Motivations, drivers and barriers for responsible innovation in the Dutch food sector: the influence of a healthy food logo on the innovation agenda for healthy food

One of the grand challenges of our time can be found in lifestyle related diseases like obesity, heart diseases and Diabetes type 2. Over the years, the food industry increasingly acknowledged their role in the prevention and mitigation of these diseases. In this multidisciplinary project, researchers will collaborate with representatives of a healthy food logo and food companies in the Netherlands in order to identify the motivation of companies to innovate responsibly and to identify and evaluate socio-ethical and economic drivers and barriers to invest and participate in innovations for healthy food. PhD 1 will study the motivations, socio-ethical and economic drivers and barriers of responsible innovation on the food company level, and the role of healthy food logos as a driver for companies to invest in innovations for healthy food. PhD 2 will study the innovation cycle of specific food products on the food product level in order to identify the motivations, drivers and barriers behind particular product improvements. By analysing the innovation cycle of particular food products, we are able to analyse the influence of criteria of healthy food logos on actual product innovations as well as the dynamics behind actual product innovations due to influencing factors. These empirical studies are accompanied by a normative analysis of the idea of industrial responsible innovation to promote public health. We focus on what conception of responsibility for food companies is reasonable, given that many different stakeholders have responsibility (not in the least the consumer themselves) for preventing food-related lifestyle diseases.