Key Points

◆We conducted a visual content analysis in the Ishinomaki district (Ishinomaki City, Higashimatsushima City, and Onagawa Town) to explore how local residents perceive the image of food and place.
◆Foods that have strong ties to local production and distribution, such as seafoods, tend to be recognized as diverse visual images that integrate food and place.
◆Compared to linguistic representations, visual representations based on photography tend to prioritize accessible places and geographically distinctive areas such as river basins.
◆We also found that applying a visual methodology to the concept of "foodscape" helps reveal foods and places rooted in residents’ daily lives. This study provides a framework for developing a more authentic, community-based approach in food tourism and regional planning by incorporating residents' perspectives.

Summary

The concept of "foodscape" has recently gained prominence in academic discourse, promoting interdisciplinary research on the relationship between food and local environments. This study focuses on the material aspects of foodscapes and aims to clarify how residents perceive them.

Prof. Ryo Kohsaka and Masaki Uchida of the Department of Forest Science and the research team conducted a survey on the foodscape of the Ishinomaki district, targeting university students at Ishinomaki Senshu University. The research utilized both visual representations (photographs) and textual representations (questionnaire responses) to identify the potential local foodscape as it appears in non-verbal forms.

The questionnaire results showed that over 80% of responses on local specialties and landmarks were related to marine products, indicating that the region is perceived through a fixed image in a text-based context. In contrast, in the photographs taken by the students, marine product-related images decreased to 17.7%, while everyday meals and familiar scenes were prominently featured. This finding suggests that when a foodscape is expressed through non-verbal media, such as photography, it emphasizes familiar daily life scenes, not just iconic specialties or tourist spots.

The analysis also revealed that marine products, a major local industry, appeared in nearly all photographic typologies, regardless of location or composition. This indicates that marine products are not merely food items but are deeply rooted in people's perceptions as symbols closely tied to the region's unique production and distribution.

By focusing on visual information, this study offers a multifaceted understanding of local food culture and proposes a new approach to tourism and regional development rooted in the residents' "sense of place."

The results of this study were published online in the journal Current Research in Food Science in September 2025.

Figure 1 here

Figure 1: Examples of foodscape photographs of the Ishinomaki district taken by university students attending Ishinomaki Senshu University. Five types were identified based on multiple correspondence analysis using visual parameters assessed by experts, food and place categories as variables.

Figure 2 here

Figure 2: Spatial distribution of the photographic types. Overall, the photographs are broadly distributed across areas with high accessibility in the urban center and along the coastal zone. Photographs representing landscapes with spatial expansiveness, such as the sea, green spaces, and shopping streets (Type III), such as the sea, green spaces, and shopping streets, was distributed in close relation to geographical features along river basins and roads, including the Kyu Kitakami River, Ishinomaki Fishing Port, Mangokuura Bay, and Onagawa Port.

Table 1: The ratio of food categories described as characteristic of the Ishinomaki district. The proportion of marine product-related items was significantly reduced.

Authors

Masaki Uchida
Project Researcher, Department of Forest Science, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo

Rei Sugawara
Lecturer, Faculty of Business Administration, Ishinomaki Senshu University

Ryo Kohsaka
Professor, Department of Forest Science, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo

Paper Information

Journal: Current Research in Food Science
Article Title: Local Perceptions of Foodscapes and their Representation in Visual and Texts: A Visual Content Analysis of Photography in Japanese Coastal Area
Authors: Masaki Uchida, Rei Sugawara, Ryo Kohsaka
Publication Date: September 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crfs.2025.101197　

Contact

Professor Ryo Kohsaka, Masaki Uchida Project Researcher
The Laboratory of Forest Landscape Planning and Design, Department of Forest Science,
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences
The University of Tokyo
E-mail: kohsaka.lab[at]gmail.com / kohsaka.seminar[at] gmail.com
Please replace [at] with @ when contacting.

Related Links

Laboratory HP
Ryo KOHSAKA HP
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Acknowledgements

This work was supported and funded by the COI-NEXT (JPMJPF2110) and, in particular its youth programme “G-Cube.”  It was also  supported by JSPS KAKENHI JP23K2516 and by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund of the ERCA (JPMEERF 20241M03) funded by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude for this support.