Policy Lab for Economic Policy Instruments – An exploration

Important results from the project

The project has mapped international experiences with economic instruments, conducted a nationally representative consumer survey and brought together the food industry in interviews and workshops. The results show that there is a greater openness to exploring economic instruments for food than is often apparent in the debate. The project resulted in a final report with three policy recommendations and has had an impact through seminars, policy-maker dialogues and PR.

Expected long term effects

The project is expected to contribute to a more knowledge-based discussion on how economic instruments for food can be used to promote healthy and sustainable food consumption. The results can form the basis for future investigations, pilot projects and policy development. The project has also strengthened the collaboration between actors from business, research and civil society.

Approach and implementation

The project was carried out in four stages: strategic analysis, consumer research, industry dialogue and communication and knowledge dissemination. The work combined research, international experiences and dialogue with actors from the food chain, primarily food companies and grocery retailers. Gathering commercial actors around concrete policy proposals proved more time-consuming than planned, but the project was able to largely follow the schedule.