Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg is senior scientist at the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture at SLU in Uppsala. She is working with design of environmental information and decision support in food chains. Her work has included adaption of and comparison between different tools for environmental system analysis in food systems. Her work also concerns strengthening regional and local brands by for instance protected designations of origin. Other fields are horticultural industrial history and its connections to future design of public environments, and business development of experiences associated with small-scale food production. She is board member of the Slow Food Swedish Ark Commission. Present projects include:

• Organic agriculture in relation to the Swedish environmental targets

• Designing and evaluationg the effects of environmental information in the food wholesale sector

• Protected designation of origin of Vålåloffen - a recreated cheese from the region of Jämtland

• To re-establish a lineman´s cottage — a knowledge bank for animating cultural history and for shaping of public environment

Lena Ekelund is associate professor in Horticultural Economics at SLU in Alnarp. She has studied the market for fruit and vegetables, with a special interest in the organic sector. Her main research concerns the competitiveness of products of different origin and in different outlets, and aspects of consumers preferences on a large scale market

James Petts is a policy advisor with the Countryside Agency for its ‘Eat the View’ programme, that aims to create a market for products which can protect and maintain landscapes. His background is in environmental economics, farming and food.  He worked in agriculture and the food industry for over ten years and for Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming on a variety of projects in the areas of urban agriculture, local food strategies and economies.  James has published several reports on food, farming and environment policy as well as contributing to various books on agriculture, health, and sustainability.  He currently sits on the UK Government’s Food Procurement Implementation Group and the Cross-cutting Working Group on Regional and Local Food.
 

In 2002, Eat the View commissioned the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) to improve the understanding of how to influence consumer attitudes and behaviour. IGD found that an estimated 18% of consumers were interested in food production issues compared to just 11% one year prior to the research.
It also found that an active interest in food production issues does not always affect purchasing behaviour, unless there is a perceived risk avoidance or personal benefit, and that organic food is generally purchased for health reasons whilst local food is purchased for perceived freshness and more altruistic reasons.

Other research conducted in this area includes:

Tourist Attitudes Towards Regional and Local Foods, MAFF/Countryside Agency, 2000
Local sourcing, IGD, 2002
Consumer Watch: Local & British Foods, IGD, 2003
Attitudes Towards Buying Local Produce, Mintel, 2003
Shopping with Attitude, The Cooperative Group, 2004
Local and Regional Food Opportunity, IGD, 2005

The presentation will review some of the findings from this research and suggest some future trends for consumers’ attitudes to regional and local foods.