Designing for Equity: Reimagining Food Systems with Lucy Flores

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:24:05
Gerry
Hey folks, and welcome to another episode of this Is SCD, where we explore the intersection of design and food systems with Lucy Flores, a seasoned design strategist whose expertise sheds light on how complexities of how we grow, distribute and experience food. Together, we delve into innovative solutions and transformative ideas shaping the future of food. As well, as usual, a good dose of humor along the way.

00:00:24:05 - 00:00:37:18
Gerry
Lucy was a fantastic episode, and I know you're going to enjoy it. Let's jump straight in.

00:00:37:19 - 00:00:59:04
Gerry
Lucy. I'm delighted to speak with you. My good friend Rachel Deeks and, future podcast talent scout, as I'm referring to Rachel on WhatsApp calls these days, has introduced us. But we'll start off maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, what you what you do and where you're from.

00:00:59:06 - 00:01:13:19
Lucy Flores
Yes. So I well, I'm from California originally, but I still main and I am a design strategist that is dedicated to advancing equity in the food system.

00:01:13:21 - 00:01:21:12
Gerry
well, okay, so equity in the food system. You're at a dinner party. What do you mean by that?

00:01:21:14 - 00:01:27:18
Lucy Flores
That's a really good question that I get asked all the time. so the designer piece or equity in the food system is.

00:01:27:20 - 00:01:30:15
Gerry
the, the equity in the food system piece.

00:01:30:17 - 00:01:56:14
Lucy Flores
Yeah. So, I'll talk about, I guess, the word equitable first. So, when I think about making the world more equitable, I'm talking about a future where someone's group identity is not the primary predictor of their outcomes in life. So when I think about equity driven design specifically, it's a practice and set of practices that recognizes a current time where we all start in different places.

00:01:56:14 - 00:02:21:13
Lucy Flores
And so there's a need to intentionally adjust for those imbalances and disparities in order to address how people are impacted by both privilege and oppression. So in other words, it's recognizing the specific and unique circumstances and needs and desires of individuals and then actually responding to those through design in order to work toward a more just future.

00:02:21:15 - 00:02:29:01
Gerry
Yeah. Now we had I'm going to pull out a book. This is what my desk is like. We had this one person a couple of weeks and Leslie, I. No.

00:02:29:03 - 00:02:30:12
Lucy Flores
Leslie, that's so great. Yes.

00:02:30:12 - 00:02:31:16
Gerry
So we've had Larson.

00:02:31:20 - 00:02:32:16
Lucy Flores
she's amazing.

00:02:32:21 - 00:02:42:16
Gerry
Instantly became BFFs. As what's happening here as well. That's Beyonce that's cold. Call the spoon. Yeah. This. Yeah. Thanks.

00:02:42:18 - 00:02:46:09
Lucy Flores
But Leslie and so wonderful I had the opportunity to work with her last year at all.

00:02:46:09 - 00:02:46:23
Gerry
Right. Okay.

00:02:46:23 - 00:02:48:05
Lucy Flores
Excellent. Fantastic.

00:02:48:05 - 00:03:01:13
Gerry
Yeah. So equity came into that conversation quite a lot. Yeah. How do you how do you define and understand where equity lies within the system?

00:03:01:15 - 00:03:30:10
Lucy Flores
Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think ultimately well, there's a couple of thoughts I have. One is that it can be spoken to by folks who are impacted by the experiences. Right. So it's one thing I think that there's you might be able to take like an academic approach to this answer. Right. And talk about statistics and talk about, what you can see from a state or national or regional level perspective, when thinking about the food system.

00:03:30:10 - 00:03:52:03
Lucy Flores
But ultimately it's in the experiences of folks who are closest to the work and most impacted by the work. The work, can really vary in the food system because the food system means so many things, right? It means, agriculture is considered there. So we think about agriculture. We could think about impact on the environment and how that impacts, different communities in different ways.

00:03:52:03 - 00:04:17:15
Lucy Flores
Right. There's labor, topics that fall under that as well as we think about, treatment of labor and, ethical and equitable, experiences and opportunities. it then connects to immigration. So there are all of these questions and topics that come up within agriculture. And then on the other side, let's say if that's the thinking about production of, there's a lot that happens in between that.

00:04:17:15 - 00:04:41:18
Lucy Flores
And then when a consumer is actually preparing and eating food that they buy at a grocery store or a corner store or a farmer's market, and there are issues on that end as well. Right? who has access to foods that are culturally relevant to who they are and what their communities traditionally eat? So, I guess that's kind of kind of give you a big answer there.

00:04:41:18 - 00:04:44:18
Lucy Flores
But, but ultimately it's about those who are experienced, right?

00:04:44:19 - 00:05:09:12
Gerry
I that's my kind of research. I think if my framing was a bit off because like the food system, in my kind of naivete, I was looking at it from the perspective of, you know, getting access to foods in schools or in whatever social situation we might be in. But I guess if you look at the broader ecosystem of just foods, you're going all the way back to the source.

00:05:09:14 - 00:05:29:19
Lucy Flores
Sure. Yeah. And everything along that spectrum. And I do actually a lot of design work in school, food and food systems and in institutional food. and summer meal. So I do a lot of food in and around food insecurity and hunger, which I guess isn't isn't surprising for the reasons you just mentioned. But it there's there's so much within the system itself.

00:05:29:19 - 00:05:48:18
Gerry
So walk me through like, I know from reading your bio and stuff, you've done an awful lot of work at Food Corp. yeah. Way back, probably in the last ten years as some of around that time. But what does it look like? from a design perspective? Because I think you were a director of innovation when you were there.

00:05:48:20 - 00:05:49:14
Lucy Flores
So, yeah, maybe.

00:05:49:14 - 00:05:54:13
Gerry
Give us a scenario of how you're applying design in this space.

00:05:54:15 - 00:06:17:07
Lucy Flores
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to take us back a little bit to earlier in my career because I, so I, I was passionate about issues related to food justice. And I started at this organization as it was being created. I was the first staff member, or rather, the first employee was a non founder at the organization.

00:06:17:07 - 00:06:37:23
Lucy Flores
And so we were all learning how to build this thing that went from, you know, a $60,000 budget. When I started to an over $20 million budget when I left. so huge amount of growth for the organization and I was always interested in the concept of design, I did not go to design school. I will add in for anyone who's listening.

00:06:38:01 - 00:06:58:16
Lucy Flores
I get into this. I know it's shocking, I but I did feel insecure about it when I was younger, right? Because I thought you had to go to design school. so it's interesting concepts of design, and I spent a lot of time and energy doing my own learning, taking online courses, reading books to better understand different types of design frameworks that you could apply to food.

00:06:58:18 - 00:07:33:02
Lucy Flores
It did not occur to me immediately that developing services and programs within the nonprofit I worked at as being design, which is interesting because it is like when you think about the definition of design and, what it means, that's absolutely what it is. But there was a disconnect for me between the idea of developing programs and services that nonprofits operate and this frankly, what I thought was, like, really exciting, you know, creativity based approach to problem solving that I saw as design.

00:07:33:02 - 00:08:00:19
Lucy Flores
And so it took me a few years to realize these are very similar. And you can actually take some of these design frameworks and apply them to programs and services. And so when I do work with organizations now, of course, I speak to the fact that many people design, even if you don't have design in your title, and that these different approaches and frameworks and tools can be useful again, even if you don't call yourself a designer.

00:08:00:21 - 00:08:22:03
Lucy Flores
but what happened for me at that point when I was at food court before I, before I left the organization, I was there for ten years, was I did become frustrated, feeling like there was a lack of equity lens and a lot of the design frameworks I was seeing out there so early on. I think the first sort of design organization I heard about, you know, was ideas.

00:08:22:03 - 00:08:45:15
Lucy Flores
And so I grabbed some of their books in their resources and was really interested. And I felt like some of the practices that were in there were lacking in equity. And so I set out to learn more about what else might be out there. And I was able to discover other designers and design educators who were talking about those issues, who had started developing some of those frameworks within the sort of design field.

00:08:45:15 - 00:08:59:23
Lucy Flores
Obviously, the practice of designers gone for much, much longer than that. But but that, for me was really the starting point of thinking about and using and applying frameworks that bring that equity lens to the work within.

00:09:00:01 - 00:09:19:19
Gerry
Yeah, but moving on, like just just looking at that scenario that you're spoken about there when you have food core. well, what is a, a common, not a common, a typical project look like for you who is working in this space, reason why, studies say I'm working on a few projects at the moment and they're citizen based.

00:09:19:19 - 00:09:43:19
Gerry
So we're looking at society as a whole service that's access by everybody. Now, Ireland is going through a really, you know, an amazing space. And from my perspective, in terms of the future of Ireland, we've got lots of different perspectives, lots of nationality is coming into the country. And as a result, not every nationality and not every person in, in this city, in this country are really doing very well.

00:09:43:21 - 00:10:07:00
Gerry
And they need additional, support. When I look at the traditional approaches and I'm doing air quotes for anyone who's not on YouTube, the air quotes of being, you know, not born here who have got all these additional privileges. How do you ensure, other than just looking at their nationalities and making an assumption? And this is a loaded question.

00:10:07:00 - 00:10:17:15
Gerry
I know people, how do you make sure that what you're designing is equitable for people who are in the blind spots of design?

00:10:17:17 - 00:10:44:06
Lucy Flores
Well, two thoughts immediately jump to mind. One is that I don't think I think from it's to work towards equitable. It's to work towards equity knowing that that is it's ongoing work. Right. So there's not one goal that's going to be met. two it is involving folks who are most impacted in in these cases. Right. So it's for me, I see myself more than a designer as a design facilitator.

00:10:44:06 - 00:11:10:21
Lucy Flores
So yeah, it's taking co-design and participatory approaches where community members are most impacted. Whatever you're designing for in this case, maybe to me and, and I didn't say what the topic was that you might be working on, but, but whatever the project topic is and bringing those folks, inviting those folks to a more inclusive space and in an inviting space where their perspectives and experiences are, really welcomed.

00:11:10:22 - 00:11:31:13
Lucy Flores
And just as part of the conversation and the work as anything else that you're bringing to the table and collaboratively identifying where the opportunities are, what needs to be considered in those conversations, and, and moving forward in that way. So I think that matters. The third thing I would add, though, is that, this conversation around metrics comes up, right?

00:11:31:13 - 00:11:54:18
Lucy Flores
Which is like, well, what does it mean to make something more equitable? It's making sure that, again, folks who are most impacted by this work are also collaboratively determining what those metrics of success are. Because if we are, you know, people can take participatory approaches. But if you're still leading a funder who sits at a 10,000ft, you determine what the metrics of success are.

00:11:54:20 - 00:12:03:08
Lucy Flores
You might be missing the mark because those might, may or may not matter to folks who are most impacted by the work. So those are the three things that come to mind when I think about what the approach.

00:12:03:09 - 00:12:34:17
Gerry
So in like service design, which is my main kind of, way of working, we would call that you design for the average and you test for the extremes. average words is very triggering for me because like, what is average? Like how data point average and so forth. So like in that kind of flippant kind of terminology of average is really weak in terms of being able to articulate how you're going to solve for average people.

00:12:34:17 - 00:12:50:23
Gerry
Okay. Is there such a thing as an average person? I don't know, but in the extremes, what we're talking about, we're talking about making sure that they're included. How do you got to the point of knowing who needs to be included? That's almost a step before that. You.

00:12:51:01 - 00:13:23:18
Lucy Flores
Yeah. community relationship building is really foundational to this. And, setting aside the common challenges in our work and in the way we operate, because it requires time, right? And we don't always have what is considered a luxury. Right? The time to do that relationship building. But that foundational groundwork is essential, when doing this, because especially especially if you are being brought in from the outside, right?

00:13:23:21 - 00:13:58:07
Lucy Flores
If you are, if you are being invited into a community or into work as a facilitator, you need to build trust with folks you're working with. And, and then through those relationships. And that's where the relationships of individuals with relationships, with community based organizations, right? Grassroots organizations, you can work collaboratively to identify who or what sort of entities, would make the most sense to bring into this first step in conversation, right?

00:13:58:07 - 00:14:24:15
Lucy Flores
Knowing that you can't have everybody involved in every single process. So having a discussion and to understand, who might represent a particular organization or, what communities have we not, have not historically been involved in these conversations. So there's also a look back, sort of context, understand who's been involved and who hasn't. So it's not it's it's not as like clear cut.

00:14:24:15 - 00:14:47:01
Lucy Flores
It's not a checklist, which I know I know some people that will love a checklist. Right. But but it's, it's sort of this squishy process that, knowing that it's never going to be perfect. And also you're working towards inclusion in a meaningful way. Like that's the direction to head in. The relationship building is really, really,

00:14:47:03 - 00:14:51:11
Gerry
It's almost it is a principle that you need to work towards.

00:14:51:12 - 00:14:53:02
Lucy Flores
Yes.

00:14:53:04 - 00:15:20:17
Gerry
knowing that the goal is not, you know, a tick box exercise. It's it's in everything that we do is what I'm hearing. Leslie, I know was talking about, some of the frameworks that she's, she's working on, whilst in Oak adds to make this more accessible to people. Now, I think that's really fantastic, because my approach to design and working with organizations is not atypical.

00:15:20:19 - 00:16:01:00
Gerry
It's more around cultivating and training and supporting them and doing the work with a view to slowly extracting myself from the organizations. Yeah. So a lot of the times, the organizations that I'm working with don't have a deep design discipline. They don't have access to people with 25 years design experience. So how do we ensure that in the absence of having an exclusive design team in there, that they can maintain that perspective and that framing to ensure there's equity coming into the conversations and absence of designers being at the table.

00:16:01:02 - 00:16:31:07
Lucy Flores
That's such a good question. Well, I oh, I have so many thoughts on this. Okay. First, I would say that we're all learning right. There's we're all our education is ongoing, whether you're a designer or, the manager of a, a food program. Right. And so I think if there is a genuine desire to continue learning and building those equity design muscles, regardless of what you do and, we as partners in those collaborations continue to offer and support those.

00:16:31:07 - 00:17:01:09
Lucy Flores
I think that's great. I also, you know, I wouldn't make the assumption either that that community members or that are part of this organizations don't have the equity mindset. This might not necessarily, they might not have the capacity or the time or the funding, right, to be able to implement some of those practices. So there is there are a lot of factors that influence how people are able to apply the equity design skills in their work.

00:17:01:11 - 00:17:21:10
Lucy Flores
and so I think those things need to be considered as well. So I can give an example. I am wrapping up a project right now, in northern Florida, and I've been working with Second Harvest of the big band, which is in the Florida panhandle of the United States. with support from Share Strength, No Kid Hungry, which is a national organization.

00:17:21:12 - 00:17:44:11
Lucy Flores
the focus on kids and youth here in the United States and, without getting into all of the, the details of how summer meals operate in the United States, I can say that there are a lot of rules and regulations at the National Department of Agriculture and State departments, have for operating what are called summer meals and summer meals.

00:17:44:13 - 00:18:09:05
Lucy Flores
our the Summer meal program is a program that offers kids and youth under age 18 free meals during the summer. And, it's there's no questions asked. You don't have to apply for it. You could show up at any site around the country and get that free meal. Yeah. And it's, it's gone through some evolutions over the past several years, and there's an area this is just back.

00:18:09:07 - 00:18:35:08
Lucy Flores
the friction. There's, one area that has been trickier in terms of participation is in rural communities. And that's because of the way the rules and regulations are set up for most of the summer meal programs, in particular in urban and suburban communities in the US. And it is, more difficult for programs to operate in rural communities and make sure that access is available to people who might have to drive 45 minutes to get to a site.

00:18:35:08 - 00:19:05:07
Lucy Flores
Right? in a household where one or both, you know, parents or caregivers or guardians are working and maybe the kids at home all day in the summer, and so they aren't able to get 45 minutes to where they need to go. Yeah. So, the reason I'm bringing that background up is because I have been working in collaboration with these partners to facilitate a participatory co-design process in northern Florida and Gulf County and Taylor County to co-create some new rural meal distribution models for summer meals.

00:19:05:07 - 00:19:31:07
Lucy Flores
And I facilitated a process where caregivers so parents, grandparents, other caretakers that are either participants of the program already or potential participants of the program were co-designing with program operators who know the ins and outs of the, you know, very complex rules and regulations that exist around, both the meal programs, but also food safety. Right.

00:19:31:13 - 00:20:01:02
Lucy Flores
There's laws and there's a lot going on there that needs to be, that needs to be implemented. And we worked together to develop a bunch of new ideas, and there was tons of creativity in the room. the, it's inherently has a pretty strong equity lens because we are creating a space where a diversity of perspectives and experiences and backgrounds and lived experiences are coming together to talk about what works and what doesn't work.

00:20:01:04 - 00:20:40:01
Lucy Flores
And what would make sense and what could be exciting. who know the details of those communities like nobody else could, and who also can bring in other perspectives? So what? I'm to answer your question from about five minutes ago, what I'll get at is that a lot of community members are tight, right. And so maybe there's someone who is from a community, within the county we're working in that there are the only one who joined us from among their neighbors, but they're able to say, hey, but my neighbor so-and-so like, this wouldn't work for them because I know that this is a situation where their car and, what happens during the day

00:20:40:01 - 00:21:02:18
Lucy Flores
so they wouldn't be able to do that, or I've heard from my neighbors that they don't even know this thing exists. Like, what if we got the word out through this particular community mechanism? You know, like the only way they're going to find out that this program exists is through this, you know, social media platform or through this, very analog approach to getting the word out locally in a community.

00:21:02:18 - 00:21:10:02
Lucy Flores
Right. Like that's not going to happen if you've got a bunch of designers who heard from, they're in the room trying to answer these questions.

00:21:10:02 - 00:21:43:19
Gerry
Yeah, I'm trying to think also like in terms of research, if you've got your segmentation pieces or whatever it is, you can hear my kids both right side. So just thinking in terms of the segmentation piece, you could probably identify who hasn't been involved from, you know, your your user base, user base. I hate that phrase, but generally speaking, like people who have not been engaged, I think the bit that I keep on coming back to is research, and I'm as guilty as this as anyone else.

00:21:43:23 - 00:22:11:20
Gerry
We look at the behaviors, we look at the pieces that come through in our research, but I'm concerned that my own bias, my own white man European lens that I look through the world, can be perpetuated. I can actually still have unintentional bias sitting in there, thus can actually do harm. And I know people listening would be like, well, I got an inclusive team.

00:22:11:22 - 00:22:45:08
Gerry
It's really difficult when you're, working in a country like this. And I'm not trying to source, give short answers, but sometimes I just don't have access to people who can bring perspective of my fingertips and anyone I know and anyone I work with regularly enough. No one wants to perpetuate those things. Everyone. Yeah, that I work with are really aware that we know there's something in the room and we know that we can do better, and our intentions are all there and we're all well read and well practice.

00:22:45:10 - 00:23:15:11
Gerry
And I guess I'm asking for the silver bullet in some way to make sure that, you know, we're doing as good a job as possible every single time. And what I'm hearing is. And tell me to stop talking. This is my turn to to keep talking here. there's no silver bullet, and it's just living with the fact that we know that through time and through intention and through, the right approaches, we will get to that point.

00:23:15:13 - 00:23:34:02
Lucy Flores
Yeah. There's no silver bullet. I think it's more have you for all in the end. Right. There's I think we can all do the personal work to learn about, you know, we all have biases, right? Like where do our biases show up. And having that awareness allows us it puts us in a better position to interrupt.

00:23:34:02 - 00:23:34:22
Gerry
Yeah.

00:23:35:00 - 00:24:06:23
Lucy Flores
Potentially harmful decisions. Right. where our biases are informing those like there. So there's the personal work we can do with our own biases, with the personal work we can do to learn about perspectives that we don't have based on our own lived experience. and that's ongoing for all of us. There is. And then there's, there's different ways of, I think, engaging with more diverse teams that are reflective of the community members you're designing for and with.

00:24:07:02 - 00:24:26:11
Lucy Flores
And it probably varies from project to project based on how much funding you have available. Available. I'd say personally, and this also isn't helpful because I'm not I'm not going to set this up as in clear black and white. But I think there's there hits a point where for me, I might say, like, I'm not the right person to be working on this, right?

00:24:26:11 - 00:24:44:03
Lucy Flores
Or like, we can't we can't move forward because we're not the right team as it exists right now. And when I say it's I'm setting this up in a way that's difficult. It's like, it's not like there's like three things that you can look for and say, well, those three things aren't checked off, so we can't move forward.

00:24:44:03 - 00:25:09:00
Lucy Flores
It's very much a gut check based on informed experience, right? Yeah. Experience. And and when you can make an informed decision like that. but there are things that you can look forward to to understand. how you might want to move forward or how you might be able to bring in different perspectives. Maybe to your point, you aren't able to hire a full time team member.

00:25:09:02 - 00:25:55:09
Lucy Flores
but maybe able to take a different approach where it's like an advisory approach, or, you know, where you are still able to meaningfully compensate. other partners who can be in the room, like I'll share. For example, I worked on a project a few years ago that was focused on diet culture here in America. And, and I was working with youth, primarily ages 14 through 18 or so, and we were having conversations around, cultural foodways, and the I knew that there was a good chance that we were going to touch on topics that, are beyond my area of expertise in terms of sort of care and responsibility

00:25:55:09 - 00:26:25:07
Lucy Flores
and ethics. Right. So things like disordered eating as a, as an example. And so, I prioritized hiring an advisory team who supported me in the design research phase, in terms of recruitment, in terms of, interview questions and how to frame questions and topics, and then set me up to basically do role playing around like it's very likely if you talk to enough teens, somebody is going to disclose something about their experience.

00:26:25:09 - 00:26:49:13
Lucy Flores
You are not a mental health professional. and that doesn't mean you shouldn't work on the project. But here are the things from an ethical perspective that you can and should do to make sure that you're showing up in a responsible way for a team. And so, we did role playing around. What happens if, you know, somebody brings up a topic we put together a list of resources that we made available to participants if it was triggering something internally with them.

00:26:49:15 - 00:27:06:00
Lucy Flores
you know, you get off the phone or leave an interview and it doesn't just end there for some people, right? They're still feeling what they're feeling and that experience is there. So how can we set up those folks to leave the conversation and get what they need? Yeah, exactly. So, so in that case, it was an advisory team.

00:27:06:00 - 00:27:17:23
Lucy Flores
It wasn't a full set of folks who was involved in the entire design process, but to me, that was a priority investment. And frankly, I would not have done the project if I couldn't. Yeah, had that support because it wouldn't have been an ethical.

00:27:17:23 - 00:27:22:21
Gerry
Yeah. You wouldn't have felt supported, I guess, you know.

00:27:22:23 - 00:27:23:14
Lucy Flores
Yeah.

00:27:23:16 - 00:27:42:19
Gerry
And ethically, as you say, like, you know, being able to stand over the works and well, actually what I'm doing is making the system better. and I love that approach as well. Going back to the support piece there, like one of the pieces I was talking to before was and I'm working on is homelessness and access to social housing.

00:27:42:19 - 00:28:08:22
Gerry
And so we're working and I was actually speaking, I was coaching this morning, and I ran through some role plays trying to encourage people to be able to facilitate a very atypical or very standard kind of research session. And I say that in terms of like, you know, how was your holiday kind of scenario was, yeah, it's just getting to the basics of research.

00:28:09:00 - 00:28:40:02
Gerry
And I explained to them that, like when you're researching in the space that ultimately I end up being in day in, day out, there's trauma on the floor, all over the floor when people are looking for these kind of social, you know, benefits to, to access housing and that stuff. Like, I've had conversations the last couple of weeks, and I have a psychologist that I engage with once a month to, as I say, to release just to like talk about this stuff.

00:28:40:04 - 00:29:09:11
Gerry
and it's really important to call that out when you're training, because if people believe that, oh, well, I can just go and do some conversations and stuff. Not only are you at risk of harming yourself, you are also at harm of harming the person that you're researching. but yeah, those questions and that that is the the deciding point for me why I'm like, okay, you're setting up functions that we're talking about here.

00:29:09:13 - 00:29:20:06
Gerry
The systems of care that surround that are as important as the research itself that I, I absolutely it's taken 20 odd years to realize that.

00:29:20:08 - 00:29:24:22
Lucy Flores
Yeah, yeah. And I'm so grateful for people like our mutual friend Rachel DeCastro.

00:29:24:22 - 00:29:28:12
Gerry
My friend, to be honest, I'm going to tell, like, why.

00:29:28:14 - 00:29:33:05
Lucy Flores
Not the worst not getting. We love you, Rachel. yeah.

00:29:33:06 - 00:29:38:19
Gerry
Your joke. it was just mentioned, right? Don't get angry. Okay?

00:29:38:21 - 00:30:09:16
Lucy Flores
It's really though, right? Like like this. The the, she speaks to how important it is to have those care professionals, whether they're social workers. I know the terms of difference for countries or what that looks like. And the fact that we don't, there there's so much pressure to meet deadlines and timelines. Right. Which is, which is, I think paired with the fact that doing some of this work isn't valued and is therefore not built into timeline.

00:30:09:17 - 00:30:50:19
Lucy Flores
Yeah. So what often happens is you maybe have 1 or 2 team members that are trying to integrate some of these practices into the work. And, it just reinforces the cycle, which is like, we don't have time if we're not a priority, and then we therefore do not build the timelines, but, you know, creating capacity in the budget and building out the time to bring in consultants or other team members or advisors in areas where it is going to help you bring a stronger framework of care and to bring in the tools that are necessary, is, to your point, going to serve the projects.

00:30:50:19 - 00:31:13:13
Lucy Flores
It's going to support you as the facilitator. And most importantly, it's going to ensure that the space as, sort of as careful as possible for participants who are sharing oftentimes, you know, their, emotional labor and some of the topics that we're working on, right? We're not I'm in most of my projects, so our food can be very joyful in a lot of ways.

00:31:13:13 - 00:31:33:02
Lucy Flores
It's a huge stressor in tons of ways as well. And so if we're talking about designing like a coffee mug, I'm not as worried. Right? some of these topics. But if we're talking about having access to groceries when you're going into debt to pay for your groceries, which is why I like 60% of the American population right now is making savings to pay for groceries.

00:31:33:02 - 00:31:37:06
Lucy Flores
That's a different there's a different level of care than in that situation.

00:31:37:06 - 00:31:54:21
Gerry
It's just I know we were talking before, but look at how can we live in a society that. So, just, you know, people are. Yeah. Getting into debt to ease. So, you know, and most likely the food that they're eating is probably not the best food. You know, it's the cheapest.

00:31:54:23 - 00:32:22:23
Lucy Flores
Yeah. And best of friends in different ways, right. Like food is, is like I, I always think about food as being nourishment which includes nutrition. Right. Like food offers nutrition. which is really important for us to survive and thrive in good health. And also food that, you know, is culturally relevant and appropriate to the communities that are eating those foods, having access to their cultural foods that connect them to history of food that's good for the land, right?

00:32:23:01 - 00:32:36:05
Lucy Flores
That is sustainable and that is supporting, sustainable food production practices. There's there's so much that comes with what we are able to buy, what we have access to buy and to make for ourselves.

00:32:36:07 - 00:32:58:17
Gerry
So the whole space is just like, again, I've been doing this podcast for coming up to eight years, which is ridiculous. So every time I'm speaking to people, the more I kind of go, wow, there's an area of design that I haven't really given much thought for, I have not at anything other than just being unaware of us.

00:32:58:19 - 00:33:07:23
Gerry
How did you manage to find this world of equity and food? Like what was your background to getting into this space?

00:33:08:01 - 00:33:33:14
Lucy Flores
Yeah. Really? Yeah. I, I as I mentioned the earlier I was working in the school food space, specifically here in the US at this national nonprofit. I was like called Food Core. I was really interested in design frameworks, and also at the time felt really strongly that I wanted to figure out how to bring a stronger equity lens to those frameworks.

00:33:33:14 - 00:34:03:02
Lucy Flores
And then those things came together. And it's interesting because sometimes people will ask, isn't it too niche? you know, to which I respond to this food system, the food industry is enormous, right? Both in terms of the size it reach, because everybody eats and the number of people that are part of the system as as growers and producers and distributors and chefs and consumers, like, it's it's huge.

00:34:03:02 - 00:34:24:12
Lucy Flores
And, you know, the size of the industry is when you think about even like, how many moves are there, right, in terms of exports and imports and school food alone. Right. As its own industry, it's, her field. There's so much there. And so I was really excited when I started the studio to focus on food.

00:34:24:12 - 00:35:00:08
Lucy Flores
I think that there's, a lot of these frameworks and tools and approaches, right? These mindsets and practices can be be applied in any field. And there are some things that are unique to food in terms of, how we experience that. The biases that show up within food run really deep pockets. Food is so personal. It's not just, something that we, you know, think about from time to time and something that we engage with every day, multiple times a day that is about culture and history and land and water and community.

00:35:00:08 - 00:35:16:08
Lucy Flores
It's all of these things. And so when something is that personal, it is bound to, bring up a lot for folks. So, so I feel, and I love talking about food, I love eating, I love all things food. So, you know, the other piece of it is I'm really passionate about it.

00:35:16:08 - 00:35:17:18
Gerry
Obviously, that's.

00:35:17:20 - 00:35:18:13
Lucy Flores
Yeah, yeah.

00:35:18:18 - 00:35:51:06
Gerry
You know, it doesn't come across when you're speaking about food. I'm a joke. And of course, so looking at systems that you have in place in America at the moment, I can imagine it's probably not in the greatest shape at the moment. And based on the way everything is playing out, and without going into the drama that's happening in the US at the moment, maybe you can reflect on other territories in the world who have an equitable system that we can look at and talk about.

00:35:51:08 - 00:36:03:16
Gerry
Is there anywhere in the world where you see, these systems working in closer to unison than what we're talking about here? And they're equitable and they're in harmony?

00:36:03:18 - 00:36:23:11
Lucy Flores
Yeah. I'll actually I'm going to bring us back to the US, because I think what's interesting to think about is, especially if you're less familiar with food in the way sort of food systems work, is that, You could talk about the US food system as a whole, and food is also inherently local and regional in a lot of ways as well.

00:36:23:11 - 00:36:50:13
Lucy Flores
Right. In terms of, where food grows, how it's distributed, where it's distributed, all of those things. And I think they're really exciting, wonderful examples of equitable parts of the food system that are actually in existence here in the United States that are taking place at a local level and a regional level. So if you take that, you know, go up to 10,000ft view, you might say like, oh, there's some there's some rough stuff going on here that is inherently inequitable.

00:36:50:16 - 00:37:25:21
Lucy Flores
And, that just isn't working right. The system was designed a certain way and it's not working for most people. And then you can see examples of work taking place locally and regionally, where there's really wonderful collaboration going on between local producers, where there are systems of support for, let's say farmers, for example, who, have or who have been historically marginalized, who are getting the opportunities to invest in their practice and their work in ways that maybe they weren't able to previously because of those local support systems.

00:37:25:23 - 00:37:57:04
Lucy Flores
you know, examples of, of like here in the state of Maine where I live, it's one of the states in our country where we offer universal school meals to kids so that, free meals at lunch are available to everybody across the border. And not every state has that right now. so there are these examples of where it's taking place, whether it is in, production, whether it's in, values align sourcing and procurement, meaning there are institutions that are not just looking at cost.

00:37:57:06 - 00:38:21:16
Lucy Flores
they're looking at the externalize costs as well. And whether that food was produced ethically and that, that labor is treated fairly in that production and that it was, you know, sustainably produced, all of these things that these other values, that we can consider when we're making food choices. There are institutions that are prioritizing values aligned procurement practices in their work.

00:38:21:16 - 00:38:25:23
Lucy Flores
So I just want to share that example because there is great stuff going on here.

00:38:26:01 - 00:38:26:09
Gerry
Okay.

00:38:26:11 - 00:38:53:06
Lucy Flores
In the yes, yes. and there are is ample opportunity to grow that to replicate, you know, what's working in certain places. yeah. At a broader scale, there are no doubt barriers to doing that. And we can see when it's being done in a way that's sort of profoundly impactful to everyone who's involved, from producer.

00:38:53:08 - 00:39:16:16
Gerry
So looking at, you know, if there are so Americas, there are some things that are working. yeah. And in the system, end of the day, some things are working, some things are not. Some things are, you know, less adaptive than others. I'd like to like have a discussion around other territories, like is there anywhere that you see like maybe the Netherlands or Denmark or Sweden?

00:39:16:16 - 00:39:26:10
Gerry
I have you any exposure to territories that you can look at and refer to for where it's working? Well, where there's equity play?

00:39:26:12 - 00:39:45:13
Lucy Flores
Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not as familiar with the, the well, would I like I wouldn't be able to get into the sort of policies that are enabling, certain types of practices, for example, in other countries. so I wouldn't want to speak to something that area of knowledge or.

00:39:45:15 - 00:40:06:18
Gerry
But if there's people out there who are listening or saying, well, actually, you know, I've got some stuff, please. When we when this goes out LinkedIn. Yeah. Connect me and Lucy like you know chime in like this is a discussion like we're talking about what's working, what's not working, the ways that we can improve as practitioners to help improve better social outcomes through the use of design.

00:40:06:20 - 00:40:22:04
Gerry
So if you do have anything out there that you want to share, connect with us both on LinkedIn and, you know, join in the conversation on that. Yeah, really powerful news. We are coming towards the end of this episode. I know I need to get my sound effects like wow, wow wow wow wow.

00:40:22:04 - 00:40:25:12
Lucy Flores
Wow, oh, I thought there's going to be like a party horn. I am.

00:40:25:14 - 00:40:31:18
Gerry
Like, what do I have? Like, well, this this should be played for all my jokes.

00:40:31:20 - 00:40:33:05
Lucy Flores
Oh, you do you have sound effects?

00:40:33:05 - 00:40:38:22
Gerry
Yeah. Yeah. So do I have, let me see. Like, I don't think I do.

00:40:39:00 - 00:40:40:21
Lucy Flores
You have a party horn. You know, the club horn?

00:40:40:23 - 00:40:53:10
Gerry
Do I have a party horn? I've got one. There we go. That's the one. It's. Yeah. So maybe I'll start putting that one in, in place, like. Yes. That's right. You know. Yeah.

00:40:53:11 - 00:40:59:13
Lucy Flores
DJ Ariana oh, I like that too. Yeah. You've got it. You got to kick this thing up to the next level I know.

00:40:59:13 - 00:41:16:05
Gerry
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much. So, Lucy, we've got your website here. Like, we know Studio Magic Hour is the name of your your practice. Yeah. Which you're running at the moment. Well, what is the website URL for? That is a secret.

00:41:16:07 - 00:41:16:14
Lucy Flores

00:41:16:16 - 00:41:28:07
Gerry
Oh, okay. Yeah. And we'll put a link to your LinkedIn as well. So obviously if you want to continue the conversation and, you know, message Lucy definitely. I'm sure you're interested in us.

00:41:28:09 - 00:41:29:12
Lucy Flores
Yeah.

00:41:29:13 - 00:41:35:04
Gerry
If there's anything else, any other place you want to point people to that you might be of interest for the listeners.

00:41:35:06 - 00:41:36:06
Lucy Flores
Those are the spots.

00:41:36:06 - 00:41:59:05
Gerry
That's where I could have done it. Yeah, but, Lucy, you know, any time you want to come back on the show, talk to us about what you're working on. you're always welcome to come back as it's been an absolute show and just learning about what inside your mind and your work and your amazing work as well. So keep up the amazing work and thanks so much for your time.

00:41:59:07 - 00:42:00:18
Lucy Flores
Thank you. This is great.

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