Study title

The study used an ethnographic methodological approach, drawing on a number of methods, including 'go-along' tours of the participant's kitchen and accompanied trips to places where food was acquired, eg supermarkets, allotments and lunch clubs. The ways that vulnerability linked to the food system might operate for different groups of older people is not straightforward but a framework for assessing different domains of vulnerability - exposure, threats, coping capacities and outcomes is proposed. Trust is thought to be an integral part of relationship building between actors in the food system and consumers are increasingly being viewed as having an active role in the trust relationship. It is unclear whether and how civil society actors within the food system undertake to build and market trust or whether the mechanisms by which trust operates or is perceived by consumers is different when the commercial sector is not involved. Assessing older people's own views on trust and their experience of different actors at the point that food is acquired is therefore important.Like the rest of the developing world the UK is experiencing demographic change. There are currently 10.8 million people aged 65 or over in the UK and over 1.4 million are aged 85 or over. The numbers of centenarians has nearly quadrupled since 1981, from 2,600 to over 12,000 in 2010. The number of people aged 60+ is expected to be more than 20 million in the UK by 2031 and the number of individuals aged over 85 years is predicted to double in the next 20 years and nearly treble in the next 30 (Age UK 2013). A significant minority of older people have ongoing health conditions and for those aged over 85 up to two thirds has a disability or limiting long term illness. Two thirds of NHS clients are aged 65 and over (Philip 2007). Such statistics and demographic shifts highlight that addressing when, how and why older people might become vulnerable through the food that they eat should be a...