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This paper aims to draw on the sociocultural dimensions of food luxury consumption as a new theoretical foundation to explore the consumers’ perceptions of ethical food production and consumption practices within luxury gastronomic restaurants.

The authors conducted a contextualized, qualitative exploration of French luxury dining settings among 35 consumers with different profiles, food cultural backgrounds and gastronomic knowledge. Drawing on Thompson’s analysis framework, the authors captured the narratives beyond the stories told by participants that describe their perceptions and the meanings they assign to ethical food practices in Michelin-starred restaurants.

The results illustrate how consumers with different profiles perceive ethical food practices within luxury restaurants. The authors identified three segments: novice, advanced and confirmed according to participants’ acquaintance with luxury gastronomy codes and values. These three profiles served as a framework to examine consumers’ perceptions of ethical food forms – environmental sustainability, food well-being and cultural heritage – within the luxury dining setting.

The study revealed no one dominant form of ethical food practices as emphasized in prior studies. Rather, there are multiple forms, including functional, hedonic and symbolic values, related to the degree of familiarity and knowledge of consumers in terms of their luxury gastronomic experiences. The findings show that the perception of ethical food practices within luxury restaurants can encompass additional dimensions such as food well-being and cultural preservation and transmission. This information can enrich the restaurant sustainability literature that principally focuses on health, community and the ecological aspects of food ethics in restaurants. Although this study suggests numerous new insights, there are limitations related to focusing on the French food culture. However, these limitations can help us develop other opportunities for future research.

The findings of this study provide luxury professionals and marketers with key insights into effective strategies to integrate sustainable practices while enhancing the luxury experience. The findings show that to encourage luxury businesses and restaurants to promote sustainable practices, it is necessary to enhance the functional, social, emotional and cultural dimensions of the perceived benefits of offering sustainable luxury experiences and reducing the constraints related to sustainability.

With its focus on the luxury dining settings underpinning the ethical food practices from the perspective of consumers, this research offers novel insights for researchers and luxury professionals interested in ethical and sustainable business practices.

This research suggests a new way to study sustainability and ethical food production and consumption practices in luxury dining settings – namely, as multiple, culturally embedded perceptions related to three main profiles of luxury gastronomy consumers: novice, advanced and confirmed.

An observable shift in food consumption motives for some German consumer segments has created new market potentials for high-priced food items. The purpose of this paper is to empirically show whether and to what extent financial, functional, individual and social dimensions as well as sustainability and authenticity contribute to consumers’ perception of the luxury value of food.

The effects of seven exploratory value dimensions on a perceived luxury value for foods were measured using a partial least squares structural equation analysis of a database generated by a survey done on 936 German consumers in summer 2014.

Luxury food was found to serve as a suitable setting to investigate both old and new motives for luxury consumption. The analyses revealed that all factors contribute significantly to luxury value, with functional and individual luxury facets having the strongest effects. Practical and methodological implications can be derived from the results.

Limitations are due to the applied methodology.

The definitional dimensions of a luxury food value correspond to those for a general luxury good. The significance of two new luxury values, sustainability and authenticity, was confirmed for luxury food. The functional and individual luxury values were found to be the most significant. This supports the previously postulated change in motives for luxury consumption and also mirrors the new emphasis on quality and self-identity in the German food sector. These findings can be utilised in practical food marketing.

Although there are major similarities between food and luxury good consumption patterns, how luxury can be defined in the context of food had not been previously investigated empirically. This paper is the first to study the factors that contribute to the luxury value of food.

The primary objective of this study is to explore the nuanced interplay of conspicuous consumption, ethical label purchasing and the ensuing dynamics of civic virtue and cynicism within the luxury foodservice context.

Grounded in a theoretical understanding of solidarity within the context of product consumption, this research employs a two-pronged approach involving secondary data analysis and scenario-based experimental studies. The initial phase involves analyzing firm-level data from the Euromonitor database in 2019 and 2021. The main study employs a between-subjects experimental design with a cohort of 316 participants sourced from an online panel.

The results reveal a consistent pattern in the consumption of luxury foodservice and underscore a distinct upward trajectory in consumer demand for ethically labeled food. Notably, these findings underscore the moderating role of ethical label purchasing in the relationship between conspicuous consumption and consumers civic virtue. Additionally, ethical label purchasing moderates the impact of conspicuous consumption on consumer cynicism, both directly and indirectly through emotional solidarity related to both communal and equitable principles.

This study holds significance for both luxury food service researchers and market design practitioners. It provides valuable insights into how ethical labeling interacts with consumers conspicuous consumption, all facilitated by emotional solidarity.

The purpose of this paper is to identify consumer segments based on the importance of food quality and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion; dinner party with friends.

Using cluster analysis, the importance of food quality benefits (quality, taste and health) and prestige benefits (prestige quality, hedonic, uniqueness, price and social) were investigated. The consumer segments were profiled using individual consumer characteristics (involvement in luxury, willingness to pay and socio-demographics).

Food quality benefits are the most important benefits when buying food for a party with friends and the authors identified four distinct consumer segments based on 20 different food quality and prestige benefits: perfectionists, premium, luxury seeking and value focussed. Three of the four consumer segments (perfectionists, premium and luxury seeking) find conventional food quality benefits important but differ in the importance they attribute to the different prestige benefits. The value focussed segment is not driven by prestige consumption but wants high quality at an affordable price.

This study demonstrates that consumers are driven by different food and prestige benefits when buying food for a special occasion.

This study suggest some important differences between premium consumers, looking for food quality and hedonic benefits, and luxury seeking, with a relatively higher focus on prestige quality, uniqueness and social benefits. This study also identifies a significant distinction between perfectionists and value focussed consumers. Both segments are focussed on food quality benefits but differ in their focus on value and prestige benefits.

The growth of luxury tourism has been brought to a grinding halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic affecting most parts of the world since early 2020. Although the time for recovery of hospitality and tourism industries is still unclear, experience from the SARS outbreak in 2003 showed that the bounce back from consumers could be fast. The group of most affluent consumers, mostly known as HNWIs (high net worth individuals), will resume their original consumption behaviour much sooner than the rest of the market; these affluent consumers are the main target market of luxury hospitality and tourism industries.

This chapter presents different types of luxury tourism, luxury lifestyle, luxury tourists' decision-making and luxury hospitality products. The luxury food and beverage business in Singapore is presented to illustrate the commercial environment during the pandemic.

Consumers dine at luxury restaurants for reasons beyond fulfilling basic needs; however, little is known about the factors that contribute to diners’ loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to examine diners’ luxury restaurant consumption behavior by incorporating product knowledge into a modified Mehrabian-Russell model.

Following exploratory qualitative research, 238 consumers who have dined at Hong Kong’s Michelin-starred luxury restaurants were recruited for the main study. The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling.

The results show that luxury restaurants’ stimuli (i.e. food quality, service quality, and atmospherics) influence diners’ emotions, which in turn affect their brand loyalty. Furthermore, food quality can directly influence diners’ loyalty toward the restaurant. Third, diners’ product knowledge can moderate the relationships between restaurant stimuli and diners’ emotion.

This study offers new empirical support for the proposition that product knowledge has a role in building brand loyalty and thereby shades both theoretical and managerial understanding of the luxury restaurant consumption process.

This study is one of the first to conceptualize diners’ loyalty toward luxury restaurants by examining the influences of restaurants’ stimuli and diners’ knowledge toward luxury restaurants. In addition, this study puts forth some managerial implications for practitioners.

This paper aims to examine diners’ luxury restaurant consumption behavior by incorporating diner expectations into a modified Mehrabian–Russell model. Consumers dine at luxury restaurants for reasons beyond fulfilling basic needs. However, little is known about the factors that contribute to diners’ emotions and loyalty toward luxury restaurants.

To examine the proposed six hypotheses, qualitative and quantitative studies were performed. Following exploratory qualitative research, 310 consumers who dined at Taiwan’s five-star hotel restaurants were recruited for the main study. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results show that restaurants’ stimuli influence diners’ positive and negative emotions (organisms), which, in turn, affect their loyalty toward luxury restaurants (responses). Furthermore, customers with different levels of expectation react differently to stimuli.

This study offers new empirical support for the proposition that diner expectation plays a role in building customer loyalty and, thereby, shades both theoretical and managerial understanding of the luxury restaurant consumption process.

This study conceptualizes diners’ loyalty toward luxury restaurants (e.g. revisiting and recommending luxury restaurants) by examining the influence of restaurants’ stimuli, diners’ emotions and customers’ expectations toward luxury restaurants. Additionally, this study offers some managerial implications for practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the motives for posting or sharing food photos using social media, focussed within the context of fine dining (FD) restaurants.

Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in France by combining analysis of qualitative diary research and transcripts of focus group discussions.

The motivation to take food images can be broadly categorised according to experiential (hedonism, altruism and passion collecting) and symbolic (social status, uniqueness, self-esteem and self-presentation) benefits.

This research is limited by its relatively small sample size and the inability to consider the direct influences of demographic variables and attitudes to FD and social media. Moreover, the cultural context of the study needs to be considered as the study took place in France.

User-generated images are increasingly an integral aspect of the holistic dining experience. Luxury restaurants need to leverage the opportunities of user-generated content. The FD experience needs to be visually captured and expressed. This can include both tangible and intangible attributes.

Although the literature has provided a comprehensive overview of social media behaviour, the efficacy of a gastronomic perspective is limited. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate consumer-generated postings of images of food within the luxury restaurant classification.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the suitability of Greece as a possible market for truffles. Primary data were collected and analysed in a systematic and detailed way to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of this prospective market development.

A multi-stage survey was conducted using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data obtained were analysed using the SWOT analysis method.

The survey highlighted the market characteristics of truffles in Greece. These were sorted into four categories: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks. Results show that truffles have an attractive mix of qualities; however, issues such as the lack of intermediary and customer knowledge and the limited communication of their benefits need to be overcome.

Findings showed that the use of SWOT analysis in specialized food products provides marketers and professionals’ insight and guidance into designing their marketing activities.

Truffles production or trading requires strong commitment by professionals who want to succeed in this market field.

Truffles market growth could contribute to the social welfare through the creation of supplemental income, the cultivation of arid fields and the conservation of natural resources due to their environmentally friendly manner of production.

For the first time, SWOT analysis is used to investigate the factors that shape the market of specialized products in the food sector.

The main purpose of this research is to evaluate Gluttony's role in consumers' compulsive buying behaviour. Specifically, the authors want to identify the main psychological antecedents of the construct (expressed with the Big Five) and the moderating effects of shopping motives (in the two dimensions hedonism and utilitarianism).

The hypotheses were tested by applying survey data from 335 participants to a mediation model with a moderator.

The results show that consciousness adversely affects gluttony, while neuroticism has a positive impact on it. Gluttony, in turn, mediates the relationship between these personality traits and compulsive buying behaviour. Finally, contrary to what might be expected, only utilitarianism accentuates the effect of gluttony on compulsive buying behaviour.

Using these results, managers and policymakers can create more effective strategies for their commercial or awareness initiatives.

This study clarifies the role of gluttony in consumer behaviour by identifying the underlying personality traits.