Conclusion research

During the visits to the Spar, Inn de Knip, Ekoplaza, De Steenenplaats and a bakery (see the other articles for a summary about these visits), we gained insights in the values to buy (local) food. The initial research question was: “What are the differences in vision and willingness to provide local food?” During group sessions on the socio-technical system and Texel in 2065, we decided to focus on finding relevant values that determine this vision and willingness.

The first insight we gained is a clear distinction between local, biological and sustainable food (see the figure below). We took for granted that if a product was local, it would also be biological/sustainable, this is however not the case. Local products are not necessarily also biological or sustainable. The focus should be on local products, because this aligns best with the goal of a self-sufficient and autonomous Texel.

Besides that we did see that there was a difference in values for different types of local products, as visualized in the figure below. As shown the types/ways of local products are:

• Local products that go from local to shop to tourist. The “Echt Texels Product” plays a role here. Values from local to shop are mainly economical and commercial, values from the tourists to buy these products are assumed to be nostalgic feelings.
• Local products from local to restaurant/bar (owned by another local), where the “gun”-factor (one gives something to someone else without expecting something back) is an important value. The restaurant/bar sells these products to tourist, who have values of happiness, uniqueness, culinary and leisure. “Texelse Kost” could play a role here.
• Lastly locals give products to each other for own use, the “gun”-factor is an important value here. “Texelse Kost” could also play a role here.

To have a self-sufficient Texel local products are important, we think the focus should be on the products that are interchanged by locals (within the dotted box). For a future design we could think of simplifying the choice for local food, for example with an app or online market place. Another design could introduce the concept of a food box (like Hello Fresh), in which products from Texel are used.