The New Cultures of Food: Marketing Opportunities from Ethnic, Religious and Cultural Diversity

Citation

Cavicchi, A. (2010), "The New Cultures of Food: Marketing Opportunities from Ethnic, Religious and Cultural Diversity", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 478-479. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761011063385

The recent wave of globalization has been characterized by a pervasive phenomenon known as “decommodification of international trade” (Yotopoulos and Romano, 2007). This feature of world markets, characterized by a trade of high‐value differentiated (not only) agricultural products, has been boosted by a complex set of institutional and technological changes. The increased interdependence of markets, businesses, and different cultures can generate new opportunities for firms operating in the agribusiness sector that are able to guarantee a customization adequately remunerated with a premium price by targeted consumers' segments. Cultural diversity can be strictly related to differentiation of goods.

The question is, can the global and emerging evidence of diversity be seen as a resource for marketers? The authors of The New Cultures of Food provide a positive answer, exploring a multifaceted reality where the way food is conceived, cooked, and eaten is an expression of a more and more globalized world.

The book's overall objective is clearly stated by the editors in the Foreword: “to provide a comprehensive collection of cutting‐edge research on the opportunities induced by diversity, especially in terms of the consequences for businesses and appropriate marketing strategy plans”.

The book is structured in three different parts thanks to the contribution of twenty‐nine authors who present a wide range of research methodologies across several scientific disciplines: geography, psychology, consumer behavior, management, and marketing, among others. The partition is organized following the geographic coverage of the studies: Europe, Latin America, and Asia (near and far east).

The first part covers research questions, such as: What is “Ethnic” in multicultural Great Britain? What are the barriers to healthy eating faced by ethnic Minorities in UK? What is the role of food in the adjustment journey of International Students in UK universities? What is the role of certification for the development of the Halal Market in London? All these subjects have been explored using methodological techniques including participant observations, semi‐structured interviews, and case studies. For example, a case study, presented by Beer, Hingley, and Lindgreen in Chapter 4, helps understanding the deep changes in supply chains prompted by new ethnic opportunities:

This realization creates benefits for food consumers and local food products […] but all cases […] reinforce the fact that individual producers cannot act alone; they need support in terms of networks and skills development to help realize their potential and engender true market‐oriented network collaboration (p. 71).

Chapter 4, together with Chapter 6 about retail internationalization as a driver of global developments, is probably the most important contribution to understand how the fast‐changing scenario involves reciprocally the worlds of food production and food retailing. In light of these considerations, the first part is a rich source of inspiration for marketers and researchers in the agribusiness field.

The second part has a focus on Latin America and mainly on Brazilian consumers. Chapter 7 is about the demand for Brazilian groceries in the UK, Chapter 8 provides a cross cultural study of beef consumption in Brazil, Australia and The Netherlands, while Chapter 9 treats the important challenges related to marketing the 4 million single‐person homes in Brazil. Chapter 10 instead illustrates how Hispanic/Latino online purchases may re‐territorialize food practices and communities in the frame of migration and globalization processes.

Chapter 11 faces a central theme for those interested in the role of product origin in an era of international brands. In fact, it treats the so‐called “country‐of‐origin effect” with a specific focus on the influence of China's image on the evaluation of Chinese products by Brazilian consumers. The issue of country of origin, widely treated in literature, can be explained as the picture or reputation created by variables that consumers connect to products of a specific country such as history, tradition, and landscape:

In many areas, particularly when it comes to food issues, a sort of consumer patriotism has been emerging, whereby consumers prefer local and national products over more remotely sourced ones. The quality of imported goods also has been cause for concern, to both consumers and governments, especially in the case of Chinese goods (p. 193).

Dynamics linked to local ethnic groups in India, Malaysia, and New Zealand are explored in the third part, together with an analysis of Asian food and drink industry and retailing in UK. It is worth stressing the examination in Chapter 13 of functional foods market in Malaysia that, thanks to the cultural convergence among ethnic groups, is extremely attractive and need to be watched over by both firms and government:

Due to their close proximity, each major ethnic group in Malaysia probably acquires practices and beliefs from the other cultures. With time, views about functional foods held by the Malays, Chinese and Indians may converge (p. 237).

A criticism can be placed to the authors concerning the geographic coverage of the first part: only chapter 6, that deals with the retail internationalization as a driver of global development with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe, takes into consideration European countries other than UK. Probably Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Spain, and France would have needed an in‐depth analysis of food as expression of the new multiculturalism that mitigates and slightly transforms traditional habits and culinary behaviors. For the same reason, Part 2 probably indulges too much on Brazil and Brazilian consumers. Anyway, it is true that in some studies, the data presented are part of larger cross‐cultural research projects and further knowledge is going to be acquainted.

This is a well‐written book, even if far from providing a comprehensive view of the wide theme treated, focusing on many specific issues and giving insightful suggestions to marketers and offers advice for a wake‐up call in order to face new competitive arenas. We are not given recipes to be directly applied because cultural meanings of food are unstable and they can change over time and in different contexts. But the research methods used and the marketing tools presented can provide the readers with useful instruments to be open‐minded. Moreover, the multidisciplinary nature of the collected studies stimulates researchers who belong to different disciplines to empirically further explore food habits as expression of culture in our globalized world.