MAPPING FOOD ENVIRONMENTS TO SUPPORT PROCESSES OF LOCAL FOOD POLICIES

The food environment is at the center of interventions needed to address food related negative environmental and social impacts, including malnutrition. The food environment represents “the consumers' interface with the food system” (Downs et al., 2020:6). It consists of several key dimensions (promotion, affordability, availability, quality, convenience and sustainability properties) which relate to external and personal domains (Downs et al., 2020). These determine the citizens food choices and, consequently, the sustainability of their diets, considering sustainability as a multidimensional and integrated concept. As such food environments represent strategic lever for food policy action. However, for this to be effective, it is essential to measure the way in which people are exposed to and interact with their food environment, which poses a number of methodological challenges. Mapping of local food environment is an evolving research domain, and it presents many challenges: limited resources, the specificities of the context and the predominance of aggregated or provincially aligned data sources (Lindborg, 2019). To date, geographical analysis is the predominant modality for scrutinizing food environment, but its exclusivity is subject to critique because it does not consider individual preferences and socio-cultural dimensions (Lytle and Sokol, 2017). This contribution addresses how food environment mapping can support the development of policy interventions to improve sustainability of diets and development at local level. To answer the research question, this study focused on mapping the local food environment in the municipality of Capannori, a small town located in Tuscany (Italy), and with a long-time commitment towards food-related issues, as epitomised in its guiding role in the establishment of the “Plain of Food”, the first Italian inter-municipal food policy in recent years. The mapping was carried out within the HEU project FoodCLIC and assessed according to the methodological framework elucidated by Turner et al. (2018). We integrated geo-spatial, observational and participatory methods for the collection of primary and secondary data, including two focus groups with neighborhoods maps and surveys. The participatory nature of the adopted methodology underscores its reliance on direct citizen perceptions, fostering a nuanced comprehension of local food-related dynamics that may elude alternative research methodologies. The premise of implementing positive transformations of the local food environment is to build on the experiential insights of citizens to develop more effective and context-specific policy interventions. Furthermore, actively involving individuals in decision-making and policy design can foster a greater sense of participation and empowerment. This mapping activity consented to analyse in details the obstacles and enablers to achievement of sustainable diets in Capannori, considering different dimensions of the food environment and providing fundamental preliminary informations for the development of evidence-based food policies.