Collaborative co-design for local blue food system transformation: the practicalities and challenges of the UK’s (FoodSEqual) ‘Plymouth Fish Finger’ pilot study

Summary

UK food system transformation is urgently needed but blue foods (e.g. fish) have been only minimally part of this discourse. Informed by community action research in a UK southwest coastal city, fish was identified as a food commodity for food system innovation, leading to local collaborative ‘co-design’ of an iconic British food. The ‘Plymouth Fish Finger’ pilot assessed the practicalities and challenges of this social innovation and its provision into the school meal system. Exploratory creative mixed methods mapped the journey of the fish finger as a social innovation. Methods drew on ‘co-production’ approaches, involving community food researchers, co-design with secondary school students, expert fish/school stakeholder consultations, educational pop-up taste tests in primary schools,