Alternative Food Networks and Circular Economy
The research of Exeter Food members in this area includes work on place-based food systems, local procurement schemes, and other ways of shortening food chains, as well as the benefits of such initiatives, from community building to energy efficiency and greater environmental sustainability.
Geographer Stewart Barr has explored the role of Transition Town Initiatives in developing place-based, community-focused alternative food economies in Devon, as well as working to build capacity for the organisation, Food Exeter, to define and develop its strategy framework. Rebecca Sandover—also a geographer, has also worked with Food Exeter to build capacity in sustainable and community food initiatives in the Greater Exeter region, as well as collaborating with partners on the new Devon Food Partnership to take a strategic approach to joined-up food policy and programmes in Devon.
Laura Colombo—who is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Futures—has researched the scaling processes of Social Agricultural Co-operatives in Italy, which are rapidly growing multi-stakeholder organisations, closely linked to social farming networks, solidarity purchasing groups, anti-mafia alliances and environmental justice movements, and she also explores how environmental virtue ethics can allow social enterprises to redefine their vision and mission from concentration on human flourishing to ecological flourishing. Anthropologist Celia Plender has studied grassroots, retail food co-operatives in the British context. In her ethnographic work, she explores the ways in which the participants of community food co-ops imagine and foster alternative economic and food system practices.
A number of Exeter Food members are interested in the promotion of Circular Economy. Mickey Howard—who is Professor of Supply Chain Management—co-founded the Circular Economy Business Forum at Exeter in 2015 to assist firms in recapturing value from activities such as recycling, re-use, remanufacture, leasing and product life extension, and his work in this area has included modelling supply chain management in the food and beverage industry for SMEs in the Southwest of England. Stefano Pascucci—who is Head of Sustainable Futures—works on circular food systems, the configuration of food value chains, alternative food networks, community entrepreneurship, collaborative and social innovation in the agri-food sector, and regenerative agriculture. Steffen Boehm—who is Professor in Organisation and Sustainability—also works on food systems, circular and regenerative agriculture, food procurement, the carbon footprint of food, participatory food business models, and community-supported agriculture. Xaioyu Yan—who is Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems—is interested in the water-energy-food nexus as well as the carbon footprint of food, its environmental impacts, and methods of assessing its sustainability.
Matt Lobley, Caroline Nye, Tim Wilkinson, and colleagues have collaborated on the study of local procurement of food in the Southwest of England, mapping supply chains and identifying what foods public institutions such as hospitals and schools wish to purchase and in what forms, in order tomake local supply more feasible.
