Thought for Food: Essential Skills and Food System Performance

1. Thought for Food: Essential Skills and Food System Performance University of Saskatchewan University of Regina University of Victoria Saskatoon Co-operative Association CHEP Good Food Inc.

2. Introduction/Overview Michael Gertler, PhD, Centre for the Study of Co-operatives/Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan

3. Research Team Schema ES EDUCATION COMMUNITY PARTNERS Saskatoon Co-op CHEP SOCIOLOGY • Nutrition Coordinator Study • Soy Food Study • Baking Study • Breast Feeding Study • Food Quality Study • Multi-Generational Food Knowledge & Skills Study NUTRITION

4. Research Team • Faculty • A.Blunt, M.Gertler, C. Henry, J.Jaffe, S.Whiting • Carol Vandale – Assistant Researcher • Community partners: • Karen Archibald – CHEP Good Food Inc • Collin Merritt – Saskatoon Co-op • Graduate Students: • Lori Evert • Elisabeth Lo • Paula Negraes • Flo Woods • Timothy Zagozewski

5. Food Sector Actors • Frontline workers (& managers) in a Co-op supermarket • Bakers in industrial, in-store, small commercial, and artisan bakeries • Consumers/shoppers purchasing soy products/functional foods • Volunteer and part-time workers in school breakfast/lunch programs • Women involved with home cooking (three generations study) • Breastfeeding mothers

6. Some Relevant Food Skills • Reading/decoding/interpreting labels/recipes • Assessing multiple dimensions of quality/value • Analyzing food system impacts of purchase/ consumption decisions • Developing/deploying nutritional literacy • Breastfeeding (with confidence/competence) • Cooking and baking • Understanding cultural & social uses of food

7. Food System Performance • Population nutritional and health status • Viability of food sector (commercial and alternative) enterprises • Capacities/knowledge of domestic, commercial, social economy food purveyors • Food security, especially of vulnerable populations • Ecological and economic costs of provisioning activities

8. Changing Food System Contexts • Industrialization of primary production, processing, manufacturing • Focus on food retailing, restaurant/fast food sector, food services/brokers • Increased role of institutional food providers: hospitals, prisons, military, schools, food banks… • Chemical, biotechnological revolutions combined with health/medical complexities increase knowledge needs for “informed” consumption

9. Shifting Landscapes for Nutrition Coordinators Carol Vandale, MEd, University of Saskatchewan

10. Research Partners Breakfast for Learning Canadian Living Foundation Community-University Institute for Social Research Breakfast/Snack Programs in Saskatchewan Elementary Schools: Benefits, Barriers, & Essential Skills Thought for Food Essential Skills Research Team CHEP Good Food Inc.

11. ES Component of Study • ES research questions: • What ES are needed by nutrition coordinators to deliver the breakfast/snack programs? • What are the roles of community-based partnerships associated with these programs? • Research sample: • Interviewed 17 Nutrition Coordinators – 5 Educational Assistants (EA) and 12 Volunteer Nutrition Coordinators (VNC)

12. Volunteer Nutrition Coordinators • Predominantly limited to Saskatoon • Paid an honorarum • No standard job descriptions, roles, or responsibilities • Educational levels vary greatly • VNCs expressed interest in having their work incorporate more educational programming

13. Nutritional Educational Assistants • Saskatchewan training options: • Early Childhood Education Certificate/Diploma • Educational Assistant Certificate/Diploma • No formal nutrition or food preparation training – some health promotion training • EAs interviewed want a specific job description for a Nutritional Educational Assistant with appropriate training and remuneration.

14. CHEP Good Food Inc. • Role - support the Volunteer Nutrition Coordinators • Role is shifting to an emphasis on training and advocacy for VNCs • Current partnerships changing • Challenges

15. CHEP Good Food Inc. and Essential Skills Karen Archibald, MA, Director CHEP Good Food Inc.

16. CHEP Good Food Inc.(formerly Child Hunger and Education Program) CHEP - Working with children, families and communities to achieve solutions to hunger and improve access to good food for all.

17. CHEP & food security • A food security analysis provides the foundation for the policy and program work of the organization. • Saskatoon Food Charter guides development of healthy food system for region • Community based programming includes children’s nutrition (meal) programs, food education programs, collective kitchens, community gardening, senior’s stores, farm links, good food box and others • Participatory and peer leader model – CHEP offers several training programs for community members and seeks to connect participants with opportunities to generate income for family

18. Activities completed • CHEP was a partner in Benefits of Breakfast and Essential Skills study • Exploring the role of Voluntary Sector participants within Essential Skills framework • Study helps identify skills needed for nutrition coordinators • Study informs CHEP in development of strategic directions for children’s programming

19. Activities underway 2006 • We are about to conduct an Essential Skills profiling of nutrition coordinator’s role/occupation • We will be using national ES methodology to develop the profile • Profile will serve as basis for training program for CHEP coordinators and potentially all nutrition coordinators in province

20. Future activities • Use profiling to do a comparison between ES of coordinators in Voluntary Sector with occupations in market sector. • Comparison may enable us to access the employability of the coordinators in voluntary sector • This approach to human resources development within a community may be a new approach to retail training in food sector • Results will enable opportunities for nutrition coordinators to make transition to formal employment such as with the Saskatoon Coop, the Saskatoon School Divisions, and in development of to develop new small businesses,

21. Consumers’ and Retail Food Employees’ Attitudes, Knowledge, and Skills re Soyfoods Paula Negraes, M.Sc.PhD Candidate, University of Saskatchewan

22. Attitudes, Knowledge, and Skills re Soyfoods • Goals: • To understand consumers’ and employees’ perceptions & knowledge • To understand skills needed by consumers and employees to make decisions that influence families’ health

23. Methods • Self-administered Questionnaire & Interviews • 2 Saskatoon Co-op supermarkets (A & B) • shoppers (females,males), >19 years • employees: management & floor staff (purposeful sampling) • Shoppers: 304 participants • Employees: 6 floor staff, 2 management

24. Findings • Consumers: • Need knowledge about soy and cooking • Employees: • Need to understand functional foods to assist shoppers

25. Implications • Label reading • Numeracy for portion sizes, food preparation tips • Oral communication skill • Continuous learning Results confirmed the need for literacy and essential skills for consumers & employees regarding soyfoods, e.g.:

26. (Re)Making Bread: Industrial Technologies and the Skills of Food Industry Workers Tim Zagozewski, MA Candidate, University of Saskatchewan

27. Objectives • A Sociology of Work project in a food context: • Observe changing skills for food system workers • Develop a more nuanced definition of skill • Critique the Essential Skills program • Contribute to sociological literature on Fordist and post-Fordist conceptions of the economy

28. Methods • A case study approach including multiple research sites: • Co-op Food Store - Bakery • Observation • Interviews with food workers/managers • Suppliers: • Federated Co-operative Limited • Industrial bakery supplier • Competitors • McGavin’s Baking Facility

29. Understanding Breastfeeding Discourse and Experiences Lori Evert, MA Candidate, University of Regina

30. Research AIM • Objectives: to understand the everyday experiences of women around breastfeeding, dominant breastfeeding discourse, as well as the conflicts that may arise between the two. • Essential Skills required to breastfeed and teach breastfeeding are changing.

31. Changes in Breastfeeding • Past – learned through apprenticeship • Present – learn through text / discourse • Learn from: LaLeche League, public health nurses, and maternity ward nurses • Recognition of change & conflicts

32. Research Plan • Interviews with mothers • Interviews with breastfeeding educators • Aim to better asses the skills each require Analysis of breastfeeding education literature This research will point to possible policy alternatives that could help both groups obtain necessary ES.

33. Co-op & Essential Skills Study Collin Merritt, Manager, Saskatoon Co-op

34. Co-op & Essential Skills Co-op ES Staff training Findings • Study: • Soy consumption study • Consumers’ perception • on quality Study cites need For support resources: staff

35. Consumers’ Perception of Quality • Quality  important and multidimensional  diverse influences on people during shopping • Goals: • To understand consumers’ perception of quality and willingness to pay • To provide employees with skills to communicate knowledge of quality to consumers • To improve the food quality provided in store

36. Approach to the Study • Involve staff: purchasing, produce managers • Involve customers: quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews • Focus on produce • Food quality criteria: how do staff and customers understand quality? How does the store offer quality? • Communicate quality to consumers

37. Multi-Generational Food Knowledge and Skills Research JoAnn Jaffe, PhD, Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina

38. Theoretical Grounding This research uses a critical realist approach as a basis for understanding knowledge and skill in a western Canadian regional food system, recognizing that they are embedded in a dialectical, hierarchical and differentiated social reality.

39. Critical Approaches to Food Knowledge and Skills Structured by logic of competitive relations of production Structured by logic of social locations and roles, status and identity, resistance and compliance, comfort, sociality, community………

40. The Social Context of Food Knowledge and Skills • The development of agribusiness and the effect of commoditization and deskilling of production • Relations of consumption • Communities of (food) practice • Sites of practices • Expressions of practical knowledge • Food consumption and preparation practices’ relationship to status, solidarity, and identity

41. The Research Plan Semi-structured interviews of successive generations of family cooks Case studies capturing narratives and practices Cluster analysis to identify and describe communities of practice Data evaluation to see how food thinking skills are related to collective food styles.

42. Outcomes of the Research The development and elaboration of a framework for discussing and evaluating food knowledge and skills as central elements in food sovereignty. An assessment of how a critical approach to ES might fit into the development of capacity for the creation of alternatives—individually, within the community, and regionally.

43. Conclusions JoAnn Jaffe, PhD, Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina

44. Food Knowledge and Skills • Knowledge exists and is valorized in specific contexts and through practices • Food knowledge is reflexive • Food, the “intimate commodity,” is essential to multiple dimensions of well- being • Food knowledge advances through a “double movement:” commercial rationality and social resistance

45. Essential Skills • ES approaches may support (or undermine) diverse social projects • Question: How will ES approaches impinge on food system performance, itself a contested and multi-dimensional idea?