Gervaise Debucquet’s research while affiliated with Audencia Business School and other places

Ongoing confinement for millions of urban citizens due to the Covid-19 pandemic has raised ecological consciousness, changed food habits and questioned the relationship urban dwellers have with nature. There is more interest in bringing plants into urban homes and in sustainable food sources, but no research have studied the relationships between food behaviours and plant-care activities. To address this gap and explore urban citizens' nature relatedness through the greening of private areas, we conducted a national survey of French, young urban citizens (n = 1000), who are more committed to ‘edible’ cities than older generations but have the lowest rate of plant purchasers. A quantitative approach reveals the prevalence of aesthetic/hedonistic expectations for plants in private housing but also demonstrates contrasting perceptions of tasks for plant maintaining and unequal valuation of social issues around plants. We discuss continuities between environmental awareness, commitment to sustainable food and natural/social uses of plants and argue that urban planning processes should address potential synergies for more integrative resilience. Community building around green areas, urban agriculture or collective gardens, in cities, can have ripple effects towards the greening of private housing. Lastly, the multi-disciplinary approach bridging psychosociology and urban studies can inspire multi-scalar urban planning.

In the face of rising sustainability issues, increasing numbers of organisations are trying to build compromises between their economic purpose and ecological objectives. Organisational studies focus on the analysis of such compromise processes but most studies do not seek to grasp the substantial changes advocated by ecological critiques. Our research is aimed at addressing that gap by clarifying the radical view sustained by ecological imaginary beyond conventional compromise processes. We engage in a qualitative study of biodynamics – an agricultural method based on a radical ecological imaginary – to evaluate its moral underpinnings through Boltanski and Thévenot’s Economies of Worth framework. Our findings help us to grasp the radical moral substance of ecological critique and to extend that framework beyond its dualist assumption. By highlighting antagonisms between meta-conceptions of justice rather than analysing compromises, our research provides insights into the radical organisational changes advocated by ecological critiques.

To reduce food waste, retailers have been offering non-calibrated fruits and vegetables (FaVs) in recent years, yet the acceptance of such produce is still far from unanimous. Using reciprocal projections, our research performs a comparative analysis of French consumers’ representations of eaters and non-eaters of misshapen FaVs. The overall representations rest on lexical registers that refer to economic, ecological, and sociocultural rationales. Results highlight two opposing representations of the two customer segments studied. Ugly FaVs thus reactivate current tensions that are challenging the traditional French food model. The dominant and positive description of eaters of ugly FaVs is manifested as an implicit defense of a particular French food identity that values cooking with natural and special products. Conversely, the description of non-eaters of imperfect FaVs points to the erosion of this identity in favor of a more pragmatic relationship with food, one that values standardized products. Thus, the sustainability of offering misshapen FaVs depends on the retailers’ ability to reduce tensions linked to contrasting food identities by implementing educational actions aimed at children and/or immersive point-of-purchase campaigns.

The aim of this research is to contribute to a better understanding the destructuration of three native starches and a wheat flour in mixtures of water and choline chloride. Model systems have thus been defined to allow a better approach to hydrothermic transformations related to the interactions between choline chloride and starch. We have observed that choline chloride has an impact on the gelatinization of starch which corresponds to the stabilizing salts phenomenon. The depolymerization and dissolution of the starch have also been demonstrated and can there dominate the gelatinization. However, the results obtained in X-ray diffraction by heating cell have shown that the exotherm which appeared was not only related to the depolymerization of the starch, but that a stage of crystalline rearrangement of the starch coexisted with this phenomenon.

The rapid development of new genetic breeding techniques is accompanied by a polarized debate around their risks. Research on the public perception of these techniques lags behind scientific developments. This study tests a method for revealing laypeople’s perceptions and attitudes about different genetic techniques. The objectives are to enable laypeople to understand the key principles of new genetic breeding techniques and to permit a comparison of their modes of classification with those of scientific experts. The combined method of a free sorting task and focus groups showed that the participants distinguished the techniques that did not induce any change in DNA sequence, and applied two different logics to classify the other breeding techniques: a Cartesian logic and a naturalistic logic with a distinct set of values. The lay categorization differed substantially from current scientific categorizations of genetic breeding techniques. These findings have implications for food innovation policy and genetically modified organism legislation.

Community-supported agriculture/fisheries (CSA/CSF) create both market and nonmarket values, including environmental and social benefits. When shared by a community of users, these values generate identity and sense of belonging for the members who are prone to accept conditions they would not bear in conventional markets (e.g., higher prices, inconvenient delivery time and location, lack of choice, and supply risk). We argue that longevity of CSA/CSF depends on their capacity to create such a sense of belonging. For this reason and because of some CSF peculiarities compared to CSA, analyzing the sense of belonging to a CSF becomes an interesting challenge to understand the nature and extent of the community and its underlying social characteristics and motives. A qualitative-quantitative mixed methodology was used. Data come from an original online survey of 556 French seafood consumers belonging to the Yeu Island CSF, and from individual, semi-directive interviews. An ordered probit model with endogenous treatment effects for commitment experience was developed, and the evidence of results was related with a content analysis from qualitative materials. The sense of belonging to CSF is positively influenced by the relational dimension and negatively by the demand for high-quality goods, but not by the credence attributes (support of fishers and the local economy, origin of products, environmental outcomes…). Moreover, commitment as volunteer member tends to have a positive influence on belongingness. Interviews with members highlight the social and cultural entanglement of their relationship. They show notably the importance of the sociability built around fish – leading to an increase of knowledge around species, ways of cooking, and to the strengthening of a food identity – on the sense of belonging. The long-term sustainability of CSF may highly depend on these relational dimensions, acting as cohesive factors in the community.

Numerous scientific studies have shown that overconsumption of salt can be harmful and promotes the development of cardiovascular diseases. For this reason, many international organizations and government agencies aim to reduce overall salt consumption from food. Recent exploratory work has shown that vitamin B4 can play the role of salt substitute. This study aims on the one hand to develop and optimize a bread recipe reduced in salt and enriched with vitamin B4. On the other, it aims to study the acceptability for consumers of this double innovation, combining the addition and withdrawal of a nutrient. The study was conducted with French consumers. The sensory test showed that vitamin B4 tends to increase the perception of salt in salt-reduced bread. The acceptance of reduced-salt and vitamin B4-enriched bread was investigated in three focus-groups, mixing blind tests, information input and spontaneous evocations. Three potential targets have been identified: health-oriented young people, young parents who want to educate children to engage in a healthy lifestyle, and people broadly sensitive to nutritional information. Consumers with a pleasure and taste-oriented profile were more skeptical of the new bread formula because of greater attachment to traditional, salty French bread.

In a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) or Community-Supported Fishery (CSF), buyers commit to pay a periodic fixed amount to ensure a guaranteed revenue for producers. In return, they benefit from scheduled deliveries but with unknown content. The shorter channels for seafood products are valued by consumers because they often include more sustainable fishing practices and avoid food miles. However, consumers may join these systems for many other reasons linked to lower prices or higher quality of fish, the support to the local economy, and social or political reasons. Who is, if ever existing, the “typical” CSF buyer, and what makes CSFs appealing to fish consumers? With an original survey of 556 French seafood consumers belonging to the Yeu Island CSF, this research aims at disentangling the various motives for joining and purchasing fish exclusively from CSFs. Among a large range of motivations, the analysis reveals the existence of three factors: credence attributes (environment and local support), relational aspects (meet people), and economic incentives. We show through a simultaneous equation model that exclusive CSF consumers are positively influenced by the relational dimension but negatively by credence attributes.