional operators with three who ran brick-and- mortar food shops and two who ran agricultural cooperatives. The others engaged in online retail as a complementary activity. The second case study, focused on the Cho Nha Minh (CNM) platform, was carried out in itinere, over the course of the project’s design phase, pilot phase, and initial implementation phase. In 2019 and 2020 the research team conducted three semi-directive interviews with the municipal authorities (the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) and the Hanoi Certification Centre), one with the Hanoi Women’s Development Support Centre (an organization partnered with the project), and eight with companies and agricultural cooperatives identified by DARD as supplying products on the platform. It also carried out observations and informal interviews at an 128 Michaël Bruckert et al. 7.3.2 Impacts on sustainability: E-commerce as a convenient way to purchase quality food The impacts of these innovations on the various dimensions of sustainability were discussed with their different stakeholders during preliminary individual interviews as well as the participatory workshops. Few stakeholders involved in the two case studies mentioned a specific dimension of sustainability, let alone sustainability in general, as a factor informing their practices. Regarding the CNM platform more specifically, the municipal authorities’ vision is clear: their focus is on food safety and securing trust and profitability in the value chain. While it is not explicitly articulated in these terms, the CNM platform therefore contributes to sustainability in the region by providing consumers with access to safe and trustworthy food sources. For their part, the CNM users (sellers and buyers) see the platform not as an opportunity to contribute to a specific dimension of sustainability but as one of a number of devices to access the market and to connect with one another. 7.3.2.1 Economic impacts and convenience Our research confirms the findings of earlier works on online purchases in Vietnam (Kim Dang et al., 2018; Pham et al., 2018): convenience and saving time were the most frequently mentioned reasons for stakeholders engaging in online retailing and shopping. Buying online was usually depicted as “highly convenient” and many buyers with busy schedules argued that they did not have time to go to the “physical” market every day. Some also considered online buying as a trend of which they wanted to be a part. There is clearly an entertainment aspect to online shopping; some consumers saw this activity as “exciting” and “fun”. One consumer depicted the videos posted online as being “like cartoons”. Special offers and promotions also seemed to bring interest and excitement to many buyers. The benefits were often presented in economic terms: consumers looked for lower prices, due to the presumably higher and fairer competition online. The buyers also mentioned the diversity of available offerings as an attractive feature of e-commerce, with more possibility to compare products and prices. Some buyers and regulators saw the high degree of competition between actors selling online and the possibility for buyers to ask them questions directly as an incentive for suppliers to deliver better products and services. As for the sellers (producers and intermediaries), they also considered online trading as an efficient way to access the market. They praised e-com- merce for enabling direct communication and facilitating access to buyers who lack the time and ability to come to their shops. They hoped to secure higher revenues through more efficient processes and lower transportation and intermediary costs. Studying the impact of e-commerce 129 7.3.2.2 Quality food and health At face value, e-commerce fulfils the neoclassical function assigned to markets: maximizing utility and satisfaction for all agents. Yet the main stakeholders often also saw it as a preferred way to sell and buy “quality” products. When asked how they defined “quality products”, the consumers usually pointed to “tasty”, “safe”, and “clean” products or, in other words, products free of harmful residues. For instance, freshness of seafood (fish, squid, shellfish, etc.) was equated with safety. People selling sea fish and seafood on social media usually have direct connections with fishermen: fresh fish is bought straight from the boat and shipped to Hanoi, covered in ice cubes in Styrofoam boxes. When it reaches the consumers, it is usually fresher than the sea fish sold through traditional food supply channels, where fish moves from hand to hand, brought from the Hai Phong or Ha Thinh harbour to local wholesale markets where it is kept and handled in conditions that are perceived as “unsafe” and “unhygienic”. While the online buyers acknowledged that there were other ways to buy safe food products, almost all of them expected products bought online to be safe. In other words, although the quest for food safety was not the primary driver of online purchases, safety was usually integrated in the more general concept of quality. As we shall see later, many of the buyers considered that the direct relationship achieved through online purchases enables trust in food quality. The opportunity to ask questions and to get tailored (and sometimes visual) answers and information also reportedly enhances the quality of the food sold online. The buyers often used online applications and platforms to access food specialty products that are not easily accessible in physical shops and traditional markets. Products such as wild spices (mac khen), regional specialty products (banh da from Nghe An), renowned products (eel from Nghe An province, seafood from Phu Quoc and Nan Dinh), and fruit associated with specific production places (Dien pomelo, Vinh orange, etc.) are often bought and sold online. While these products can be associated with a “foodie” culture that reproduces social inequalities through distinction (Johnston & Baumann, 2014), they can also convey a specific attachment to culinary diversity, identity and craftsmanship. As for the food sellers, be they producers or retailers, they saw e-commerce and the direct connection with buyers it implies as a way to emphasize the specific qualities of their food products. As de Koning et al. (2015) argue, “health in combination with food is the most important reason for people to pursue a sustainable lifestyle” (p. 608) in Vietnam. While the quest for quality can be understood as a utilitarian way to enjoy a product with better organoleptic and biochemical properties and a lower (or no) negative impact on health, this concern incidentally contributes to the development of shorter food supply chains, reducing the number of intermediaries, and better connecting producers and consumers. Sustainability is not an intrinsic quality of these food products and food supply chains, but 130 Michaël Bruckert et al. rather an incidental, fortuitous quality that emerges as a by-product. Nevertheless, it is worth taking into consideration. This therefore raises the question of whether sustainability should always be a deliberate, reflexive driver for change, or whether it could be achieved by other, more individualistic, utilitarian, or instrumental means through specific market arrangements. 7.3.2.3 Environment and local development Some of the consumers had a more “holistic” conception of what constitutes a “good” food product. A retired schoolteacher mentioned that she ordered organic pork online as she was concerned about the farming practices as well as the animal slaughter conditions. Another buyer expressed an interest in “safe vegetables” from Moc Chau and Dalat (cities in mountainous regions), as she felt that the growing environment was cleaner in those regions and the growers’ working conditions were better. With the CNM platform, the production and sale of safe food can be more closely associated with environmentally sound practices. Although DARD did not mention this point when the research team interviewed them, some of the producers did allude to it. Not only do lower levels of fertilizer and pesticide use result in safer food for consumers, but they also reduce soil, water, and air contamination, thereby contributing to a healthier environment for the local residents and preserving biodiversity. Few consumers or buyers spontaneously pointed to the reduction of road traffic facilitated by a more efficient transportation system and consumers making fewer trips to the markets as a positive impact of online sales. However, when specifically asked about it, many of them agreed that this was a potential positive impact. As fresh food products (such as vegetables or meat) perish quickly, they can be only delivered within a small radius. Food product e-commerce therefore does not induce a placeless food network, as some have argued. On the contrary, it tends to foster the development of short food supply chains and locally sourced food production. This is especially the case when producers sell online without intermediaries. Moreover, as a researcher invited to one of the workshops suggested, e-commerce can indirectly support agroecological practices: by facilitating access to a wider range of fresh products, it encourages diversity in local production. If it is able to overcome the technical and administrative difficulties mentioned above, the CNM programme could improve territorial cohesiveness and sustainable regional development. During the platform’s first few months in operation, the municipality mainly enrolled producers based in Hanoi or in nearby provinces. By facilitating a direct or close connection with consumers, the platform has the potential to provide easy and direct access to the urban market for many local producers who cannot afford a brick-and-mortar shop in the city. In this innovation, the public authorities are not an intermediary per se, but rather provide a sociotechnical arrangement to facilitate market connections. The platform may foster the production of safe food and help retain Studying the impact of e-commerce 131 economic value within the urban periphery. If scaled out, it could potentially bring about a more diversified economy and landscape, a dynamic green belt around the city, a cleaner environment, better profits for producers, and job creation in the agricultural sector. 7.3.2.4 Governance, trust, and accountability The interactions between consumers and sellers are often depicted as more satisfying online than in physical shops. Many consumers praise these “new variants of ‘face-to-face’ contact” (Renting et al., 2003, p. 400) through e-commerce. Online trading can virtually cancel out physical distance and foster a “relation of regard” (Sage, 2003) between producers and customers. Online market relationships are sometimes contrasted with the trade relationships at traditional wet markets and supermarkets: with e-commerce, consumers can easily give their feedback (which is not the case at supermarkets), and this feedback is taken into account by sellers (which rarely happens at traditional markets). The governance of the food supply chain can therefore be considered as more participative or “democratic” (although the term was not used by our respondents). E-commerce can potentially reinforce the role of stakeholders at both ends of the food network. Through their direct interactions with producers, consumers play an active role in determining the kinds of products sold and, one can speculate, the ways these foodstuffs are produced. E-commerce, especially when it favours direct relations between producers and buyers, reinforces consumers’ control over the food chain. At the same time, it can also facilitate access to the market for producers, who thus regain autonomy over the retailing of their products. Regarding the CNM programme, some interviewees and workshop participants argued that the public governance of the platform could support the government’s role in promoting collective action and ensuring the public good. Additionally, the collaboration initiated by DARD with the Hanoi Women’s Development Support Centre and the easy access granted to women-run businesses could promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. While e-commerce is a preferred channel for the sale and purchase of quality products, one of the main challenges with online shopping is ensuring and enhancing trust in the food system. Fritz (2007) argues that “communication of trust between transaction partners is not sufficiently realized in existing e-com- merce offers for food networks” (p. 13). This was confirmed by the interviews and workshops held in both case studies. Most of the buyers and sellers thought that, generally speaking, food sold online was less trustworthy than food sold in physical shops. This lack of trust is linked to two main characteristics of e-com- merce. The first material characteristic is the distance in time and space between ordering, shipping, and receiving the goods, which may result in poor appreciation of the products (mismatch between expectations and reality) and a deterioration of quality during delivery. Manybuyers considered that the inability to physically check a product (by touching it, smelling it, etc.) before buying it is a 132 Michaël Bruckert et al. major drawback of online sales. The second characteristic is more specific to the Vietnamese context. Many stakeholders argued that, contrary to physical retail, online retail is not controlled by the government and therefore opens up a significant avenue for fraud and the sale of low-quality goods. The ease of entry onto the market that online sales permit could thus reinforce this unfair competition and the risk of fraud. Buyers do however usually trust their sellers. Paradoxically, whereas the products sold online are generally considered as less trustworthy than products sold at physical markets, the specific sellers selected by each buyer are individually considered as more trustworthy than regular sellers. The consumers interviewed expressed both a general mistrust of online sales and an individual attachment to the online sellers they had chosen, making the establishment of trust a personal matter. This is enabled by different choice, calculation, and valuation strategies. For instance, the online sale of honey, a product that exemplifies the risk of fraud through tampering with sugar, proves that trust levels in e-commerce can be very high. The CNM programme chose to focus on certification: the standards enforced and the municipal control over them are supposed to prevent exposure to chemical and bacterial contamination. Yet personal relationships appear to be one of the most important trust mechanisms, especially when using social media. What is noteworthy in this case is that trust is not built through the practice of buying online but precedes it. Online sales do not generate trust. On the contrary, trust makes online sales possible. Most buyers have prior direct or indirect relationships with the sellers—they met the sellers at food trade fairs, they visited their physical shops, they maintain family, friendship, or professional ties with them, they were introduced through mutual friends, etc. In wet markets, trust is usually embedded in relations of geographic proximity and temporal constancy: the seller down the street is trusted because he/she belongs to the community or has proven to be reliable over time. Digital retail more or less builds on the same patterns of trust. While the economic transaction takes place in a virtual sphere, the market relationship still depends on proximity, constancy, and embeddedness. Wertheim-Heck and Spaargaren (2016) argue that in Hanoi “social relationships moved from face-to-face contact to online communities” (p. 662). Yet our research reveals that online communities often extend the time- and spatial scales of a pre-existing face-to-face relationship. Still, online trading does reconfigure this relationship. Since consumers see a benefit in sellers having the opportunity to post information, pictures, or even videos online, online purchasing can thus contribute to reducing the physical and economic distance between producers and consumers and to fostering urban-rural linkages, as has already been highlighted in the literature on alternative food networks (Blay-Palmer et al., 2018). Direct contact between suppliers and buyers, as wellas the sharing of information online (pictures, description of farming practices, etc.), could also enhance consumers’ knowledge of the food they eat and foster trust in the food system. Studying the impact of e-commerce 133 The products sold online often differ from products bought through mainstream retail channels. Likewise, the food supply system for e-commerce also differs from physical retail. The online food retail innovations considered in the case studies of interest here contribute to the creation of alternative food systems, both through the types of products sold (high-quality and sustainable food items) and through the networks established (direct relationships grounded in personal trust) (see Watts et al., 2005). Our research confirms that, under certain conditions, the online trading of quality food fosters the “socio-material reconnection processes” (Bos & Owen, 2016, p. 1) that occur in alternative food networks (Ilbery & Maye, 2006; Stephens & Barbier, 2021). 7.3.2.5 Potential negative impacts Beyond trust not being a given in online food retail, the sellers and buyers involved in the case studies did point out other shortcomings. Some stakeholders argued that online retail introduces a kind of unfair competition for the marginalized traders who do not have the means to access and use digital technology. Moreover, some stakeholders saw the ability to order from home and to receive deliveries as driving an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, potentially harming health. Finally, although no participant mentioned this point, we can also argue that online purchases may have negative environmental outcomes: it may increase road traffic in case of lower pooling of food transport flows and induce more electronic waste and energy consumption associated with the use of electronic devices (Figures 7.3–7.5). 7.4 Discussion: The need to adapt to local contexts and understandings 7.4.1 Barriers and enablers During the workshops, the participants identified several barriers to e-com- merce having a positive impact on the different dimensions of sustainability. Many argued that food—and especially quality food—is not the most convenient product for online trade, as sensory appreciation is often necessary before making a purchase. While social media can “explain the material qualities of food” (Martindale, 2020), they cannot physically convey them. The lack of trust in the products sold online was also unanimously mentioned as an obstacle. This was often associated with the difficulty for public authorities to control online sales, mainly owing to a lack of resources. The CNM platform was conceived as a way to counter this alleged lack of trust in the transactions that take place on social media. However, as mentioned earlier, the difficulties it has encountered highlight the shortage of financial and human resources with which the public authorities must contend. Many stakeholders also considered that smallholders and small suppliers lack the knowledge, time, and financial 134 Michaël Bruckert et al. Figure 7.3 Potential positive and negative impacts of ordering on social media (Case Study 1), mapped before the workshop. Studying the impact of e-commerce 135 Figure 7.4 Potential positive impacts of the municipality-driven platform (Case Study 2), mapped before the workshop. 136 Michaël Bruckert et al. resources to engage in e-commerce. Many pointed to the digital divide between those who master the technology and those do not or cannot access it. Some suppliers expressed their dissatisfaction with online trading. They argued that it raises logistical and organizational difficulties, including a reliance on delivery companies to ship small quantities due to the high costs associated with handling deliveries and that updating the information online is time-consuming. They also identified securing buyers’ loyalty as a challenge since the vast majority of consumers prefer going to the traditional market. Adapting to buyers’ requirements for flexibility in terms of delivery times or payment methods was likewise a big concern. Accordingly, many stakeholders called for more public interventions not only to introduce control measures or taxes but also to involve the private sector in setting up appropriate technological solutions. Capacity-building Figure 7.5 Positive and negative impacts of ordering online on social media (Case Study 1), mapped during the participatory workshop. Studying the impact of e-commerce 137 programmes were suggested to enable small actors to engage in e-commerce. Many participants also stressed the fact that e-commerce is not a purely virtual relationship—it requires efficient and reliable infrastructure to ensure the proper shipping of the goods ordered. 7.4.2 The question of trust and the participants’ instrumental understanding of sustainability Although the workshops focused on sustainability in general, the research team noticed that there was no shared understanding of sustainability among the participants. The concept was explained at the beginning of the workshops, but the stakeholders did not use it when expressing their views on the innovations discussed. The facilitators had to break down sustainability into its different dimensions (health, social, economic, ecological, etc.) as defined by Urbal, in order to stimulate discussions about non-economic dimensions. Despite regular reminders, environmental and equity issues were rarely addressed, and the stakeholders mainly focused on “instrumental” or economicdriven dimensions such as convenience, customer satisfaction and market opportunities for producers. Interestingly, the concept of “sustainability” itself is hardly translatable into Vietnamese. “Sustainable” is translated as ben vung, which denotes something that “lasts a long time”, without any ecological connotation per se. Most of the participants therefore merely expressed their views on how these innovations could “last a long time”. It is clear that the “holistic” and “multi-dimensional nature of the concept of sustainability” (Béné et al., 2019, p. 127) is not taken as a given in non-Western and non-aca- demic contexts. Thus, discussions about the necessary trade-offs between specific dimensions of sustainability did not emerge in an explicit way. As mentioned above, many stakeholders referred to trust as a major issue for the e-commerce of quality food, either blaming online retail for failing to generate trust or calling for mechanisms to guarantee trust. In the discussions, the participants explored the potential of different activities involved in e-commerce (posting information online, public control over online sales, etc.) to ensure more trust in the quality of the products sold. Through the interviews and the workshops, we identified four main mechanisms to build and sustain trust in online sales: Institutional trust: 1) Expertise: trust is enabled through controls and the granting of certifications, labels and brands by third-party corporations or State bodies. 2) Reputation: trust is enabled by the recognition and praise of the seller’s features by a larger community. Interpersonal trust: 3) Relationship: trust is ensured by the buyer knowing the seller prior to the market transaction or, in an intermediated and less direct way, by someone whom the buyer trusts expressing their confidence in a seller they know.