DISHED: co-Designing innovative Infrastructure for Sustainable Healthy & Equitable Diets

Deprived households with children (HHWC) face enormous challenges in accessing a healthy, sustainable diet. Myriad factors drive them to consume high levels of unhealthy convenience foods, and both children and parents in these households experience worse physical and mental health outcomes than the general public as a result. The Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have expanded and deepened these dietary inequalities. Evidence indicates that ‘public restaurants’ (PRs), state-subsidised eateries which offer universal access to nutritious, sustainable foods, could provide a viable alternative to unhealthy convenience foods. They address the barriers to healthy eating experienced by deprived HHWC such as lack of time, funds, and cooking facilities. They can be co-designed to fulfil the social functions of food, including dignity, cultural meaning and enjoyment. PRs were essential for improving diets in wartime Britain and are today a cornerstone public health intervention in many countries where they have also supported more sustainable food systems through public procurement. In the cities of Nottingham and Dundee, local authorities, public health teams and charities have identified the potential for PRs to address high levels of dietary inequality. Yet there are significant gaps in knowledge about the different models of PRs and how they could be effectively implemented in UK contexts today. Additionally, to ensure that PRs address the needs of deprived HHWC, more knowledge is needed about how the drivers of unhealthy convenience food consumption vary amongst deprived HHWC, depending on the ages and number of children within the household, and how this may be influenced by factors such as gender, ethnicity, disability, religion and location. DISHED (co-Designing innovative Infrastructure for Sustainable, Healthy & Equitable Diets) seeks to inform the design and delivery of government policy and third-sector interventions to increase the accessibility and affordability of healthy, sustainable food for deprived HHWC in Dundee, Nottingham and across the UK, contributing to improved dietary health and wellbeing outcomes. It will do this by addressing essential knowledge gaps about the drivers of and an alternative to unhealthy convenience food consumption amongst this group. Specifically, DISHED (1) combines quantitative public health nutrition research on the diets and health outcomes of different types of deprived HHWC with participatory, qualitative insights to identify the unique needs and experiences of these groups. DISHED (2) pioneers new international and historical research and learning about PR models. Building on this, the project (3) pilots and evaluates two PRs in Dundee and Nottingham using a participatory co-design process and supporting the development of local, ecological supply chains. DISHED additionally strengthens networks and capacities of actors working to address dietary inequalities in Dundee and Nottingham and nationally in Scotland, England and the UK. It achieves this by anchoring the research and innovation process in city-level and national-level ‘Transformation Labs’ (T-Labs), which will enable a diversity of stakeholders to collectively shape and respond to the research and innovation to ensure long-term impacts. The DISHED team is co-led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (PL Wach, Constantine) and Nourish Scotland (Chworow), two world-leading organisations in participatory, inclusive processes for greater food equity and more sustainable food systems. The team also includes world class researchers in nutritional health biosciences (PcL Welham, RcL Thomas, University of Nottingham), critical race feminist food studies (PcL Swan, University of Sussex) and social eating initiatives (PcL Smith, University of Coventry).