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This paper aims to investigate the consumption and actual purchase behaviour of Malaysian food consumers who have experienced of buying imported food and to compare the differences between two groups, Muslim and non-Muslim.

This study collected data from the imported food buyers in Malaysia using a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 435 usable responses were used for further analysis. To identify the Malaysian consumers’ imported food consumption, exploratory factor analysis was used. A t-test and χ² test were applied to compare the difference of consumer groups between Muslim and non-Muslims.

The results have found the determinants of imported food purchasing of both Muslim and non-Muslim consumers and the most perceived quality aspects related to their food lifestyles. Malaysian consumers, regardless of religion, are most affected by the intrinsic factors like nutrients, health functionality and freshness. Muslim consumers also mostly perceive taste as a quality aspect regarding to their food lifestyles.

This study provides a number of potentially important and valuable resources for the manufacturer or exporters seeking to enter the Malaysian food market. Imported food into Malaysia should adopt the customised strategies through the products emphasising health benefits and tastes to achieve maximum marketing results.

This paper contributes important information about imported food consumption of Malaysian consumers. Therefore, it will be useful for food manufacturers or exporters from in particular non-Muslim countries to understand Muslim consumers’ perception and purchasing behaviour towards imported food.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal and understand the consumption of functional food model for Malay Muslim consumers in Malaysia. The paper presents a new framework to understand how the majority of Malay Muslim consumers living in multicultural societies make their functional food choices in the modern world.

The data were collected through a self‐administrated questionnaire survey that was distributed using convenience sampling. The items for the questionnaire were identified from a preliminary model derived from the qualitative analysis input using ethnoconsumerist and grounded theory methodologies. Structural equation modelling was used to develop the consumption of functional food model for Malay Muslims in Malaysia.

These findings have practical implications for public policymakers (e.g. government and consumer educators), industrial food practitioners, market researchers and manufacturers who produce, sell or market functional foods in Malaysia.

This research is specific to functional food consumption and Malay Muslim consumers. Thus, the results in this study may not be applicable to cultures in general.

In terms of originality, the empirical findings of this study represent a contribution to the literature in the area of food marketing in developing multicultural countries, because the model is developed in a cross‐cultural context. The model is specific to the Malay Muslim population.

Internationalization, entrepreneurship, franchising, international marketing.

First year undergraduate students of Management courses.

This case is about a newly established fast food company that expands very rapidly in Malaysia. Growing from merely a single pushcart, the company has evolved into one of the most successful purely-local food franchise businesses with almost 100 franchises throughout the country and abroad. The company keeps on looking at bigger expansion plans abroad and eyeing the Middle Eastern markets.

After carrying out this exercise, students are expected to be able: to understand how a new business start up grows; to provide a simple illustration on how internationalization of small firms can took place; to analyze the various factors of considerations prior to internationalization; to identify the basic issues of international franchising and how the system works.

Teaching note.

This paper aims to discuss the limitations surrounding the yoghurt industry and challenges to producing a bio-yoghurt tablet. The paper looks into challenge facing the yoghurt industry, such as manufacturing and distribution, its short shelf life, heat-sensitivity and relatively heavy weight. It further looks into the selection of strains, excipients and storage conditions with special consideration towards maintaining the viability of the probiotics inside bio-yoghurt tablets. The paper also discusses yoghurt standards and definitions across various countries and suggests a more uniform standard be embraced across countries for ease of categorization and production.

The paper is divided into a few major sections; each exploring various aspects of the yoghurt industry. Topics discussed include challenges in yoghurt production and storage; processes involved in bio-yoghurt tablet production, e.g. maximising viability, choice of excipients and more; market trends of yoghurt consumption and potential; and various food standards in countries around the world with a focus on yoghurt.

The review finds that yoghurt is a segment of the food industry with big growth potential. Most of the problems associated with yoghurt, i.e. poor shelf life, and heavy weight, can be circumvented by transforming it into a bio-yoghurt tablet. The paper further identifies food standard variations among different countries around the world which could impede yoghurt manufacture and acceptance.

This paper looks the various challenges surrounding the increased uptake of yoghurt, specifically in the Asian markets and suggests a viable option to overcome this problem, i.e. the use of a bio-yoghurt tablet. Should the worldwide bodies come together and agree to a universal standard involving yoghurt, the industry may see an even bigger expansion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that may affect consumer intention and behaviour to purchase organic food in a non-western context.

Responses were obtained from 246 organic food consumers using judgemental sampling. Data were analysed using partial least squares–structural equation modelling to examine the strength of the relationships among the constructs.

The findings reveal that attitude, subjective norm (SN), perceived behavioural control, moral norm (MN), self-identity (SI) and environmental concern (EC) exert significant positive effect on purchase intention (PI). Furthermore, PI is found to mediate the relationship among attitude, SN, perceived behavioural control, MN, SI and EC with purchase behaviour (PB). Moreover, the findings indicate that price consciousness moderates the relationship between PI and PB.

The results of this study emphasised that marketers need to implement various marketing strategies including discount, advertisements and new product development to bring positive change in consumers’ intention and to attract them towards purchasing organic food. Moreover, marketers may take some initiatives to reduce the price of organic food through various strategies which eventually can reduce the cost of organic foods for local consumers.

This study extends the theory of planned behaviour (TBP) by incorporating MN, SI and EC. The expanded theoretical framework improved the predictive ability of the TBP.

Cultivating customer loyalty is extremely crucial for fast-food players to remain competitive in the industry. This research is discovering the path to cultivate customer loyalty through experience that is built based on auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory and visual cues.

Quantitative research has been conducted by distributing survey questionnaires to customers at selected fast-food restaurants in urban areas. The collected data has been analyzed by descriptive and structural equation modeling analysis.

The customers' loyalty to fast food can be cultivated through gustatory, haptic and olfactory cues. However, auditory and visual are not functioning as marketing cues to cultivate customer loyalty.

The fast-food players may emphasize gustatory, haptic and olfactory marketing cues to cultivate customer loyalty. These cues can be shared through experience.

This study has discovered the potential ways to cultivate customer loyalty in dining at fast-food restaurants within the Malaysian market.

The gravity theory of trade explains the potential for trade between nations, but its application to trade in halal food has been questioned by previous studies. This study aims to investigate this issue and the role of trading partners’ economic strength and their distance from one another to identify Malaysia’s potential to export food to key halal markets.

The gravity theory of trade was used to examine Malaysia’s top 10 food exports to key halal markets from 2000–2017. The gravity panels were estimated using the Hausman-Taylor modelling technique to control for endogeneity within the model.

The application of the gravity theory of trade to a halal market context provides mixed results. Although the high economic strength (gross domestic product) of the trading partners enhances halal trade, the distance between the partners does not affect the volume of halal food exports. Moreover, the study identifies Malaysia’s potential to export only a few food commodities to key halal markets.

This study challenges the applicability of the gravity theory of trade to the halal food market. The study extends the model with additional controls for behavioural aspects and applies it to commodity-specific segregated trade in halal food. The findings underscore the need to extend the theory beyond its current focus when explaining trade opportunities in halal markets.

Islamic finance and Halal product sectors are thriving successfully. This chapter is a general review of the perception of Asian consumers on Islamic finance and Halal sectors in the global Halal economy.

The first section will briefly describe the Halal concept in both Islamic finance and Halal industries, and the growth of both sectors in Asian countries. The second part highlights the review of Asian consumers’ perception towards Islamic finance products and Halal products.

The review found that the consumers’ perception towards the Islamic finance products and Halal products is distinctive. This is due to the diversity of Asian countries in terms of geography, religion, culture, ethnic, school of thoughts (madzahib), income per capita and government’s involvement.

The third part of the chapter concentrates on planning towards Halal marketing, which involves the move and future challenges in different layers of industries to gear up and strengthen the Halal economy.

The theoretical underpinnings of this paper focus on foreign investment, modes of entry, export marketing, strategic alliances, investment criteria, firm characteristics, international strategy, external factors, and host and home country factors, and Asian culture and management. The research project presented in the paper was initially designed to obtain case study information on a number of foreign food companies which had invested in Malaysia, especially in terms of their strategic approaches, investment bases and market share achievement. However, subsequent to the preliminary discussions with the respondent companies, the researchers believed that the conventional models needed to be studied further. This research was undertaken via both structured and unstructured interviews of 11 multinational companies. The results demonstrated that there are both significant similarities and differences between the strategic approaches adopted by major global multinationals and minor regional multinationals and uncovered new investment‐market share strategies not previously covered in the literature. These results are discussed at length in this paper, and form the essence of the contribution to knowledge of the research project.