I am Associate Professor in Horticultural Science, with specialisation in Business Administration and I work within the Business Management group at the Department of People and Society. I am engaged in research, education and collaboration activities interlinking business administration, horticulture, food, consumer behaviour, sustainability, and innovation. Ongoing and past research projects have often been carried out within the framework of interdisciplinary research projects and my research has covered qualitative as well as quantitative methods. My research has a focus on consumer attitude and behaviour towards plant-based food, food waste, high-tech horticulture (plant factories, vertical farming and rooftop green-houses) and sustainable food consumption. In addition to this I also work with the development of domestic cultivation of cut-flowers, with a special focus on the emerging system, business models and values delivered.
I am a member of the Steering group SLU Food lab Alnarp and since 2017 I am Deputy Head of Department at the Department of People and Society, Alnarp, SLU.
My main teaching activities are within the MSc programmes "Horticultural science", "Sustainable Food Systems" and "Agroecology".
FORMAS - Follow the food: Waste reducing retail actions; what happens when the food reaches the consumer? 2023-2026.
IDA- Interdisciplinary Academy, SLU, Food production and food security through agritecture: Interdisciplinary group on rooftop greenhouse technology, Oct 2023-June 2024.
Region Skåne – Cirkular Food Systems, 2022-2024.
Formas (Swedish government research council for sustainable development)– Nutritious, tasty and health-promoting novel wheat products, 2022-2025.
SLF-Stiftelsen Lantbruksforskning. A stronger supply chain for plant based food in Östergötland, 2023-2025.
European Union. EIP-Nobalis (Nordic Baltic Universities boosting entrepreneurial and innovation support systems), 2022-2024.
Horticultural food production systems as a driving force supporting resilient urban transformations. LTV faculty - Interdisciplinary power-gathering catalyst project (project leader 2021-2022).
LTV Växtprotein – Från produktion till konsument och innovationer. LTV faculty - Interdisciplinary power-gathering catalyst project (project participant 2021-2022).
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, 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.
Plant breeding in Horticultural Field Crop Production (Växtförädling i hortikulturell frilandsodling), project leader, Grogrund, 2018-2019
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.
Spendrup, S., Bergstrand, K. J., Thörning, R., & Hultberg, M. (2023). Consumer attitudes towards hydroponic cultivation of vegetables–Specifically exploring the impact of the fertilisation strategy (using mineral origin or food waste as fertilisers). Food Quality and Preference, 105085.
Wendin, K., Pálsdóttir, A. M., Spendrup, S., & Mårtensson, L. (2023). Odor Perception and Descriptions of Rose-Scented Geranium Pelargonium graveolens ‘Dr. Westerlund’–Sensory and Chemical Analyses. Molecules, 28(11), 4511.
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.