Catering is beginning to be an important sales channel for organic foods in the Nordic countries. However implementing organic foods in today’s complex catering systems is far from easy. Therefore primary players in the fields of marketing and promotion or organic foods in catering have established a Nordic network. The Nordic network has been able to carry out a study on the perspectives in organic foods in catering through a grant from Nordic Industrial Fund and with the support from Danish Veterinary & Food Administration and Danish Technical University. The study has resulted in this report, which is prepared on the basis of interview meetings in the five Nordic capitals. The study has been carried out in close cooperation with partners in each of the Nordic countries

Kristensen, Niels Heine

Mikkelsen, Bent Egberg

Nielsen, Thorkild

English

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Organic foods in catering – the Nordic perspective

Kristensen, Niels

    Aalborg UniversitetOrganic foods in catering – the Nordic perspectiveMikkelsen, Bent Egberg; Kristensen, Niels; Nielsen, ThorkildPublication date:2002Document VersionTidlig version også kaldet pre-printLink to publication from Aalborg UniversityCitation for published version (APA):Mikkelsen, B. E., Kristensen, N., & Nielsen, T. (2002). Organic foods in catering – the Nordic perspective.General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright ownersand it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.            ? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.            ? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain            ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at vbn@aub.aau.dk providing details, and we will remove access tothe work immediately and investigate your claim.Downloaded from vbn.aau.dk on: November 29, 2020                                                   Organic foods in public catering: Organisational development or a locomotive to boost organic sales?  Bent E. Mikkelsen  Abstract - In many countries public procurement policies of organic foods have become a popular instrument to increase the sale of organic produce. However, unlike the relatively uncomplicated “organic” change process in private households, the processes related to implementation of foods in public food systems have proved to be quite complicated. In order to study the nature of these systems and their ability to implement organic consumption a study of the Danish Green Procurement Programme (GPP) method was carried out. The GPP aimed at supporting organic consumption in public catering. The study included document analysis, qualitative interviews and a questionnaire based survey among practitioners at catering and municipal level. The results show that organic conversion processes in municipal catering is a multifaceted process. The process is not only concerned with substituting conventional foods with organic ones but involves a number of significant spin offs and ramifications. Instead of being a simple replacement process the conversion also functions as a change opportunity in which public food systems can develop and innovate. However the Danish case also shows that if organic procurement policies should be a reliable alternative sales channel, it is important at all times to keep the goal of the conversion in mind and not to neglect the need for constant monitoring of the progress of the organic procurement policy in terms of actual amounts of organic products. The case shows that such monitoring is needed both at institutional, municipal and national levels. 1 INTRODUCTION Public procurement policies of organic foods have become a much used instrument to increase the sale of organic produce in many western European countries (Laberenz , 2000, Spiller et al. 2003, Mikkelsen et al. 2005, Mikkelsen & Elle 2005) and the idea that the public should lead the way as a role model and buy organic has derived political support in many countries (Rech, 2003). However, unlike the relatively uncomplicated processes related to organic consumption in private households the change processes related to implementation of foods in public food systems have been reported to be quite complicated and to involve a number of other steps in addition to merely substituting conventional foods with organic foods (Mikkelsen et al, 2005). O’Doherty et al (2001) suggest that the implementation of organic procurement policy in food service forces institutions to adapt to new conditions and that this adaptation seems to be associated with different “coping mechanisms”.  1 Is with the Department of Nutrition. Danish Institute for Food and Veterinary Research, 19 Mørkhøj Bygade, DK 2860 Søborg, bem@dfvf.dk PURPOSE In order to study this seemingly complicated process and to discuss its implications for the potential for organic foods in this sector an analysis of the GPP, running from 1997 to 2003 involving 42 organic catering projects, was carried out.  METHODOLOGY Three sources of data informed the study. Firstly, the applications and the final reports from applicants were analysed. Then qualitative interviews were carried out with key stakeholders in the sector and lastly a questionnaire-based survey was carried out among municipal project leaders.  RESULTS The results show that organic conversion processes in municipalities is a multifaceted procedure with a number of significant spin offs and ramifications. Surprisingly, the organic foods itself only play part of the lead role while the resulting organisational process seems to be in focus. The results show that organic policy implementation processes can be very complicated procedures and lead to surprising results when put into practice.   The distinct and complex nature of the public food service environment plays a significant role here and this is an important barrier for the further dissemination of organic food in the sector. Secondly, the results show that the organic conversion process, due to its complicated nature, its interaction with the whole food service organisation and its “unfrozen” environment, it becomes subject to a number of change processes other than those just related to organic foods.   The organic procurement policy decision opportunity opens up a range of other agendas once the “plasticity” of the organisation is increased. The urgent need for changes to menus, innovation, capacity building, adoption of food polices are all examples of the ramifications and spin offs, which are made possible by the organisational change process. Finally, the results show that the organic message is translated differently by change agents in the municipalities and in the food service organisations. The organic conversion support scheme, as in the Danish case, is seen as a “ problem” to which food service organisations are expected to react not necessarily by focusing on organic procurement but by trying to bring other pressing agendas into play.      CONCLUSIONS The lessons learnt from the organic conversion case clearly shows that implementation of organic foods in the public food systems is not a question of simple replacement of conventional food items with organic ones. Instead the process is a complicated change process involving a number of different stakeholders who have to share a common vision of how the outcome of the organic procurement policy should be.   Instead of being a replacement process the conversion also is a change opportunity that the food systems can use to develop their organisations in order to be better prepared for future challenges. Thus, the conversion has the ability to create better public food systems. However, the Danish case also shows that it is important at all times to keep the goal of the conversion in mind and not to neglect the need for constant monitoring of the progress of the organic procurement policy. The case shows that such monitoring in terms of amounts of organic foods is needed both at all levels.  REFERENCES Laberenz H., Naatz OW. Biogerichte in Betriebs-restaurants. Ökologie & Landbau 2000 113, 1/2000, 39-40.  Mikkelsen. B.E. Kristensen. N.H. & Nielsen, T. (2005)  Change processes in large scale public foodservice – Case findings from implementation of organic foods in a Danish county. Foodservice Business Research, 8, 2., 73-85.  Mikkelsen BE & Elle JC. Grosse küchen – grosse möchlickeiten Zeitschrift für Ökologie und Landbau, 2005, vol 136, no 4 p 42-44  O’Doherty Jensen K, Larsen HN, Mølgård JP, Andersen, JO, Marckmann, P, Astrup A et. al. (2001): Økologiske fødevarer og menneskets sundhed. Rapport fra videnssyntese. Frederiksberg: Research Institute for Human Nutrition, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University.  Rech T. (2003) Organic food for public institutions. Organic agriculture, sustainability, markets and policies. In Report from a workshop on organic agriculture Washington DC: OECD, 401-40.   Spiller, A., Lüth, M. & Enneking, U. (2003) Chancen und Potenziale von Öko-Lebensmitteln in der Außer-Haus-Verpflegung am Beispiel der Verzehr-gewohnheiten von Mensa- und Kantinenbesuchern, Göttingen: Institut für Agrarökonomie, Lehrstuhl Marketing für Lebensmittel und Agrarprodukte, Georg August Universität, 2003.  

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Organic foods in catering – the Nordic perspective

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