Suggestions for future research

7.3 Suggestions for future research

In this chapter we will briefly address issues which were not embraced in our initial research proposal but have been raised during the research project and that could be further addressed.

7.3.1 Discourses on New Nordic Food: the elite vs. everyday people

The strong focus the New Nordic Food project has on chefs, high quality restaurants and gourmet food exclude or shadow the issue of how Nordic and locally produced food can be of relevance to the ―normal‖ Nordic citizen. Those of us who eat at cafés, make dinners at home in a hurry and cannot afford expensive specialty products. One of the examples on how this could be addressed is exemplified by the case Bios C afé which is ―the everyday people‘s café‖, but still tries to use locally produces. How can these ―every day cafes‖ be supported to use more local food? What kind of challenges does one need to address to make e.g. Swedish lunch r estaurants adapt their menus and serve ―local pizzas‖?

7.3.2 A unique Norwegian issue? – Abattoirs for large scale production only?

One issue which was raised in several interviews in the Norwegian cases was the production of meat especially the Norwegian abattoir structure. Several of our informants had strong opinions about this and expressed hope for mobile abattoirs to be put in production. One of the questions raised was how the abattoirs could be organized to be able to deliver smaller quantities of special cut meat, i.e. how small scale and niche food production demands can be met by and industry built for large scale production?

7.3.3 A unique Norwegian policy issue? – Predators and livestock on pasture

The production of sheep meet and goat milk is heavily reliant on use of outfields for grazing. This contributes to the maintenance of the cultivated landscape which is perceived to be important for several reasons; Firstly, the cultural landscape in itself is of value, secondly it contributes to the biodiversity, thirdly it is a utilization of scares resources in a country where mountains and rocks are domination the landscape, fourthly it is recognized as important both for residents and tourist (i.e. the work in the Geirangerfjord area to maintain the cultivated landscape). In addition, the outfields with their diversity of grass, herbs etc provide an ecologic feeding of the livestock which seems to give special attributes to the quality and taste of the meat produced (see research project Arctic mutton )

The sheep livestock is let on these pastures in early summer and is collected during early autumn. This makes them especially vulnerable for predators such as wolf, bear, lynx and glutton (aka wolverine) which are protected species in Norway. The conflict between farmers and environmentalist is quite hot. One of our informants who produce sheep meat of the old Norse sheep type told that he had lost 60% of his lambs and 14 % of his grown-up sheep on outfield grazing in 2008. This is an economic loss but also to no less degree psychological stress for farmers, and numbers from that particular municipality showed an increasingly number of sheep farmers who closed down. For goat milk production the problem is smaller as the (grown up) goats have to be milked and therefore are kept in the stables during night. Albeit this a topic addressed in public debates and in research this is a problem which need to

be further elaborated upon.

7.3.4 The service infrastructure for local culinary experiences

The role of the value-added service providers (e.g. restaurants) should be explored and studied more carefully. This kind of analysis would serve to allocate the resources efficiently and improve the competitiveness of those regions where the proper level and development of service infrastructure is included in the policy programs.