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Motivations of Public Officials as Drivers of Transition to Sustainable School Food Provisioning: Insights from Avignon, France

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Abstract

A large body of experience and expertise on the implementation of sustainable public school food procurement policies has developed in recent years. However, there has been little investigation of the values and motivations of the public officials implementing the policies. To address this gap, we examine how the city of Avignon (France) took a step toward transition to local fresh food procurement for public schools, under French government calls for sustainable food products in public canteens. Our analysis combines the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on sustainable transitions with the Public Service Motivation construct. Unlike other studies addressing the MLP at a macro level, we focus on individual motivations behind public action. We demonstrate that staff motivations have a major impact on how policies supporting transition to local fresh food procurement for public schools are implemented. These public officials’ approach to food shows concern for the public interest regardless of financial return. It is not the rational choice (utilitarian or monetary rewards) that primarily drives the implementation of urban food policies, but normative conformity (equity, education, fairness) and affective bonding (health, environmental convictions). Interestingly, we conclude that the success of Avignon’s politically-driven school food procurement policy is essentially due to the catering and procurement staff who overcame the barriers to its implementation.

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Notes

  1. https://agriculture.gouv.fr/egalim-ce-que-contient-la-loi-agriculture-et-alimentation.

  2. In France, the public procurement of food for nursery and primary schools is the responsibility of municipal authorities.

  3. Developed since 2012 in other parts of France, Agrilocal is a free website helping local farmers to directly contact public procurement services with a collective catering mission (schools, hospitals, retirement homes, etc.). The platform shows the buyer all the relevant products available locally, and each supplier has a personal farm presentation page. https://www.agrilocal.fr/.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Marjorie Sweetko for editing the English of this paper.

Funding

This work was supported by FONDATION DE FRANCE [Grant Number E 00061222].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRAE (French National Institute for Research on Agriculture, Food and Environment), UR-Ecodéveloppement, Avignon, France

    Esther Sanz Sanz, Aurélie Cardona & Claude Napoléone

  2. ZALF (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research), Müncheberg, Germany

    Esther Sanz Sanz

Authors
  1. Esther Sanz Sanz
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  2. Aurélie Cardona
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ESS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ESS and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Esther Sanz Sanz.

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The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Methods of Investigation

Method of investigation

Date

Stakeholders involved

Description of the event

Participant observation (n = 14)

05/02/2016

Farmers, public officials (n = 6)

Working session in the Chamber of Agriculture with the farmers’ association En direct de nos fermes and Avignon municipality

19/01/2017

Farmers, public officials, councillors, high school teachers (n = 25)

Working session on collaboration between the Agricultural Secondary School, Agrilocal and Avignon municipality

27/01/2017

Open to politicians, experts, planners, non-profits and residents (n = 35)

1st Workshop of projet de territoire Vaucluse

04/04/2017

Farmers, experts, public officials, politicians (n = 23)

Seminar “Agriculture under pressure”

07/06/2017

Open to politicians, experts, planners, non-profits and residents (n = 44)

2nd Workshop of Projet de territoire Vaucluse

07/06/2017

Researchers, non-profits, politicians and public procurement officials (n = 80)

Seminar on development prospects for territorial food projects organized by the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region

17/11/2017

Head of food procurement, head of central kitchen, councillor, organic wholesaler (n = 4)

Working session

05/12/2017

Public officials, councillor, representative of parent-teacher associations (n = 9)

Meeting of the Menus Committee

06/02/2018

Open-accessed to politicians, experts, planners, non-profits and residents (n = 26)

3rd Workshop of projet de territoire Vaucluse

07/02/2018

Open by invitation to farmers, politicians and public procurement officers (n = 54)

4th Agrilocal forum

08/02/2018

Public officials, councillor (n = 7)

Meeting of the Menus Committee

14/03/2018

Central kitchen staff (n = 5)

Internal working session to plan frequency of inclusion of fresh vegetables and fruits in meals

20/11/2018

Open-accessed to politicians, experts, and civil society (n = 60)

Public round table “Produire et manger local, est-il encore possible? Les outils et plans d’action des pouvoirs publics”

06/12/2018

Open-accessed to politicians, experts, and civil society (n = 80)

Regional food committee

Focus group interviews (n = 2)

16/01/2018

Public officials, councillor, representative of parent-teacher associations, consultant (n = 8)

Session to examine changes entailed by adding the criterion of proximity of origin of the ingredients of school meals to the existing criteria concerning price and nutritional balance

23/01/2018

Public officials, councillor, representative of parent-teacher associations, local farmers and delegates of farming cooperatives, local firms (n = 15)

Discussion on the two menus adapted in the previous focus-group interview in the light of the constraints of local farmers and entrepreneurs already in or interested in a business relationship with Avignon’s public school food procurement system

Long semi-structured interviews (n = 7)

16/01/2017

Councillor

09/02/2017

Head of central kitchen

07/04/2017

Head of food procurement

27/07/2017

Public official involved in the intermediary platform Agrilocal

03/08/2017

Public official involved in the tendering system for food procurement

13/10/2017

Public official involved in the nutritional composition of the school meals

18/06/2018

Expert on local agriculture (agronomic conditions and market opportunities)

Short complementary semi-structured interviews (n = 18)

04/04/2017

Councillor

05/12/2017

12/12/2017

13/07/2017

Head of central kitchen

05/12/2017

20/11/2018

14/03/2018

Head of food procurement

22/11/2018

06/11/2017

Public official involved in the intermediary platform Agrilocal

17/06/2019

11/09/2019

06/11/2017

Public official involved in the tendering system for food procurement

13/12/2017

05/12/2017

Public official involved in the nutritional composition of the school meals

14/03/2018

09/02/2017

Expert on local agriculture (agronomic conditions and market opportunities)

04/04/2017

12/09/2017

Appendix 2: Focus Group Interviews’ Questionnaire, Distributed the 16/01/2018 and the 23/01/2018

This questionnaire contains 1 page. It will take you about 5 min to complete it. This survey is completely anonymous. Kindly answer all the questions. There are no right or wrong answers. Only your opinion counts. Thank you in advance for your contribution.

  • figure a
  • figure b

Appendix 3: Outstanding results of the analysis of responses to the questionnaire

figure c

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Sanz Sanz, E., Cardona, A. & Napoléone, C. Motivations of Public Officials as Drivers of Transition to Sustainable School Food Provisioning: Insights from Avignon, France. J Agric Environ Ethics 35, 6 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-022-09880-9

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