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The purpose of this paper is to explore and typify the characteristics and diverse features of urban speciality stores selling rural provenance food, taking the case of three cities in Portugal.

The study was based on hierarchical cluster analysis, performed upon data collected from a survey to 113 shops, located in Aveiro (n = 15), Lisbon (n = 56) and Porto (n = 42).

The study identified three clusters of shops according to the type of rural provenance products sold, services provided and clientele characteristics: the wine focused, the rural provenance focused and the generalist. The study confirms that in Portugal, small food retail outlets, with different rural provenance patterns and degrees of specialization have considerably grown in large cities over the last decade.

The study contributes to typifying urban speciality food stores selling rural provenance products and to addressing critical research gaps on this topic. The study highlights the dynamism of small food retail outlets and their significance, mediating and responding to changing patterns of food consumption in urban spaces.

This study contributes to a better understanding and characterization of food speciality shops in urban settings and their links with rural territories of provenance, an under-researched topic on the food retail literature.

Recent reviews and reports have highlighted the need for integrated, context-specific efforts to enable sustainable food transitions. This study aimed to identify pathways to promote healthier and more environmentally friendly food practices in school contexts, with a focus on increased plant-based eating.

The study used a systemic approach with data collected from relevant stakeholders in an EU country (Portugal) at diverse levels of influence in the school meals system (i.e. proximal, intermediate, distal; from end-consumers to food providers, market actors, civil society organizations, and policy and decision-makers). Data from individual interviews (N = 33) were subjected to thematic analysis.

Meat-centric cultural perceptions of a ‘proper meal’ can be a socio-emotional barrier for sustainable food transitions in schools. Main pathways identified to unlock these transitions included: (1) Levering orientations toward ethical and environmentally beneficial consumption; (2) Improving and increasing the offer of plant-based meals; and (3) Mobilizing local communities and society.

The current findings suggest that promoting healthier and more environmentally friendly food practices in schools requires systemic, integrated approaches which focus on food consumption, food provision, and the broader political and sociocultural environment.

Concerns on children's obesity and overweight have been related to food diets with excessive sugar and fat. Given the relevance of school meals in Portuguese children's lives, schools follow governmental guidelines in order to provide nutritiously balanced and healthy meals. As imbalances persist, this study aims at understanding the acceptance of school meals by children, in the context of competing marketing allures of nutritiously poor foods outside the schools.

Plural qualitative research techniques (focus groups with children and parents, direct observation and interviews with school directors and kitchen staff) were combined to analyse children's food-related meanings and practices, and also images of food displayed at schools and in their surroundings. The empirical data were collected in four primary and secondary public schools with different socio-economic backgrounds in the area of Lisbon.

Results show sharp contrasts between food images and meanings at school canteens and commercial food outlets outside schools. Data suggest that subjection to supervision, unappetizing school meals and images in the canteens stand out against favourite flavours and social levers (such as autonomy and status) of food available outside school.

This study has an exploratory nature and results are not-generalizable to other schools of the country.

Limited attention has been paid to competing social contexts of children's food consumption at schools and their surroundings in Portugal. Research results can bring insights to conceptual development on school meals and children's food practices.