Shaping Food Environments in Transitioning Economies
Dietary habits are changing dramatically in emerging economies. In this project, we are studying the food environment in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia and developing solutions to make it healthier and more sustainable.
The team collected socio-demographic and health data, as well as spatial data on personal and external food environments, in Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa and Tanzania. Here are some impressions from the field research.
24-25 August 2026
Registration deadline: 30 June 2026
More information:
Dr. Wendy Geza: gezaw@ukzn.ac.za
Dr. Cuthbert Taguta: TagutaC@ukzn.ac.za
Registration for…
The last few weeks have been really busy! While the Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) was taking place at the University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM), we held our annual FETE workshop from 18 to 20 August 2025 in Kuala Lumpur and attended the International Symposium on Food Environments from 21 to…
The project in a nutshell
interdisciplinary ● participatory ● multicultural
FETE stands for "Shaping food environments in transitioning economies for sustainable and healthy diets".
Officially launched in 2023, the project aims to understand the key drivers of eating habits and trends in production and consumption to answer the question "How can we shape food environments to promote nutritious diets and improve health?
The project is coordinated by the Thünen Institute, Germany.
- Four study countries
We study the external and personal food environments as well as the policy framework in Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa and Tansania.
- Target group: urban deprived communities
Our focus is on urban deprived areas.
- Reference model for the global South
Based on cross-country analyses, we develop a reference model for the Global South.
- Capacity building
A core element of the FETE project is an interdisciplinary training programme for doctoral students.
Research Consortium
