Catering for sustainability: building a dialogue on organic milk

Summary

As an industrialised high quality food commodity, organic milk would present a reliable option to feature catering for sustainability. However, its use in schools, hospitals and workplaces is minimal in Finland at the moment. To boost perspective taking on organic milk among caterers, a co-developmental dialogue in terms of organic milk was employed by researchers and practitioners. The first turn of the dialogue was taken by the researcher who invited the caterers to focus on organic milk; the second was offered by practitioners, who dislosed their views about organic milk in individual interviews and focus group discussions. The third turn was taken by the researcher, who shared information with caterers about their issues and suggested the test use of organic milk. As the fourth turn of the dialogue the caterers responded to the researcher by their chosen practices for the (test) use of organic milk. The dialogue as a participatory research method seemed to offer new ways to promote catering for sustainability.