Methodological toolkit for political economy analysis of the food industry.: Using a case study of ultra-processed food in Ghana

Fiorella Picchioni; Sara  Stevano; Christopher Turner; Azindow Iddrisu; Gyinadu  Abubakar; Paul Kwame Nkegbe; Emmanuel  Codjoe

Methodological toolkit for political economy analysis of the food industry. Using a case study of ultra-processed food in Ghana

Fiorella Picchioni, Sara Stevano, Christopher Turner, Azindow Iddrisu, Gyinadu Abubakar, Paul Kwame Nkegbe, Emmanuel Codjoe

Research output: Other contribution

Abstract

This methodological toolkit documents the interdisciplinary, integrated, multi-scalar research approach used in the Political Economy Analysis of the Food Industry (PEAFI) project. The toolkit is designed to support researchers and
practitioners exploring the political economy of food systems. Specifically, it serves two key purposes:
1. It offers a practical guide to the tools, techniques, and conceptual frameworks commonly used to study the political economy of food consumption;
2. It provides a detailed account of how these approaches informed the project’s study design, data collection, and analysis.
Using the rise of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in Ghana as a case study, the toolkit offers selected snapshots from preliminary findings to give readers
a sense of the types of insights the research has generated. The PEAFI methodological toolkit is not a one-size-fits-all manual. Instead, it offers a flexible and reflective roadmap for operationalising the Systems of Provision (SoP) approach (Bayliss and Fine 2020), thinking across different levels of analysis—micro, meso, and macro—while drawing on additional frameworks from food environment and supply chain research. It outlines how specific methods were selected and adapted to local contexts, what challenges were encountered, and how these were navigated in practice.

Original language	English
Type	Technical Report
Media of output	Toolkit
Number of pages	44
Publication status	Published - Jul 2025

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 2 Zero Hunger

Research Groups and Themes

SIMBE
Food Justice Network

Access to Document

https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/52017

Handle.net

Persistent link

Cite this

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title = "Methodological toolkit for political economy analysis of the food industry.: Using a case study of ultra-processed food in Ghana",

abstract = "This methodological toolkit documents the interdisciplinary, integrated, multi-scalar research approach used in the Political Economy Analysis of the Food Industry (PEAFI) project. The toolkit is designed to support researchers and practitioners exploring the political economy of food systems. Specifically, it serves two key purposes: 1. It offers a practical guide to the tools, techniques, and conceptual frameworks commonly used to study the political economy of food consumption; 2. It provides a detailed account of how these approaches informed the project{\textquoteright}s study design, data collection, and analysis. Using the rise of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in Ghana as a case study, the toolkit offers selected snapshots from preliminary findings to give readers a sense of the types of insights the research has generated. The PEAFI methodological toolkit is not a one-size-fits-all manual. Instead, it offers a flexible and reflective roadmap for operationalising the Systems of Provision (SoP) approach (Bayliss and Fine 2020), thinking across different levels of analysis—micro, meso, and macro—while drawing on additional frameworks from food environment and supply chain research. It outlines how specific methods were selected and adapted to local contexts, what challenges were encountered, and how these were navigated in practice.",

author = "Fiorella Picchioni and Sara Stevano and Christopher Turner and Azindow Iddrisu and Gyinadu Abubakar and Nkegbe, \{Paul Kwame\} and Emmanuel Codjoe",

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AU - Iddrisu, Azindow

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AU - Nkegbe, Paul Kwame

AU - Codjoe, Emmanuel

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AB - This methodological toolkit documents the interdisciplinary, integrated, multi-scalar research approach used in the Political Economy Analysis of the Food Industry (PEAFI) project. The toolkit is designed to support researchers and practitioners exploring the political economy of food systems. Specifically, it serves two key purposes: 1. It offers a practical guide to the tools, techniques, and conceptual frameworks commonly used to study the political economy of food consumption; 2. It provides a detailed account of how these approaches informed the project’s study design, data collection, and analysis. Using the rise of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in Ghana as a case study, the toolkit offers selected snapshots from preliminary findings to give readers a sense of the types of insights the research has generated. The PEAFI methodological toolkit is not a one-size-fits-all manual. Instead, it offers a flexible and reflective roadmap for operationalising the Systems of Provision (SoP) approach (Bayliss and Fine 2020), thinking across different levels of analysis—micro, meso, and macro—while drawing on additional frameworks from food environment and supply chain research. It outlines how specific methods were selected and adapted to local contexts, what challenges were encountered, and how these were navigated in practice.

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