Sara is mainly teaching at the programmes in horticultural science, at bachelor´s as well as master´s level.
Programme Director of Studies – Master programme in Horticultural Science
Sara has a great interest in consumer behavior, and especially sustainable human food consumption, with a focus on fruit and vegetables and how changing consumption patterns towards a more vegetable based diet could decrease GHG emissions.
Recent and ongoing reasearch areas cover innovation, product development and communication. Additonal areas that have been explored include how complex concepts, such as climate mitigating information can be successfully communicated, through combining knowledge and understanding, taking in to consideration the great difference in knowledge levels and motives between consumers.
Current projects:
Innovation systems for a sustainable agri-food sector - a review and knowledge synthesis (Formas).
Plant breeding in Horticultural Field Crop Production (Växtförädling i hortikulturell frilandsodling), project leader (Grogrund).
Development of marketing concepts for Swedish-grown nursery plants for the Swedish consumer market, project leader.
PhD in Agriculture, Horticultural Science, especially Business Administration, 2016-05-13.
Dissertation: “Climate mitigating information to consumers by food retailers – the case of vegetables”, Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae 2016:38
Supervise students on bachelors´s as well as master´s level.
Spendrup, S., Röös, E. & Schütt, E. (2017). Evaluating consumer understanding of the Swedish meat guide – a multi-layered environmental information tool communicating trade-offs when choosing food. Environmental Communication, 1-17.
Spendrup, S., Hunter, E., & Isgren, E. (2016). Exploring the relationship between nature sounds, connectedness to nature, mood and willingness to buy sustainable food: A retail field experiment. Appetite, 100, 133-141.
Fernqvist, F., Olsson, A., & Spendrup, S. (2015). What’s in it for me? Food packaging and consumer responses, a focus group study. British Food Journal, 117(3):1122-1135.
Ekelund, L., Hunter, E., Spendrup, S., & Tjärnemo, H. (2014). Communicating GHG mitigating food consumption in-store: An observational study of food retailers in five European countries. British Food Journal, 116(10), 1618-1635.
Fernqvist, F., Ekelund, L. and Spendrup, S. (2015). Changing consumer intake of potato – a focus group study, British Food Journal117(1):210-221.
Ekelund Axelson, L., Hunter, E., Röös, E., Spendrup, S., Tjärnemo, H., Schütt, E., & Södahl, L. (2015). Klimatmärkt livsmedelsbutik. Så kan handeln bidra till minskad klimatpåverkan genom att underlätta konsumentens val. LTV-Fakulteten. Rapport 2015:6 Alnarp.