Endorsing Sustainable Food Consumption: Prospects from Public Catering

The aim of this article was to analyse an attempt to promote sustainable consumption by shaping the conditions for consumption. In particular, the focus lies on sustainable public catering as an approach to shaping both the supply of and demand for sustainable meals. In order to capture the processes of governing consumption, the way is traced in which rationalities (ways of thinking and calculating), technologies (means and instruments), visibilities (concrete manifestations), and identities (types of agents assumed) related to a policy intervention for sustainable public catering are interpreted and recreated by three main groups of actors involved: policy makers, catering professionals, and consumers. This analysis highlights the active role of practitioners in realizing policies for sustainable consumption. It has implications for policy makers and analysts: Reflexive policies should heed to actors’ unfolding interpretations as they can take the policy process in different directions.