Author: Ellen Wynn
Wynn, Ellen, 2025 “It’s essential, and it’s expensive”: investigating Australian households’ everyday experiences of fruit and vegetable procurement, Flinders University, College of Medicine and Public Health
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Fruit and vegetable consumption is important for health and sustainability outcomes. Less than 5% of Australian people consume the recommended daily intake for both fruit and vegetables. Interventions in Australia have not successfully increased fruit and vegetable consumption over the long-term. As such, new approaches to fruit and vegetable research, policy and promotion are needed. In recent years, fruit and vegetable procurement has been identified as a potentially important social practice that determines how food is consumed in domestic settings. However, there is a paucity of research investigating this in Australia. Furthermore, food retail environments and life course events and experiences, are known to influence how foods are used in domestic settings, but research specific to fruit and vegetables, and the Australian context, is lacking. This thesis addresses these research gaps by exploring how Australian people understand and experience fruit and vegetable use, focussing on the practice of procurement, and considering how food retail environments and life course factors influence this.
The thesis starts with a preface, detailing my relationship with the research topic, and the resulting thesis content. Following this, I preset a scoping review of Australian peoples’ perceptions of fruit and vegetable characteristics, and evidence summaries about the influence of food retail environments and life course events and experiences on fruit and vegetable use. A novel research methodology, aligning with constructivist epistemology and interpretivist theoretical perspectives was developed to address the three research aims, which were developed based on findings from the literature review. A case study research project was designed, including four individual phases of data collection which incorporated multiple methods of data collection from ethnography and food systems research. Participants were conveniently recruited in Queensland and Western Australia. Data were analysed inductively in the first instance using Braun & Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis, followed by post-hoc application of social practice theory and life course perspectives.
Twelve households participated, consisting of 18 individuals. Findings showed that participants devalued fruit and vegetables compared to other foods. Their experiences in food retail environments conditioned their expectations for future fruit and vegetable procurement, which had implications for fruit and vegetable use more broadly. Negative and positive experiences with fruit and vegetable procurement influenced participants’ motivation to use fruit and vegetables, impacting how they performed fruit and vegetable planning, storing, preparation, and eating practices. Exploring the practices that lead to fruit and vegetable consumption through a novel methodology highlighted the complex and multifaceted ways in which Australian people understand and experience fruit and vegetable use.
These findings contributed to the development of a theory explaining how food retail environments impact fruit and vegetable use, highlighting the novel contribution of the research to this field of research. Furthermore, findings suggest that increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is not as simple as telling people to ‘eat more’. Considering fruit and vegetable use through the lens of social practice theory provided insight into how fruit and vegetable policy and promotions can be enhanced to achieve better outcomes for the Australian population. As such, the thesis concludes with a discussion of key recommendations for future research, policy and practice, based on the research findings. These recommendations include: shifting public health messaging about fruit and vegetables from health-related concepts towards hedonic attributes; increasing the quality of fruit and vegetables available for procurement in Australian supermarkets; educating the Australian public about what can realistically be expected of fresh fruit and vegetables procured from Australian food retail environments; and enforcing healthy supermarket retail practices through government policy and action, among others.
Keywords: Fruit and vegetables, health promotion, social practice theory, constructivism, qualitative research, procurement
Subject: Nutrition and Dietetics thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2025
School: College of Medicine and Public Health
Supervisor: Annabelle Wilson