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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumers’ cultural values and their functional food perception.

The research is qualitative in nature and uses the grounded theory method. The data were collected through in-depth interviews with three ethnic groups, Anglo-Australian, Chinese and Indian ethnic groups in Australia. The constant comparative data analysis approach was used to analyse the interview text.

The results indicate that there is a relationship between consumers’ cultural values and their functional food perception. Functional food perception depends upon the consumers’ predisposition towards their culture, their motives for functional food consumption and the level of perseverance towards functional foods.

The study includes only three ethnic groups and is qualitative in nature, which may limit its generalisability to the universe. The inclusion of more ethnic groups and additional sources of data could form directions for future research.

Functional food marketers can assess the kind of cultural values the ethnic groups in Australia uphold and capture those values in their marketing strategies. The cultural values in the framework could be used for the segmentation of functional food consumers. In a multicultural setting like Australia, segmentation of consumers based on the standard values would be more feasible and effective to target consumers spread across different ethnic groups but who uphold similar values.

The research has attempted to fill the gap in the existing literature about the relationship between culture and functional food perception. The latent variables in the theoretical framework proposed by the qualitative enquiry can be a good starting point for understanding the influence of cultural values on functional food perception and the development of a more comprehensive theoretical framework for functional food behaviour.

The purpose of the article is to develop an instrument for measuring the influence of consumers' cultural values on functional food perception.

The study is quantitative in nature and builds on an earlier qualitative study that employed in-depth interviews, thematic analysis and constant comparative analysis to construct a survey instrument which initially had 53 items. The quantitative study involved an online survey that was conducted using this instrument, which resulted in 365 complete cases that included 173 Anglo-Australian, 102 Chinese and 90 Indian respondents living in Australia. The survey data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis using Principal axis factoring, with Promax rotation.

The research has validated that functional food perception is dependent upon consumers' cultural values. The results of the exploratory factor analysis provided a six-factor instrument with 32 items.

Only three ethnic groups were involved in this study and that is not entirely representative of Australia or other countries. The instrument, however, will allow researchers in the field of functional food to extend the research to other diverse communities.

The instrument will further enable functional food producers and marketers to develop effective marketing strategies based on their knowledge of the influence of cultural values on functional food perception.

The instrument developed from this study, for measuring consumers' functional food perception based on cultural values, is the first of its kind.

This paper seeks to examine long‐term trends in retailer and manufacturer brand shares in grocery product categories, and to relate these trends to retailer category strategy with regard to these two types of brand.

The study makes use of secondary data and empirical materials from the literature to establish and explain the trends in four countries: the UK, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Additionally, interview data are used to develop issues.

The results indicate the existence of long‐term equilibrium points between the shares of manufacturer brands and retailer brands in grocery product categories in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. Only the UK shows strong growth of retailer brands in line with retailer consolidation and power, but this trend is arrested, reversed and brought to equilibrium in 2001.

The data presented are restricted to four major English‐speaking economies between 1992 and 2005. The data are also consolidated national data. Equilibria within individual categories will vary due to variations in category structure and pace of innovation.

This research indicates that major retailers deploy manufacturer brands to drive the categories via innovation and retailer brands to generate additional profit for the retailers. Therefore manufacturer brands do have a long‐term future. Individual manufacturer brands are likely to be assessed by the retailer primarily on this driving capability, and on the manufacturers' ongoing investment in the capacity to innovate that supports it.

The paper provides a fresh perspective of looking at retailer and manufacturer strategy via brand share trends.

The purpose of this paper is to examine shelf management practices of grocery retail chains and their category captains (CCs) in the marketing of consumer packaged goods.

This is a qualitative, exploratory study that is set in a duopoly retail environment in the Asia-Pacific region. The study employed 18 in-depth interviews with executives and managers of two umbrella retail organisations and their suppliers/manufacturers. The method of data analysis employed was content analysis.

Despite CC input in merchandising decisions, it is the retail chains that have the final say on shelf matters. There is no risk of strategic loss of power in employing CCs to manage store product categories on behalf of, or in partnership with retailers provided the retail chains closely monitor the activities and decisions/recommendations of the captains.

The paper is developed from data obtained from the grocery retail industry of one economy. Future research would need to extend this study to other economies with similar as well as different conditions.

The research offers reassurance to grocery retail practitioners who may be contemplating lessening the burden of managing all their store categories by themselves and switching to CC arrangements. The reassurance is that the reported risk associated with loss of power is manageable.

The paper has created a typology termed the “category captain arrangement/grocery retail concentration matrix” and specific directions for further research.