New Research for Sustainable Food Futures Webinar | 18th March 2025
Published: 26 February 2025
From Beans to Procurement and Public Sector Solutions – Findings from two SCAF Pump Priming Projects from Round 1
Date & Time: 18th March 2025, 7pm
Join this webinar to hear about the Full of Beans campaign which helps people to learn about the environmental and health benefits of growing and eating beans with Dr Emily May Armstrong, Glasgow Food Policy Partnership, and Food System Resilience - Public Sector Local Food Procurement, a project on improving the procurement of sustainable local food produce in the public sector with Dr Ifeyinwa Kanu, IntelliDigest.
This webinar will be of interest for those interested in the topics and/or keen to hear more about collaborative research design, and the opportunities they opened for the teams.
Dr Emily May Armstrong: Full of Beans – Exploring and Evaluating Barriers to Glasgow’s Bean Consumption
Dr Emily May Armstrong (they/them) is an interdisciplinary researcher based at the University of Glasgow. Emily works with a mixed-methods approach across equities and inclusion practices in biosciences, plant sciences, queer ecologies, and community-engaged research. Emily specialises in community-engaged research and citizen science; using co-creation approaches to develop ecological monitoring techniques, queer marine ecologies performance-lectures, and is currently working on an environmental humanities project exploring approaches to health, disability, and plants with the Finnish Institute for Britain and Ireland.
This talk will explore The Full of Beans Campaign, which promoted beans’ health and environmental benefits, teaching bean growing/cooking skills, and supporting restaurants to incorporate more beans on their menus. It delivered 20 events for over 460 attendees, helped eight restaurants add bean dishes, and introduced three bean recipes to school menus. The research revealed that limited cultural familiarity, knowledge, and access reduce bean consumption in Scotland. The campaign achieved its aims, with participants particularly enjoying hands-on cooking and growing sessions. Future efforts would benefit from dedicated funding and a project manager, deeper engagement with culturally diverse communities, and a crop trial coordinator. Evaluation of this campaign was funded by SCAF.
Dr Ifeyinwa Kanu: Food System Resilience – Public Sector Local Food Procurement
Dr Ifeyinwa Kanu is the Director of IntelliDigest, a purpose-driven business focused on food system sustainability. Since gaining her PhD in Environmental Engineering, Ifeyinwa’s work has contributed towards engineering a sustainable food system by establishing infrastructures that support food production, processing, preservation, distribution, preparation, and consumption.
According to the Scottish Government procurement activities report for 2021-2022, a total of £88,011,511 was spent on accommodation and food services, and £50,410,240 was allocated to agriculture, forestry, and fishing. Public sector food procurement presents a significant opportunity to drive food system sustainability across public schools, hospitals, prisons, universities, public building cafeterias, and other social programs. In this talk, Ifeyinwa will outline The Food System Resilience - Public Sector Local Food Procurement project, a multi-disciplinary collaborative effort involving the University of Edinburgh, Queen Margaret University, Fife Council, Edinburgh Council, IntelliDigest, and Nourish Scotland. The project's aim was to improve access to good food by supporting local food production and consumption, with an initial focus on school meal procurement and enhancing nutritional literacy.
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SCAF Webinar Series
We host a series of online webinars every 6 weeks to showcase the depth and breadth of work relevant to the alliance. Webinars are held either during the working day at 1pm, or in the evening, at 7pm. Each webinar will feature two speakers presenting for ~20 minutes, followed by a discussion and Q&A.
We are looking for speakers! Whilst we aim for a research and innovation focus, we would like to feature the work across sectors and disciplines within the broader topic of food. Early career members are particularly encouraged to come forward.
Register yourself or nominate someone to speak at a webinar
First published: 26 February 2025