The French National Agency for Research (Agence Nationale de la Recherche - ANR) has selected and financed 7 projects within the framework of the 2011 ALID programme (Systèmes Alimentaires Durables – Sustainable Food Systems).

Among these, the DIACODD programme (Distribution Alimentaire, Consommateurs et Développement Durable – Food Distribution, Consumers and Sustainable Development) is aimed at analysing the distributors/consumers interrelation and at conceptualising and measuring its influence on the growth of demand in sustainable food (Cf. the programme on the ANR site).

DIACODD is a collaborative four-year project involving the following schools and universities:The University of Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), Rennes University (Université Rennes 1), the Lyon School of Management (ESDES - Ecole de Management de Lyon) and AgroParisTech (Institut des sciences et industries du vivant et de l’environnement – Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Studies).

One of the questions this project seeks to answer concerns the capacity of current measurement tools to capture consumer responses to propositions relating to sustainable development.The fear is that in this area social desirability may generate a considerable bias in responses.

A partnership between AgroParisTech and Repères has therefore been added to this programme:the aim will be to develop and if possible patent a non-verbal tool for measuring perceptions of conceptual stimuli.

The ANR funding will enable us to conduct different experiments and to employ a PhD student for this programme.

This research perfectly complements the research already conducted by Repères in the field of sniff-tests and taste tests. 

To be continued…

Contacts: 

For AgroParisTech : Patricia Gurviez

For Repères:François Abiven and Franck Saunier