Food is more than just sustenance—it’s part of our culture, identity, and daily routines. But what we eat, where we buy it, how we prepare it, and even how we dispose of waste isn’t just up to personal choice. Our social, material, and institutional environments have a huge impact on the way food flows through our lives.
Within sustainability research, the dominant discourse is built on the assumption that acts of consumption are what produces sustainable citizens. In this reasoning, food as seen as a commodity, and citizens as disembodied consumers. This leaves little room for embodied, affectual and socio-cultural experiences of food, let alone the space to view humans as inherent part of the natural world.
Using instead a relational approach, this research explores how we can create a foodscape—our everyday food environment—that does not place the responsibility of sustainability on individuals, but instead investigates how communities, infrastructure, and policies shape what’s possible when it comes to eating.
Within sustainability research, the dominant discourse is built on the assumption that acts of consumption are what produces sustainable citizens. In this reasoning, food as seen as a commodity, and citizens as disembodied consumers. This leaves little room for embodied, affectual and socio-cultural experiences of food, let alone the space to view humans as inherent part of the natural world.
Using instead a relational approach, this research explores how we can create a foodscape—our everyday food environment—that does not place the responsibility of sustainability on individuals, but instead investigates how communities, infrastructure, and policies shape what’s possible when it comes to eating.
Understanding the Foodscape through ethnography
To rethink the way we engage with food, we start by listening. Through
ethnographic fieldwork with households in the Netherlands, we capture
the stories behind daily food practices. How do people decide what to
cook? What influences their grocery shopping habits? How does food
waste fit into their routines? And what larger systems are at play in
shaping these choices?
Using visual methods, such as photography and video, we document how the foodscape connects human and more-than-human actors—farmers, supermarkets, packaging, waste systems, and even microorganisms in compost bins. This approach challenges the idea that sustainability is just about consumer choices and instead highlights the web of relationships that shape our food system. For more information about methods, take a look at the professional reports on the downloads-page.
[THE FOODCOMPANY VIDEO (needs some introducing)]
Interconnected food practices
The focus of this fieldwork is on four food practices: doing groceries, cooking, eating, and throwing away trash or leftovers. These practices form a chain that influence each other, they are heavily
interconnected. But this does not mean that when one practice is done sustainably, the others automatically become sustainable as well.
So although practices are interconnected, when you are good at recycling that does not mean you are also able to cook in a sustainable way. The ethnographic research builds on this to look at how the interconnections between food practices contribute to the reproduction of (un)sustainable foodscapes.
Grocery shopping
When we think of sustainable grocery shopping, we often picture organic markets or zero-waste stores. But for most people, grocery shopping means going to the nearest supermarket, where products are pre-packaged, promotions encourage bulk buying, and store layouts influence what ends up in the cart.
Products can become very guiding in how we shop, and since they are the objects of all kinds of production activities from producers, these actors ‘further up the line’ have more influence on our daily groceries then we might notice. How products are presented in terms of quantities and packaging, that ultimately have a knock-on effect by increasing the chance of having left-overs because of pre-packed sizes or buying food that is on sale but you ultimately don’t eat. The great convenience that supermarkets offer, combined with the lack of options and accessibility of alternatives, made doing groceries synonymous to ‘shopping at a supermarket’. This magnifies the
influence that supermarkets have on how people do their grocery shopping, and what that in turn means for how they further handle their food concerning cooking and leftovers/ trash.
[GROEN IS GOED VIDEO]
Cooking
Cooking connects multiple food-related practices: it determines what ingredients are used, how waste is handled, and how people think about food’s value. In some households, cooking is centered around care and creativity, leading to less waste and more sustainable choices. In others, convenience and time constraints lead to greater reliance on pre-packaged foods and disposable materials. For example, participants who enjoyed cooking said they don’t often throw out leftover, but tend to create a new dish from their scraps. Others noted that because their food practices were more communal, they shared recipes and knowledge with each other, enabling them to become more creative cooks.
The study highlights how different cooking practices emerge from broader food environments. When sustainable cooking is made easy—through access to fresh ingredients, knowledge-sharing, and community resources—it becomes a natural part of daily life rather than an individual burden.
[VIDEO DIRKS MARKET]
Eating
While eating itself doesn’t drastically change sustainability outcomes, what people choose to eat does. Family members had a significant impact on each other’s eating practices as they change not only the image and meanings around (for example, their parents') eating practices through discussing and talking about the impact of certain products, but also the material elements, through the introduction of new ingredients in the home. When one household member tried out new ways of eating, this tended to create a ripple effect, changing other food practices in the process. For example, some teenage household members tried out plant based meats, in turn learning how to cook differently and bringing these materials and skills into the household.
Generally, our findings show that shifts towards different diets often begin within the home, influenced by children, partners, or shared discussions about food.
Food waste
Nobody sets out to waste food. Yet, food waste is deeply connected to other food practices—portion sizes dictated by packaging, ‘use by’ dates that lead to unnecessary disposal, and waste collection systems that either encourage or discourage composting.
In the municipalities studied, changes in waste management policies significantly influenced household waste behaviors. When local waste centers stopped offering incentives for recycling, many participants perceived that their efforts no longer mattered. This shift in meaning—believing that individual action is futile—can be just as impactful as material or logistical barriers to sustainable practices.
[VIDEO DE VREDESTUIN]
Transforming the Foodscape: From research to action
Research alone isn’t enough—we need real-world interventions. That’s why in this project we collaborated with citizens, municipalities, and local organizations to co-create changes in the foodscape. By using art-based methods, community projects, and sustainable design principles, we work towards food environments that support long-term change.
One powerful intervention is the development of community gardens. These spaces do more than provide fresh produce—they reconnect people with food’s origins, build social ties, and offer hands-on learning experiences. The short documentary made as part of the ethnographic research exemplifies how participants gain skills in growing, harvesting, and preparing food, making them less dependent on supermarkets and processed foods. Events held in these gardens can further strengthen community engagement and skill sharing around food sustainability.
However, even community gardens can unintentionally place pressure on individuals—suggesting that people must grow their own food, or at least have the knowledge to do so, in order to resist an alienating food system. In this way, it risks falling into the same trap as behavioral or lifestyle-focused solutions: offering linear, clear-cut answers that shift responsibility onto individuals rather than holding supermarket conglomerates and policymakers accountable.
Although the community garden talked about in the video did not lift off due to restrictions in land use policies, which is an interesting outcome on itself, another space in Ridderkerk did come into fruition. The employees and volunteers of the local Salvation army built up a community garden together with us, and with some material help from the municipality. This space allowed us to look further into what it takes to intervene into the foodscape, and we learned about the importance of strong ties within the different organizations and individuals working in the foodspace. Working with the community on both the garden in Barendrecht and Ridderkerk has emphasized the value of reconnecting with the sources of food, ingraining the idea that the way forwards lies in more community-oriented approaches, both with humans and with the non-humans that are part of our foodscape.
Future of sustainable Foodscapes
Sustainable food practices don’t emerge in isolation. They are shaped by the physical spaces we inhabit, the policies that guide our choices, and the communities we are part of, human and otherwise.
This research doesn’t seek to dictate what people should eat or how they should shop. Instead, it highlights the ways in which food practices are already adapting and evolving. By working together with local governments, businesses, and citizens, we aim to create foodscapes where sustainability isn’t a challenge—it’s just the way things are.
