Mainly teaching at the MSc programmes "Horticultural science", "Sustainable Food Systems" and "Agroecology".
Research areas cover consumer behaviour, and especially sustainable 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.
Coordinator for SLU Horticulture, a department-wide collaboration at the Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production Science.
Member of the Steering group SLU Food lab Alnarp
Deputy Head of Department, Department of People and Society, Alnarp, SLU
Current projects:
Sara Spendrup, Karl-Johan Bergstrand, Gun Hagström, Anna Levinsson, Susanna Lundqvist, Lars Mogren, Anna Karin Rosberg, Paul Becher Horticultural food production systems as a driving force supporting resilient urban transformations. LTV faculty - Interdisciplinary power-gathering catalyst project (project leader 2021-2022).
Eva Johansson, Thomas Prade, Sven-Erik Svensson, Georg Carlsson, Åsa Grimberg, Bill Newson, Sara Spendrup, Kristina Santén. LTV Växtprotein – Från produktion till konsument och innovationer. LTV faculty - Interdisciplinary power-gathering catalyst project (project participant 2021-2022).
Ingrid Sarlöv Herlin, Anna Peterson, Fredrik Fernqvist, Sara Spendrup, Oleksiy Guzhva. Betydelsen av digital teknik och korta livsmedelskedjor för stadsnära matproduktion, för gynnande av hållbara produktionssystem, multipla landskapsvärden och fler människors tillgång till lokalt odlad mat. LTV faculty - Interdisciplinary power-gathering catalyst project (project participant 2021-2022).
Sustainable food systems and consumer food choice – Knowledge and implications for industry, research and policy (Hållbara livsmedelssystem och konsumenters matval – Kunskap och praktiksa tillämpningar för livsmedelsbransch, forskning och policy FORMAS (Swedish government research council for sustainable development) (Project leader) 2021-04-30 to 2022-06-30.
Food waste to new food in an urban context - production, risk assessment and consumer acceptance (project leader Malin Hultberg, Department for Biosystems and Technology, SLU, Alnarp, funded by Formas 2018-2021)
Products based on protein rich crops – demands and possibilities (Produkter baserade på proteinrika grödor: behov och möjligheter), Grogrund – Centre for Breeding of Food Crops, (Helena Persson Hovmalm, VF project leader), 2019-08-01 to 2021-02-28.
Innovation systems for a sustainable agri-food sector - a review and knowledge synthesis (Project leader Fredrik Fernqvist, Department of Work Science, Business Economics and Environmental Psychology, Alnarp, SLU, funded by Formas, 2018).
Plant breeding in Horticultural Field Crop Production (Växtförädling i hortikulturell frilandsodling), project leader, Grogrund, 2018-2019
Development of marketing concepts for Swedish-grown nursery plants for the Swedish consumer market, project leader, 2018
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.
Thörning, R., Ahlklo, Å. K., & Spendrup, S. (2022). The Slow Flower Movement–exploring alternative sustainable cut-flower production in a Swedish context. Heliyon, e11086.
Spendrup, S., & Hovmalm, H. P. (2022). Consumer attitudes and beliefs towards plant-based food in different degrees of processing–The case of Sweden. Food Quality and Preference, 102, 104673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2022.104673
Drottberger, A., Bergstrand, K.J., Fernqvist, F. and Spendrup, S. (2022). Adoption of technological innovations in production of leafy vegetables in Sweden. European Journal of Horticultural Science. 87 (4) 1-11, DOI: https://doi.org/10.17660/ejhs.2022/045
Pálsdóttir, A.M., Spendrup, S., Mårtensson, L. & Wendin, K. (2021). Garden smellscape – Experiences of plant scents in a nature-based intervention. Frontiers in Psychology – Environmental Psychology, 12:667957, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.667957.
Spendrup, S., Eriksson, D. & Fernqvist, F. (2021). Swedish consumers´ attitudes and values to genetic modification and conventional plant breeding – The case of fruit and vegetables. GM Crops & Food, 12:1, 342-360, DOI: 10.1080/21645698.2021.1921544
Spendrup, S., Fernqvist, F., Ramestam, L., Eriksson, D., Anflo, E., Söderlind, M., ... & Jonson, C. (2020). Växtförädling i hortikulturell frilandsodling-SLU Grogrund (No. 2020: 2).
Spendrup, S. and Fernqvist, F. (2019). Innovation in Agri-food Systems – A Systematic Mapping of the Literature. International Journal on Food system Dynamics, 402-427.
Anflo, E., Eriksson, D., Fernqvist, F., Ramestam, L. & Spendrup, S. (2018). Växtförädling i hortikulturell frilandsodling. Sveriges utsädesförenings tidskrift. Årgång 130, 2018, Nr 2.
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.