Food Sharing Governance in European Cities: Insights from a Scoping Review

Food sharing initiatives are expanding rapidly in urban areas, offering new opportunities to shape more sustainable urban food systems through collaborative efforts. These initiatives encompass practices conducted by formal or informal organisations collaborating in growing, cooking, eating, or distributing food as well as sharing food-related skills, knowledge, spaces, and/or tools. Food-sharing initiatives are influenced by internal and external governance dynamics that shape their capacity to deliver different types of benefits. This paper presents a scoping review in order to understand the current knowledge of food sharing governance in Europe and reveal the governance elements that play a role in promoting or hindering the expansion and impact of food sharing initiatives. Our research includes both a quantitative and a qualitative analyses: the quantitative assessments of existing literature highlights areas for further investigation, while the qualitative analysis enhances comprehension of the benefits food sharing initiatives entail, and the barriers and enablers they encounter. The analysis of the literature informs the development of a new framework for categorizing internal and external elements of food-sharing governance across nine dimensions: structural factors, regulation, resources, discourses, relations (including power relations), participation, knowledge, internal organisation, and actors. We conclude by highlighting the need to avoid idealistic views and thoroughly evaluate these initiatives within their specific contexts while recognising their potential to transform the food system and create the mechanisms to maximise their benefits.