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Co-Creating Sustainable Food Systems
  • ISSN: 2056-6522
  • E-ISSN: 2056-6530
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Abstract

The food system in Vietnam is changing whilst the middle class is growing. Agri-food smallholders have the strengths of responding to the changing needs of the middle class by offering freshness, proximity and convenience but they also face increasing competition from larger and international firms. At the same time, issues with food safety are prevalent and a rising concern among consumers. For this study we completed sixteen co-creation workshops between local agri-food smallholders and consumers. The goal of these workshops was to explore the value of participatory processes, non-hierarchical decision making and creativity for smallholder firms in Vietnam through co-creation workshops focused on sustainability. The outcomes show that the workshops can stimulate customer understanding and participatory processes among the smallholder businesses, but creativity in the form of novel ideas less so. The workshops did not result in directly feasible or manageable product and service concepts. The topic of sustainable food opened a dialogue: insights between the firms and customers on this topic were mutually rich. The outcomes suggest that co-creation workshops can create a sense of community and urgency for sustainability. In the future, the challenge for smallholders is to invest in participatory processes with a long-term view on sustainability as well as come to practical design outcomes on the short term.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • EU SWITCH-Asia Program
  • GetGreen Vietnam project
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows users to copy, distribute and transmit the article as long as the author is attributed, the article is not used for commercial purposes, and the work is not modified or adapted in any way. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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2023-04-17
2025-06-17
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/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00056_1
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Exploring co-creation with agri-food smallholders in Vietnam
International Journal of Food Design 8, 155 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1386/ijfd_00056_1
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00056_1
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00056_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): co-design; food; local knowledge; participatory design; sustainable consumption; transitions; urban middle class

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