Enacting freshness in the UK and Portuguese agri-food sectors 2017

The deposit includes anonymised interview transcripts from the 7 UK households that took part in this study and consented for their data to be archived. Participants are aged 29-79 and located in the East Midlands, East Yorkshire and South Yorkshire regions of the UK. Ethnographic data [including fieldnotes, photographs, audio and video recordings] have not been deposited because of the difficulties in anonymising this material and refusal of participants to consent to archiving audio-visual data. The deposit includes: 7 x consumer interview transcripts [word docs] 1 x demographic information table regarding households included in the deposit. 2 x participant information leaflets [household and food industry] 3 x sample informed consent forms [Children/Young People Under 18; Adult Consumers; Food Industry Representatives]. This project seeks to understand the significance of 'freshness' as a key attribute of food production and consumption in the UK and Portugal. Our aim is to advance the academic understanding of 'freshness' as a key quality in the production and marketing of food, exploring its significance for retailers and consumers, including its implications for environmental sustainability, public health, food safety and waste reduction. Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), actor-network theory (ANT) and theories of practice, the project seeks to understand how freshness is enacted at different points in the post-harvest supply chain and how it is practised and understood by different actors (including those involved in food manufacturing and processing, transportation and distribution, retailing and marketing) as well as among domestic consumers. The project asks how discourses and meanings of 'freshness' are related to changing technologies of refrigeration, transportation and display, and how freshness is measured, monitored and assessed, whether by technical means (such as date labels and formal risk management procedures) and/or using more tacit/embodied forms of knowledge (such as the skills and competencies that consumers use when shopping or in their domestic environments). Our specific objectives are: 1) To describe and understand the (re)configuration of 'freshness' in agri-food systems since the emergence of the 'cold chain' in the UK and Portugal; 2) To understand how perceptions of freshness in domestic settings shape commercial practices (among food manufacturers, processors and retailers) and vice versa; 3) To understand how meanings of freshness are combined and/or traded-off with other qualities of food (such as taste, locality, seasonality, cost and convenience); 4) To understand the significance of freshness in contemporary agri-food systems and how it relates to notions of environmental sustainability, public health, food safety and waste.