Consuming heritage: The use of local food culture in branding

Consuming heritage: The use of local food culture in branding Received (in revised form): 16th February, 2006

Richard Tellstro¨m is a researcher at the Department of Restaurant and Culinary Arts, Örebro University, Sweden. His dissertation project investigates the commercialisation and politicisation of food culture heritage in contemporary Europe from an ethnological viewpoint. He has presented research reports on how local and regional food culture was selected and presented for European politicians as a PR tool for Sweden during the chairmanship of the EU in 2001, and how rural food producers and restaurateurs emphasise regional origin to create authenticity.

Inga-Britt Gustafsson is a professor of culinary arts and meal science at Örebro University. Her research has focused on research into dietary impact on health.

Lena Mossberg is a guest professor in the Department of Restaurant and Culinary Arts, Örebro University, and a Reader in the School of Economics, Göteborg University, Sweden. She holds a Ph.D in business administration and her research interests are tourist behaviour, consumer experiences, destination image, service quality and customer satisfaction.

Abstract The objective of this paper was to examine how specialised food marketing consultants interpret local and regional food culture and locality in branding food products to match consumer ideals. Interview data were collected from eight food marketing consultants. The interviews were conducted in two parts: semi-structured interviews, followed by confrontation with actual ‘stimulus products’. The data were analysed using current theories on country-of-origin. Results indicate that an association to an alleged origin in a local or regional food culture is seen as an attractive way to interest the urban consumer in new food product brands. The marketing consultants conceive of local and regional food culture as an invention to reflect urban consumers’ ideas of the countryside. Keywords: brand, professional perspective, local food culture, country of origin

Richard Tellström Department of Restaurant and Culinary Arts, Örebro University, So¨ra¨lgsv 2, S-712 60 Grythyttan, Sweden Tel: +46 18 55 14 04 E-mail: [email protected]

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INTRODUCTION Food and meals are a central field in the communication of culture (eg Barthes, 1975; Douglas, 1982; Bell and Valentine, 1997). Economic and political use of traditional food culture is identified at an early point by ethnologists such as Ko¨stlin (1975) and Salomonsson (1984), as part of a process where it is revitalised to create feelings of regional identity. Boissevain (1992) added ‘invention’ to the term ‘revitalising’, underlining the

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economic considerations of cultural expression in a post-modern society (Urry, 1990) in which food culture is transformed into a performed event (Handelman, 1998: 9). Historically, regional food is also often ‘reinterpreted as desirable premium products’ (Kuznesof et al., 1997). All these researchers indicated an important relation between food culture as a tradition and the contemporary commercialisation of traditions (Hobsbawm, 1983).

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Consuming heritage: The use of local food culture in branding

Food with an emphasised association with place is a ground for the individual’s identity (Bell and Valentine, 1997), and is central to the heritage of an area (Povey, 2005). Influential political forces today support a more expressed origin of food and meals, for instance as elements in expressing a regional culture and tradition (Jones and Jenkins, 2002: 115; Paasi, 2001: 7). The economic and political use of food culture is emphasised by the EU, with some regional food cultures having been used as a concept in political projects since the 1990s (Delanty, 1998; Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000). This has been expressed through protective legislation on food product origin (CEC, 1992), as meal themes for ministerial meetings (Tellstro¨m et al., 2003) and in programmes for rural development such as artisan food production (Tregear, 1998), visible as an aestheticisation of the rural, eg the ‘Slow Food’ movement (Miele and Murdoch, 2002: 312). Regional food culture has become a tool to promote economic and rural growth in regions suffering recession (OECD, 1995: 14; Kneafsey, 2000; Tregear, 2003; Nordic Council, 2005). BACKGROUND — PLACE OF ORIGIN AS FOOD BRAND Since food itself is made invisible in the industrialised process, and consumption within an area no longer necessarily reflects the area’s food production (Kuznesof et al., 1997), a potential for food brands developing a dynamic construction of cultural authenticity has been realised (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 1998: 334) to meet consumer demands for a pronounced and reliable origin. In this process, a food’s selected symbolic and cultural meaning is emphasised (Hultman, 2002: 40; Lien, 2000). A distinct place-related origin can give food products a large expected confidence value among consumers (Kuznesof et al.,

1997; Verlegh and Ittersum, 2001: 270), helping them to evaluate the commercial messages in the purchase situation (Guerrero, 2001: 284) and to choose or reject the product (Warde, 1994: 883). The consumer often lacks expertise in judging food quality and is not in the habit of spending time to assess objective quality; brand names can therefore serve as a reliable signal of quality (Han, 1989). The manufacturing nation’s representation is important in consumer judgment of product quality (eg Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Papadopoulos and Heslop, 1993), but there is a risk in using culture or national borders as segmentation, since culture-bound behaviour can vary in relation to product types (Dawar and Parker, 1994). Brand information forms knowledge, emotion and preference in the purchase decision (Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999: 522), and it is easier for a consumer to identify and remember the relation between origin and quality than between brand and quality (Guerrero, 2001: 284). An ongoing Nordic debate on health and food safety (Halkier, 2004) can be linked to an increased interest in food’s origin. This interest is conflated with nostalgic ideas that food of the past was ‘good and proper’ (Gilg and Battershill, 1998), or a desire to consume patriotically for ethnocentric reasons (Shimp and Sharma, 1987). This consumer mind-set offers potential for a cultural relocalisation of food production to acquire the benefits of the authenticity of a geographical origin (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000: 218) or to link a product with a known regional kitchen (Bessie`re, 1998), there being a higher profit margin in food with a defined geographical association (Bell and Valentine, 1997). Moran (1993) notes that in the French and American wine appellation systems there is a direct link between product and place. Sausages and cheeses are also


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examples of place-connoted products, marketed since medieval times through an emphasis on origin, eg Krakow sausage (Yoder, 1981: 410), or in the case of Stilton cheese the place of sale (Tregear, 2003). The increased use of cultural expressions makes it almost impossible to distinguish between the commercial and the cultural in their influence on economic growth (Smart, 2003; Quan and Wang, 2004). All these studies skirt round an information ‘black hole’ concerning the use of market research in choosing a food culture expression to ensure the best chance of economic success. A study in the work of marketing consultants and professionals in transforming place-related food and meal culture into a market message and brand could give a new perspective on the contemporary process of commercialising and politicising food and meal culture in relation to origin, and throw light on the commercial usability of cultural values and expressions. Aim The main aim was to examine how marketing consultants specialising in food products interpret an associative origin with local and regional food and meal culture as an asset in branding food products to support consumer choice. A secondary consideration was to study consultants’ expressed intentions when using associations to food-cultural heritage and other types of place- and origin-linked associations in branding and marketing situations. RESEARCH MATERIAL AND METHODS Eight marketing consultants were interviewed, using qualitative semi-structured interviews which allowed

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room to reflect during the interview (Flick, 1998: 76). The subjects worked in branding, shaping and design of packaging, marketing campaigns and advertising creation, specialising in branding food and meal products using place, history and/or culture. The subjects were employed by seven Swedish communication and marketing agencies specialising in food and meal products. Five of the agencies were located in the capital, Stockholm, and two in two large southern cities. The first subject was chosen from the authors’ own cognisance, and the other seven selected by a snowball sampling method (Polit and Hungler, 1995: 232–233). This was continued until someone already interviewed was recommended, which was used as an indicator of data saturation and the selection process was halted (Taylor and Bogdan, 1984: 67; Silverman, 1997). Interviews took place between October and December 2004, using an interview guide (Kvale, 1997: 121) on how the interviewees interpret local and regional food culture as an asset for product branding. Interviews lasted between 45 and 105 minutes, and were recorded on tape and thereafter transcribed. Researchers (eg Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999) have criticised studies on product origin performed by answering questions or just giving verbal product descriptions, since this results in a lower country-of-origin effect (Peterson and Jolibert, 1995: 895; Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999: 539). Stimulus material (eg texts, pictures etc) can increase the response (Wibeck, 2000: 66). Accordingly, after the interviews the subjects were confronted with ten indigenous manufactured food products with an emphasised origin, in order to stimulate a re-evaluation of opinion through actually holding a product in the



Table 1: The ten ‘stimulus products’ used in the interviews Means of association to a local or regional origin

Stimulus product Fja¨ llfil — sour wholemilk named after a particular mountain area Fa¨ bodkna¨ cke — crispbread named after a traditional type of summer farm Findus Ja¨ garbiff — frozen minced-meat ready meal named for associations with hunting Mariestadso¨ l — beer named after a small town Sma¨ la¨ ndsk a¨ rtsoppa — canned yellow-pea soup named after a province Skånepepparkakor — gingerbread biscuit named after a province Jokk — berry juice named after the Sa´ mi word for a brook Njalla — flatbread named after a Sa´ mi storage shed Regional matkultur — cooperative brand name which signals a representation of the food culture in an unspecified administrative region; the brand name can be used on both food products and on signs over food company entrance doors; here the logotype was presented Svenskt sigill — cooperative brand name which signals a generalised Swedish origin; appears on different food products, eg oatmeal, cucumber etc; here a packet of porridge oats was presented

hand. This use of ‘stimulus products’ sought to change the atmosphere from that of an academic interview to a more personal, experience-based conversation. The stimulus products were chosen to be consistent with descriptions in research reports on how product origin can be expressed; with associations to nature, culture, geography and ethnicity, or to an administrative area (Blomberg and Lindquist, 1994; Kuznesof et al., 1997; Bessie`re, 1998). The products were well-known brands industrially mass produced in Sweden. The ten products’ brand names (not logotypes) were first displayed, then the physical products themselves were produced in random order (Table 1). ANALYTICAL METHODS In order to enable the construction of a coherent conceptual framework or explanation, categorisation, abstraction, comparison and integration were used in the analytical operations (Spiggle, 1994: 495). The transcribed interviews were transformed in a three-step process using categorisation, coding and evaluation as analytical tools.

Association to nature Association to culture Association to geography Association to ethnicity Association to an administrative area

Step one The transcribed interviews were categorised using the scheme of emerged categories, allowing the contents to be systematically verified (Taylor and Bogdan, 1984: 136; Flick, 1998: 179). Step two The categorised data were coded for signs of an origin’s eventual importance. Because local origin’s application in branding has been sparsely investigated, theories on the parallel conception of country of origin (COO) were used to code the data, as introduced by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1989), and further elaborated in Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999). Consumer assumptions of COO are a well-discussed field in international marketing and communication (eg Papadopoulos and Heslop, 1993; Peterson and Jolibert, 1995). COO is the conceptualisation of a product from its alleged origin and ‘the overall perception consumers form of products from a particular country’, founded on their previous awareness of the country’s production (Roth and


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Table 2: Examples of how COO affects the consumer in a cognitive, affective and normative way Mechanism/ meaning Cognitive

Affective Normative

Description In the cognitive process, consumer confidence is grounded in the product’s perceived association, the label’s clarity and amount of information, on both individual and contextual planes; COO acts as a signal and cue to categorise a product’s quality, reliability and durability In the affective interpretation, emotional sides of COO are emphasised as originating from a stereotype evaluative apprehension; COO gives a symbolic and emotional value to the consumer, eg as social status or self-image The normative mechanism deals with country-relevant norms; the consumer has personal, moral or ethnocentric norms related to the product’s COO, which directly affect consumers’ purchase behaviour and choice

Romeo, 1992: 480). In their overview, Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999: 523) note that ‘COO is not merely a cognitive cue for product quality, but also relates to emotions, identity, and autobiographical memories which transform COO into an ‘‘expressive’’ or ‘‘image’ attribute’’. COO can be understood as mental representations of a country’s people, products, culture and national symbols (Askegaard and Ger, 1996, 1998, cited in Verlegh and Steenkamp, 1999: 525), and ‘is similar to price, brand name, or warranty in that none of these directly bear on product performance’ (Peterson and Jolibert, 1995: 884). It can also be linked to feelings of national pride or memories of past vacations (Botschen and Hemettsberger, 1998). Jaffe and Nebenzahl (2001: 27) go one step further and suggest that COO is ‘the country which a consumer associates with a certain product or brand as being its source, regardless of where the product is actually produced’. The consumer effect of COO is its symbolic and emotional meaning (Li and Wyer, 1994), such as status, authenticity and exoticness (Batra et al., 2000); it directly affects consumers’ likelihood of buying the products, and can serve as a stereotype measure (Han, 1989). The COO also points to a reverse link, since the geographical

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area is used to promote a product but the product also promotes a geographical area (OECD, 1995: 10). Two assumptions had to be made to use COO for this study. First, that when marketing consultants described a local origin, they expressed the same feelings associated with COO. This conclusion is based on an apprehension that areas defined by man can bear values (eg Bell and Valentine, 1997). Second, that COO is almost exclusively studied from the consumers’ perspective. An assumption had therefore to be made that the same origin that consumers apprehend when evaluating a brand has a starting point in the marketing consultant’s creation of the origin. Step three The information was structured according to a framework of three characterised values; a cognitive, an affective and a normative association, as described by Obermiller and Spangenberg (1989), Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) and Verlegh and Ittersum (2001). These researchers show that an association to an origin is vital to how a consumer interprets a market message and perceives the quality of a product (Table 2). These three associative mechanisms are fluent in relation to each other, and are



Table 3: The analytical process Step 1: Emerged categories where the transcribed interview answers were coded to data The application of a food and meal culture Conception and interpretation The use of others’ knowledge Creating the market message LORE food as brand asset

Step 2: Data scrutinised for signs of the origin’s importance

Step 3: Data’s meaning evaluated

COO theories

Cognitive

here assumed to be relevant for understanding the marketing consultants’ use of local origin as creative asset. To facilitate the reading of this study, the abbreviation ‘LORE food’ has been used for the frequent and central expression ‘LOcal and REgional food and meal culture’ (Tellstro¨m et al., 2003, 2005). The concepts ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ are here described from the interviewee’s perspective, and as a dichotomy and well-used stereotype where the countryside and its inhabitants are understood as rural, less developed, old-fashioned and sometimes genuine (Bessie`re, 1998; Tregear, 1998) and the densely populated areas and the cities as the bearer of urban attributes and concepts such as modern, contemporary, up-to-date and fashionable (Bessie`re, 1998). FINDINGS The results in this study are drawn from the analytical approach, whereby the interviews have been transformed to evaluated data as shown in Table 3. The application of food and meal culture The marketing consultants stressed that the usefulness of a LORE food association in brand creation is that it

Affective

Results Normative LORE food as marketing and brand asset

gives the product an authentic nimbus and signals a desired origin. As one consultant said: ‘The consumer has a very strong wish to know the product’s origin.’ A local and regional association can also create the concept of a new product, because ‘both the consumers and the retailers constantly want new products’. The marketing consultants expressed mixed feelings towards the use of a LORE food association in branding: ‘It feels like just a commercial device to trick people that Swedish products are better than products from other countries.’ Conception and interpretation The marketing consultants described LORE food within cognitive, normative and affective terms from a contemporary urban perspective. The value of the LORE food concept is that it creates authenticity, and a pronounced origin becomes a market advantage when it is coherent with the product, the consultants said. They regarded urban consumers as the main consumer group of LORE food products, since ‘many rural residents are unimpressed by their local food culture when presented in commercial food products or restaurant meals in their area’. The consultants link LORE food as a concept to contemporary trends in music


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and fashion and consumer interest in product origin as a mark of authenticity. ‘Authenticity signals reliability and quality from the consumer’s perspective’ and its demand originates from ‘a growing consumer group who want to be seduced and impressed by the producers’ expertise and products’. The consultants also said that a LORE food brand must correspond with what is assumed to be characteristic, specific and exclusive, and felt to be genuine, old-fashioned and traditional. One consultant added that ‘the illusion is more important than actual authenticity’. LORE food is consumer-led, by demand, rather than by producer initiative, since food producers always satisfy demand for specificity by choosing products from an objectively tested source and never by the product’s geographical origin, according to the consultants. A successful LORE food brand is partly built on the images the consumers already have in their minds. One consultant called these existing apprehensions ‘memory islands’, to which new market messages and brands can anchor. ‘The brand name, the right images and the packaging must always be seen as truthful.’ Food culture is also seen as part of the normative foundation of local culture, thus ‘local tradition is the heritage and soul of our food culture’. The use of others’ knowledge The marketing consultants’ knowledge of LORE food varied. When creating brands they try to put their own knowledge in the background and the consumer in the foreground. As one consultant put it: ‘My own knowledge can sometimes be a hindrance, because I have to represent the consumer who I want to react to my message.’

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They search for information individually, using business networks or via state organisations promoting LORE food. Their research methods are ethnological research, mapping of consumer trends and competitive context. Although they would prefer to conduct in-depth research, there is usually not enough time, due to clients deciding to start work on branding at a very late stage in their projects. Creating the market message The marketing consultants create brands together with the client in a process characterised by negotiation: one marketing consultant said that ‘you have to be satisfied if 80 per cent of your ideas are accepted’. One way of creating LORE food brands is by using reference groups such as regional gastronomy academies where the marketing consultants meet regional chefs and academic food researchers. The origin’s cognitive function must be presented truthfully, but a certain type of ‘local colour’, ‘a pseudo-authenticity’, can accentuate a useful origin, and unhelpful parts can be suppressed. ‘There are templates that can be used over and over again’, one marketing consultant concluded, and added: ‘The illusion is the most important when a food culture is fashioned.’ Another emphasised that: ‘The presented LORE food message must be simplified as much as possible and at the same time be appetising.’ Older traditional food culture is reshaped for modern food and nutritional trends: ‘When LORE food is associated with traditional high-calorie dishes, you change them to include contemporary delicacies.’ LORE food as brand asset The consultants considered that a brand based on LORE food ideas must be



conceptual, because its value is that it condenses long explanatory narratives on how the product’s origin should be interpreted by the consumer. One said that it is important constantly to find new ways of communicating brand content and expression, and link that to contemporary consumer attitudes and market trends: ‘The ideal LORE food brand carries both a message and a signal of its desired market position.’ In creating the ideal brand, knowledge of food culture was emphasised as an asset for making a choice that is marketable: ‘If you don’t have the right knowledge, the origin won’t give the product the advantage over others’ products that it could.’ In the branding process, some aspects of origin are emphasised and others neglected. In creating the right origin ‘it is important that it is place-related, using strong images that relate to the product and evoke associations’. In the choice of expressions to evoke feelings of origin, strong visual signals such as landscape, people and well-used stereotypical rural scenes are emphasised by the consultants. One consultant said that ethnicity is not always is an asset for LORE food brands, and gave the example of reindeer meat, which to him has associations with the poverty and political militancy of the indigenous Sa´ mi people who herd reindeer. But: ‘To accentuate the meat’s flavour would be a way to make its origin an advantage.’ There was consensus that products communicating as an expression of LORE food must also suit logistical demands and fit existing modes of distribution, and that LORE food products must compare well with other products in general. Swedish products are sold in the Nordic and international markets, and a brand’s normative profile must be shaped to be communicable in both the national

and international contexts. ‘When the product is bought, then bought again, LORE food branding is an asset’, one consultant concluded. DISCUSSION In this study, marketing consultants have reflected on how they evaluate food products with local or regional origins, and what value LORE food can play in the branding process. There are few theories concerning analysis of products with an emphasised local or regional origin (as opposed to country origin), or on how marketing professionals create brands with a local or regional connotation. COO theories, traditionally centred on the consumers’ viewpoint, were accordingly adapted for application to a local origin and to the perspective of those creating the visible origin. The empirics may suffer from some bias, as the marketing consultants seemed cautious in answering questions. This could be because LORE food is built on stereotypes and prejudices, and the consultants did not want to appear narrow-minded. It could also be a sign that they said what they thought was expected, rather than what they thought (Taylor and Bogdan, 1984: 141). The use of ‘stimulus products’ might compensate for this bias. There is also a possible bias in the snowball sampling method, since the interviewees could be assumed to recommend people with the same ideas as themselves, and not those of contrary opinions. It has been assumed in this study that the use of an analytical scheme in which interviewed statements are examined for their cognitive, affective or normative meaning is effective for food products and brands with an alleged local origin. As Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999: 523) conclude, COO produces different meanings, since it seems to relate not


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only to quality but also to identity, pride and autobiographical memories. The marketing consultants stressed the cognitive importance of LORE food for its potential to be an easily understood signal at the same time as representing reliability and durability. It can allude to emotional values, since it bears signals of simple symbolic meanings; for instance, expressed through the use of place names, cultural context or a natural phenomenon. They also said that a brand asset for a food product with a mentioned place or other origin signal is that it can simplify a complicated decision process for the consumer. LORE food associations have a normative advantage, in the same way as it is an acceptable ethnocentric opinion to regard products from one’s own country as superior to foreign products (Shimp and Sharma, 1987). Bell and Valentine (1997: 147) and Ape´ ira and Back (2004: 44) have concluded that communicated cognitive meanings, such as a product’s local association, have a greater value to the consumer than a product lacking this association. The consultants agreed that a local apprehension can make an unknown product quickly familiar and reliable, and that LORE food is also of interest to them for its high ranking in contemporary political, economic and social contexts (Paasi, 2001: 16, Tregear, 2001: 2). A local food product is in basis linked to the idea of local cuisines and local meals, and as Crang (1994) has discussed, consumers usually assume that local cuisines do exist in reality. But the consultants’ primary objective in branding with food culture is to give the product authenticity. A marketed authenticity is, though, not to be understood literally, as a reflection of the real and indisputable. It is instead interpreted by the consultants as a

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representation of a defined reality. MacCannell (1989: 93) states that in tourist situations the local element need not be authentic, but must be experienced as a mythical reality. Marketing consultants closely observe how urban consumers apprehend LORE food products, since they are the main consumers. The key factors to market success are those which fulfil an urban consumer’s search for authenticity, for instance with food products based on high-status raw materials or which function as an exclusive choice in a gourmet restaurant meal. LORE food products reflect these objectives, and become part of an urban lifestyle in which these products are given an exotic association (Batra et al., 2000). The consultants, working and living in an urban context, regard food eaten in the urban milieu as an example of an urban food culture, not as a LORE food culture. Jones and Jenkins (2002: 11) have shown that certain regional food products are useful for expressions of culture and identity in a contemporary urban context. This is supported by Li and Wyer (1994) and Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999: 523) stating that regional food products create feelings of tastefulness, and can evoke the consumer’s own memories of a region. The marketing consultants actively create brand and marketing campaigns to support this consumer attitude, but they can be confronted with conflicting apprehensions of local origin; where, for instance, consumer expectations of local origin vary (Kuznesof et al., 1997), or the client who pays for the branding work has another opinion of the branded origin. The consultants therefore have to negotiate with the client, with the consumer and also within the social context: this conflict underlines the fact that a branded food culture is at heart a negotiated food culture.



A NORMATIVE TENSION BETWEEN AUTHENTICITY AND ETHNOCENTRISM Among the marketing consultants it was not regarded as fraudulent to one-sidedly emphasise a positive local origin or relation to place to create an affective story for the product, so long as this was grounded in the consumer’s expressed need for a food experience and search for authenticity. All other circumstances of authenticity not contributing to these positive associations are therefore consciously neglected. In food marketing, as Lien (2000) has suggested, some aspects of the presented food culture are put forward, others suppressed. The consultants appeal to a positive LORE food apprehension that already partially exists in the target consumer’s mind. The consumer absorbs the marketed message and combines it with his own pre-existing ideas of LORE food, from which a complete new pattern of understanding is constructed. To be accepted by the consumer, the marketed authenticity is presented as normative ideas and attitudes which the consumer can interpret as important to the product’s meaning and usability. Local food culture as a brand and a marketed product can therefore be both ethnocentric and chauvinistic in its presented authenticity. This can be linked to what Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999: 525) have shown for national brands, which in affective and normative associations are based on cultural stereotypes, and often also ethnocentrism (Shimp and Sharma, 1987). Besides the normative and ethnocentric formulation of a LORE food brand, the consultants are careful to make the brand associative with the right contemporary affective symbols: low in sugar content, low in fat, up-market restaurant cuisine or other forms that make the brand compatible with consumer self-image or social status

ambitions. Artisan food products are most effective in enhancing status (Gilg and Battershill, 1998), and the consultants emphasise the hand-made element of the product and under-communicate industrialised processing. THE LORE FOOD BRANDING TOOLBOX The marketing consultants see local origin as a positive cognitive asset when consumers make a choice, in combination with other criteria such as price, packaging or the shop’s reputation (Dawar and Parker, 1994), on the national origin of products. The consultants are vigilant in excluding negative effects if, for example, presented quality and origin do not match (Roth and Romeo, 1992: 482–483; Johansson et al., 1994). The consultants take care that LORE food brands are compatible with different cultural systems and national markets, so that the same product can be sold in several countries but still be regarded as local. Negative LORE food engenders associations which do not attract urban consumer spending: that is, associations which do not fit their vision of what a real LORE food culture stands for. It is therefore important to regard all LORE food origins as constructed concepts. They function as both setting and staged performance in the urban consumer’s struggle for social and cultural success and acceptance in the urban environment. The consultants’ reflections and conclusions on LORE food usability in branding have been simplified in tabular form (Table 4). CONCLUSION The marketing consultants’ conception of food culture with a local or regional origin is its usefulness as form and as a


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Table 4: Marketing consultants’ definitions of successful brand assets for a LORE food product, assumed to confer positive value in consumer choice, and brand associations actively avoided Positive brand assets for a LORE food product

Negative brand assets for a LORE food product

Reflects and matches urban consumers’ expectations and ideals of place or other type of origin

Unreadable or ambiguous message for urban consumer or reflecting rural consumer ideas

Associates with urban mainstream society’s normative stereotypes of an origin and how authenticity should be expressed

Associates to ethnic or social problems or situations with multiple interpretations

Associates with no other food culture, place or origin than that presented

Associates with unspecified locality or origin with multiple geographical associations

Associates with tastefulness, light food, exoticism, nostalgia

Associates with everyday meals, high fat content, elaborate preparation/serving or obscure history

Matches expected content and adapted to existing product category’s forms and colours

Diverges in content, form or colour from the food product it is believed to be

Impression of small-scale manual production, well-hidden modern clinical food production, excellence in manufacturing skills

Impression of anonymous industrial production, untrustworthy production conditions or producer with low social status

Nationally or internationally promoted

Only promoted where produced

marketing asset based on the idea of its commercial value, not traditional value. They try to establish a link between the value of an apprehended food culture’s origin and the food product marketed. Available food cultures have both positive and negative aspects, and the marketing consultants must therefore possess both cultural and marketing knowledge to be able to choose the right connection to make the apprehension profitable. Commercial LORE food represents a contemporary staged authenticity which is highlighted by a selection of cultural symbols whose purpose is to represent, not to reflect. The consultants use selected place-related aspects that are interpreted as authentic to encourage consumers’ trust in the product, or to promote travel to a particular area to experience a food culture. It is paradoxical that while the principle of LORE food stands in opposition to urban food culture, it often operates just as an element of urban food culture or as a food experience acting as a manifestation of an urban identity. The

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commercial value of LORE food in an urban context lies in creating a brand with the best adapted cognitive, affective and normative content the consumer can be expected to find. Therefore, those aspects of a defined food culture most likely to be apprehended positively will be accentuated in marketing, along with those food-cultural values that stimulate an identity construction or are part of a cultural cohesion. All other LORE food origin elements, such as a low consumer-ranked ethnicity or high calorie content, are excluded, making LORE food’s commercial function a carrier of both ethnocentrism and stereotyping. LORE food is therefore to be understood as a ‘positive food culture’ where the apprehended surface is emphasised. Although this study has been conducted in Sweden, the framework and results can be of interest to other countries; not least since food cultural heritage production and food culture authenticity projects are part of a global trend to ‘sell’ place rather than a merely national issue.



Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge valuable support from the Federation of Swedish Farmers, AB Måltidsupplevelser i Grythyttan and Stiftelsen Grythytte Stipendiefond. English language editor: Robert Connolly.

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