Biography

Sara trained in Denmark, Scotland and the UK and received her PhD in Food Economics and Marketing from the University of Reading (UK) in 2000.

She currently works for HortResearch, where she is the lead scientist for ‘Consumer Behaviour and Health’. Her connection with HortResearch dates back to 1999.

Sara has published more than 35 peer-reviewed international journal articles. She is a regular speaker at conferences, both nationally and internationally. She has worked with several global food and beverage companies, and she holds affiliated positions at the University of Auckland Business School (NZ) and at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). Sara is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Food Quality and Preference, which is the pre-eminent journal in the discipline of Sensory and Consumer Science.

Rather than focusing her research on a few specific food categories, Sara has chosen to develop a more generic research path. She believes that an interdisciplinary approach is necessary to meaningfully research food-related consumer behaviour, and, therefore, she works collaboratively with colleagues from different disciplines including food science, marketing, economics, anthropology, human biology, etc. She also has a strong methodological interest and whenever possible, plans and conducts her research to address key methodological issues.