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Household food insecurity and poor well-being have increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting lockdown measures. Home food growing has been associated with improved food access and well-being, but it is unknown what role it plays during food supply crises and lockdown. It is also unclear how home food growing and social restrictions may affect opinions about growing food in urban areas (i.e. urban agriculture; UA).

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the UK national lockdown in March-April 2020 to measure home food growing, perceived food insecurity, well-being, and opinions of UA. The participants were 477 UK-based adults (369 female, mean age 39.57 years ± 13.36); 152 participants were engaged in home food growing prior to the pandemic. Responses were compared to data collected from a separate sample of participants before the pandemic (N=583) to explore potential shifts in opinions about UA.

Participants who engaged in home food growing had lower levels of food insecurity (U_­=19894.50, z=−3.649, p<0.001, r=−0.167) and higher well-being (U=19566.50, z=−3.666, p<0.001, r=−0.168) than those not engaged in home food growing. Perceived food insecurity partially mediated the relationship between home food growing and well-being; home food growing was associated with less food insecurity, which in turn was associated with better well-being. There were no differences in opinions of UA compared to the sample of participants from before the pandemic.

Home food growing may have had a protective effect over perceived food security and well-being in the early stages the pandemic. Opinions of UA were positive and unchanged compared to data collected pre-pandemic. Policies that support home food growing and access to suitable growing spaces and resources may be beneficial for food system resilience and well-being.

This study examines how circular economy (CE) performance indicators are constructed in an urban context characterised by a multitude of conflicting interests and visions of urban development. It explores the process of constructing a shared consensus about the performance indicators in conditions of low contractibility, where intervention objectives and outcomes are not easily quantifiable because the object is ambiguous and cannot be fully specified in advance.

The construction of performance indicators at the urban level is examined through the lens of an action net. Using group interviews, observations and documentary analysis, this study investigates the case of a CE initiative in the city of Milan.

The study demonstrates that in cases of low contractibility, the development of CE solutions requires actions that span across organisational boundaries, organised in an action net. As the action net unfolds, it is closely knotted with the construction of performance indicators, indicating a co-constitutive relationship between the two processes.

This interdisciplinary study contributes to the public sector accounting literature by exploring the complexity of performance indicator construction at the urban level. It further recognises performance measurement in cities as a dynamic and flexible process, in which the interconnected actions and involvement of multiple actants shape the composition of the indicators.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a cloud system that saves energy by being involved in the decision-making process of machines. By this means, machines create an environment of direct interaction without the need for explicit instructions. In this chapter, answers have been sought to the questions of what kind of research has been done on IoT-based technological devices, and how IoT-based technologies are effective in sustainable food production. The systematic literature review examined the scientific research on IoT and Food in the range of 2010–2022 in Scopus. The general framework of the research has been carried out in the context of 6Ws (who, when, where, what, why, and how), which is one of the systematic literature reviews. The results obtained have been analyzed and interpreted in the MAXQDA 2020 qualitative data analysis program. In the findings obtained, it has been determined that IoT and food have gained importance worldwide, especially in England, India, and China. Furthermore, it has been determined that most of the studies on IoT are based on case studies, and all the articles examined are collected in three main focus points. Subcodes have been created under the main codes ‘Food Supply Chain, Smart and Sustainable Agriculture ve Waste Management’, and problem points have been tried to be customized.

The aim of this paper is to better understand European consumers' behaviour in relation to Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs), so as to provide insights to support their development as part of a sustainable food system. Specifically, it aims to analyse consumer purchase patterns, motivations and perceived barriers and to identify patterns of behaviour amongst different consumer groups.

An online consumer survey was conducted in 12 European countries (n = 2,419). Quantitative data analysis, including principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis, was undertaken using SPSS.

Four consumer clusters are named according to their behavioural stage in terms of SFSC engagement: Unaware Unengaged, Aware Unengaged, Motivationally Engaged and Executively Engaged. Unaware Unengaged and Aware Unengaged are in the non-engagement phase of behaviour. Motivationally Engaged are motivationally activated to engage in the behaviour but fail to do so consistently. Executively Engaged is the fully engaged cluster, being motivated to act and purchasing local food on a frequent basis. The results show an interesting interplay between motivations and barriers, i.e. higher scores for motivations and lower scores for barriers do not necessarily translate into higher purchase frequency.

The research gleans insights into the contextual factors that may inhibit SFSC purchases in different consumer segments. It offers practical implications for policymakers and others seeking to develop SFSCs as part of a sustainable food system.

This article draws upon our perspective as academic-practitioners working in the fields of food insecurity, food systems, and inequality to comment, in the early stages of the pandemic and associated lockdown, on the empirical and ethical implications of COVID-19 for socio-economic inequalities in access to food in the UK. The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the profound insecurity of large segments of the UK population, an insecurity itself the product of a decade of “austerity” policies. Increased unemployment, reduced hours, and enforced self-isolation for multiple vulnerable groups is likely to lead to an increase in UK food insecurity, exacerbating diet-related health inequalities. The social and economic crisis associated with the pandemic has exposed the fragility of the system of food charity which, at present, is a key response to growing poverty. A vulnerable food system, with just-in-time supply chains, has been challenged by stockpiling. Resultant food supply issues at food banks, alongside rapidly increasing demand and reduced volunteer numbers, has undermined many food charities, especially independent food banks. In the light of this analysis, we make a series of recommendations. We call for an immediate end to the five week wait for Universal Credit and cash grants for low income households. We ask central and local government to recognise that many food aid providers are already at capacity and unable to adopt additional responsibilities. The government's – significant – response to the economic crisis associated with COVID-19 has underscored a key principle: it is the government's responsibility to protect population health, to guarantee household incomes, and to safeguard the economy. Millions of households were in poverty before the pandemic, and millions more will be so unless the government continues to protect household incomes through policy change.

Over the last five years, N8 AgriFood has united the expertise of food systems thinkers across the eight most research intensive universities in the North of England, in a programme working to address key issues around food systems resilience across the themes of food production, supply chains and consumer health. As the programme moves towards focusing the results of its research and combined multidisciplinary expertise into policy guidance, the authors of this paper from within N8 AgriFood take an overview of the work undertaken across the programme's eight member institutions. It explores work around linking communities to food, and the vital potential of the research to inform new policy that encapsulates societal sustainability into food systems thinking.

Urban community gardens (UCGs) are important sources of community, food and greenspaces in urban environments. Though UCGs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) of Ontario, Canada, were considered essential during the COVID-19 lockdowns and therefore open to gardeners, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security and UCG use among garden members and managers is not fully understood.

This was an exploratory qualitative study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven managers and eight members of nine gardens in the GTA. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

The results suggest that UCGs helped participants be resilient to COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors through the provision of cultural ecosystem services. Therefore, this study supports the current literature that UCGs can help foster resilience during crises. While participants in this study did not end up being food insecure, participants did express concern about community food security.

Results contribute to the current body of literature, and can be used to further update and develop UCG policies, as well as help develop UCG infrastructure and management strategies for future crises.

The impacts of the pandemic on Canadian UCGs are not well understood. This research paper investigated the impact of the pandemic on UCG use and food security, as well as the link between UCG use and increased resilience to COVID-19-related stressors.

Online food delivery has been prevalent in recent years worldwide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and people's consumption behaviors have changed significantly. This study aims to investigate the consumption behavior of young adults using online food delivery platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on the dominant factors influencing their decision to use online food delivery platforms.

Semi-structured interviews including 14 young adults aged 18–25 living in Hong Kong were conducted to collect data about their perspectives on online food delivery platforms in five areas. This research adopted the stimulus-organism-response model (S-O-R model) to analyze how the factors influence young adult users' loyalty and satisfaction with online food delivery platforms.

Thematic analyses revealed that young adults were attracted to online food delivery platforms for their numerous benefits. They had a high frequency of usage and significant spending. Usability, usefulness, satisfaction and loyalty influenced young adults' behaviors on online food delivery platforms. Participants were overall satisfied with their experiences, but platforms still had room for improvement.

Few prior studies investigated the factors affecting the consumer experience and behavioral intention of online food delivery for young adults in Asia. This study contributes to understanding young adults' experiences and problems with online food delivery platforms. It provides practical insights for system engineers and designers to improve the current services and for the governments to enhance the existing regulatory loopholes.

University students are a unique population with great potential to adopt eating habits that promote positive human and planetary health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the current perceptions of sustainable eating behaviours among the students and to examine the determinants of sustainable eating behaviours.

Data were collected from December 2020 to May 2021 through focus group discussions among university students in Ontario, facilitated through synchronous online sessions. There were 21 student participants during the course of five focus group sessions (4–5 participants per session) from various departments within the university. The discussions were transcribed and analyzed for main themes and concepts using open coding; deductive coding based on the framework by Deliens et al. as well as the literature; and inductive coding for emerging themes.

The students had different perceptions about what constituted sustainable eating behaviours, some of which were not based on fact. A variety of individual, environmental (macro, micro and social) and university characteristics were mentioned as factors influencing sustainable food choices, with “food literacy” and “campus food” being the top two factors.

This study presents a novel and holistic overview of how sustainable eating behaviours and sustainable foods are perceived among university students and identifies the perceived determinants of adopting sustainable eating behaviours. This study helps with identifying opportunities to promote sustainable eating behaviours among university students and the design/implementation of informed interventions and policies aimed at improving eating behaviours.

This study aims to explore the impact of store atmospherics on urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers’ behavioural intentions to purchase apparel in an emerging African market context. This study also considers purchase antecedents to attitude, perceived behavioural control and social norms as determinants of urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers’ apparel behavioural intentions.

Using non-probability sampling, specifically purposive and interlocking sampling, data collection was secured from 881 economically active Namibian urban bottom-of-the-pyramid respondents through interviewer-administered questionnaires. Covariance-based structural equation modelling assessed the significant relationships among all constructs in the conceptual model.

This study found that for favourable apparel behavioural intentions of urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers to occur, apparel retailers should emphasise trust, perceived awareness and self-identity through apparel assortment and groupings, easy-to-read visible signage, together with competent, friendly and respectful sales personnel in their store atmospherics.

The findings of this study may guide apparel retailers in other emerging African markets to develop regional integration, market-based solutions and inclusive economic growth focusing on “non-essential” products, such as apparel, among urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers.

This study expands the intellectual boundaries of urban bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers’ behavioural intentions towards “non-essential” products. The theoretical framework supports the integration of both the stimulus-organism-response model and the theory of planned behaviour into one single model for empirical investigation. Additionally, adopting a novel theoretical framework helped identify the impact of store atmospherics from a bottom-of-the-pyramid perspective in an emerging African market context, such as Namibia.