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This paper aims to examine a core member-customer threat in co-operatives (co-ops) by drawing from ostracism research, assessing co-op ostracism’s impact on critical membership and relational exchange outcomes and discussing why relationship marketing research needs to pay more attention to the overlooked role of implicit mistreatment forms in customer harm-doing.

Three studies were conducted. In Study 1, ostracism in co-ops was explored, and a measurement scale for co-op ostracism was developed. In Study 2, the core conceptual model was empirically tested with data from members of three different co-ops. In Study 3, a coping strategy was integrated into an extended model and empirically tested with a new sample of co-op members.

Ostracism is present in co-ops and “poisons” crucial relational (and membership) outcomes, despite the presence of other relationship-building or relationship-destroying accounts. Coupling entitativity with cognitive capital attenuates ostracism’s impact.

Inspired by co-ops’ membership model and inherent relational advantage, this research is the first to adopt a co-op member-customer perspective and shed light on an implicit relationship-destroying factor.

Co-op decision makers might use the diagnostic tool developed in the paper to detect ostracism and fight it. Moreover, a novel coping strategy for how co-ops (or other firms) might fend off ostracism threats is offered in the article.

The present study illuminates a dark side of a relationally profuse customer context, painting a more complete picture of relationship marketing determinants. Little attention has been given to ostracism as a distinct and important social behaviour in marketing research and to co-ops as a research context.

Insufficient attention to the specific nature of healthy food experiences might limit the success of related innovations. The purpose of this article is to adopt a value‐in‐use perspective to conceptualize healthy food consumption as experiential and emotional, rather than the mere intake of nutrition, and to examine the development of healthy food communication with a service science approach.

With a service science approach, this study proposes a virtual healthy food platform for children. The key data come from internal project documents, workshops with children and other stakeholders (e.g. parents, teachers), and interviews with project team members.

The simultaneity of functional and hedonic benefits, implications for multiple stakeholders, social norms, and need for expertise characterize healthy food experiences. The proposed framework accounts for enablers, principles, outcomes, and challenges affecting the development of communication integral to healthy food experiences, using project data and tools as illustrations.

This study contributes to growing literature on service science by introducing key principles and contingency factors that influence the success of experience‐centric service innovations. Quantitative research should validate the established framework and investigate the elements' relative usefulness for developing healthy food communication.

The service science approach involves multiple stakeholders, empathic data collection, and visual tools to develop an entertaining platform to help children learn about healthy food.

This research conceptualizes and validates healthy food experiences as value‐in‐use offerings. The proposed service science approach accounts for the interactions among stakeholders, the holistic nature, and specificities of a real‐life decision context for improving healthy food experiences.