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This paper uses data from a city with a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population to better understand faith-based food aid. The paper aims to understand what constitutes faith-based responses to food insecurity, compare the prevalence and nature of faith-based food aid across different religions and explore how community food aid meets the needs of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population.

The study involved two phases of primary research. In Phase 1, desk-based research and dialogue with stakeholders in local food security programmes were used to identify faith-based responses to food insecurity. Phase 2 consisted of 18 semi-structured interviews involving faith-based and secular charitable food aid organizations.

The paper illustrates the internal heterogeneity of faith-based food aid. Faith-based food aid is highly prevalent and the vast majority is Christian. Doctrine is a key motivation among Christian organizations for their provision of food. The fact that the clients at faith-based, particularly Christian, food aid did not reflect the local religious demographic is a cause for concern in light of the entry-barriers identified. This concern is heightened by the co-option of faith-based organizations by the state as part of the “Big Society” agenda.

This is the first academic study in the UK to look at the faith-based arrangements of Christian and Muslim food aid providers, to set out what it means to provide faith-based food aid in the UK and to explore how faith-based food aid interacts with people of other religions and no religion.

Increased awareness about the importance of a safe, healthy nutrition has changed human interactions with food and increased worldwide demand for high quality and ethical food. In this respect, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the concept of ethical food and the nature of kosher food production, assessing common traits and the main differences between the two. A literature review was undertaken in order to verify the direction in which further studies might proceed.

A research review on current literature was carried out exploring concepts of ethical food and food certification underpinning kosher businesses by means of an analysis of both producers’ and consumers’ perspectives. In order to proceed with an accurate analysis, the paper matches both the conceptual analysis and the bibliometric one. The overlap between these two forms of analysis makes results robust and useful for future research.

This review reveals common points between ethical and kosher food because attention is given to both processes and products and the way the market perceives them as expressions of trustworthy and safe production. Furthermore, the analysis reveals an under emphasis on kosher food in the academic world and the results reveal the importance of empirical analysis.

The analysis is focused mainly on kosher food production as an expression of ethical food. It would be interesting, however, to expand the analysis to other types of ethical certification such as Halal food, for example, in order to perform comparative evaluations.

From a practical point of view, it is interesting to note that kosher food is conceived as very safe food and that non-religious people are sensitive to this, which opens new horizons for ethical food. It also offers the possibility that firms that have never considered entering the field of ethical food certification may do so to expand their businesses. This implication also reveals that there is a higher attention on sustainability and safety in agro-food market. Therefore there are great opportunities of expansion for ethical food.

From a social point of view, this paper is of importance for several reasons. It deals with a relatively new and relatively unexplored issue; it points out the relevance of sustainability and safety in food market and consumer behavior, it presents the possibility of exploring knowledge interactions between different perspectives (multidisciplinary approach) and cultures which, in the opinion, will present significant challenge in relation to agro-food business research in the future.

The originality of this work is that of systematizing a literature review of ethical food, enlarging its scope and boundaries with specific reference to kosher food. It also highlights the need to focus on both management and marketing, since up to now there has been a lack of academic contributions to these areas of research. Directions for further research are outlined.

This study aims to explore whether religiosity influences consumer purchase behavior among Muslim consumers in Pakistan.

An in-depth, semi-structured interview protocol was developed and administered to a sample of 90 participants, both male and female, across eight metropolitan cities of Pakistan. Professionals, university students and housewives were part of the sample. NVivo Version 11 was used for data analysis to answer the research questions raised in this study. Moreover, the purposive sampling method has been used in this research.

The behavior of consumers was found to vary with the degree of involvement and the degree of religiosity. Study findings are divided into three themes. Firstly, a high level of religiosity makes Muslim consumers follow the Islamic principles of food consumption, by evaluating the product ingredients, spending moderately and verifying a halal logo at the time of purchase. Secondly, a major theme is the view that religiosity has no influence on food consumption; it is more about individuals’ needs and priorities. Finally, the consumers’ overall perception of quality, product value, purity and health consciousness over-powers the concept of religiosity.

Because of its qualitative and exploratory nature, the generalizability of this paper is limited. In addition to that, this research is just focused on one Muslim country.

This study suggests that western food exporters may use religiosity and other factors as probable segmentation variables to effectively position their brands. Religious images and other factors may be highlighted in product packaging and communication campaigns by marketers to gain recognition and usage of western food and consumption among religious, Pakistani Muslim consumers. The output of this research may support prospective entrants into the food business; those interested in exploring the Asian consumer market. Findings from this study may also be helpful for those in the west interested in exploring Pakistan as an emerging consumer market.

The presence of western imported food may improve the quality of life by having more opportunities and healthier options for the nation. Western food products can also bring cultural convergence whereby the underdeveloped nation feels upgraded and modern. Moreover, if the western food products are certified halal, the product has a fair chance of adoption and penetration in the society. Also, the food products coming from the western world induces mindfulness, people are more aware about innovative and useful ingredients that can satisfy their taste buds, improve their health, increase their life expectancy and contented approach toward life.

Thus far, limited research has analyzed religiosity of an overwhelmingly Muslim population and its impact on consumer behavior. This study is a preliminary effort to provide a basic understanding of the behavior of Pakistani Muslims, who have been insufficiently investigated by marketing and consumer researchers. The intriguing results are to remind marketers that there are several factors that govern religiosity and lead to a purchase decision.

The aim of this manuscript is to study the current scientific literature on food marketing and religion, by giving an overview of current knowledge and the possible future research opportunities once found the gaps.

This a classic literature review carried on by considering marketing, consumer behaviour and management journals as well as religion-focused ones.

Current literature highlights how faith impacts on food marketing and religious consumers choices (and not only). Most of the papers focus on Islam. Considering the globalised economy, the authors’ findings highlight also the relevance of religious certifications for less/not religious people, because of certified food is considered safe and healthy.

The paper joins and reviews two research fields whose connection is growing, so it is relevant to know the current status of scientific literature, which is updated compared to recent literature.

Given the scarcity of studies regarding religious food as a destination attraction and limited research on tourist halal food experience, this study aims to explore and compare halal food experience perceived by Muslim and non-Muslim tourists in a non-Islamic destination.

This study was carried out in a halal food street in Yuanjia Village, China. It used a qualitative approach and interviewed 16 Muslim tourists and 20 non-Muslim tourists.

Six themes and 18 attributes of halal food experience were identified. The findings revealed that Muslim tourists saw the reassuring options and religious value of halal food as important experiences. By contrast, the experiences of abundant choices, value for money, sensory pleasure and unique charm were frequently mentioned by non-Muslim tourists. The nature of halal food, the context of China (i.e. Chinese halal food culture) and the feature of research site (i.e. food operation of Yuanjia Village) work together to create such experiences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explore and compare halal food experiences of Muslim and non-Muslim tourists in a non-Islamic country (China). This study suggests that halal food could be an appealing destination attraction, even in non-Islamic destinations. Thus, this study contributes to a better understanding of the halal food experiences and assists destination marketers in promoting halal food.

The purpose of this paper is to measure how three components of social representations (SRs) of new foods, Adherence to technology, Adherence to natural food, and Food as enjoyment, relate to Finnish and Italian university students’ religiousness, country of origin, sex, and field of study.

Italian and Finnish university students (n=564) completed a 27-item scale of SRs of new foods. A series of analysis of covariance was used to test the hypotheses.

As expected, technology students scored higher on Adherence to technology than social science students, and women and religious persons scored higher on Adherence to natural food than men and non-religious persons. Unexpectedly, Finns scored higher on Food as an enjoyment than Italians.

This study illustrates the usefulness of SR theory for studying food-related thinking, and throws more light on how religiousness, professional field, and sex are connected to the three components of SR of new foods in two European countries and food cultures.

Religion plays an important role in promoting and inhibiting consumption of goods and services. Halal food, for instance, represents one such food permitted by Islam. Within a broader category of consumers for religiously sanctioned products such as halal food, young consumers represent an important segment, as they have a high lifetime value, thereby requiring special attention. This study aims to identify and examine individual and social factors that can foster young consumer’s engagement for halal products.

An inductive research approach using the Gioia method has been used to develop broader themes for discussion. The authors have also proposed a model for engaging young consumers for religiously sanctioned dietary products.

The paper provides empirical insights into the interplay of identities and value sources that encourages or forbids consumer engagement for halal products.

Globally, the halal food industry has been estimated to be worth $580bn, and it is growing at an average rate of 7 per cent annually. Marketers, thus, need to be aware of diverse consumers’ needs to provide a customized offering; they have to cater to adherent customers of these religiously sanctioned products by being sensitive to intricacies that make such food items consumable. The study will help marketers to better align their promotional strategies with the needs and requirement of young consumers.

In this paper, the authors have operationalized repeated interaction and associated consumption in the context of halal food to understand how religion and other factors play a role in strengthening or weakening consumer engagement. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has been done to understand young consumer’s engagement for halal food products in the Indian context. India being a land of multi-religion and multi-culture, such studies can provide rich insights.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of halal meat consumption within the population of Chinese Muslims in China using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual framework. The role of self-identity as a Muslim, dietary acculturation in the host culture, moral obligation to purchase halal meat and trust on the authenticity of halal meat are explored.

Cross-sectional data were collected through a survey with 378 Chinese Muslims, currently living in Beijing and Xian cities. Data were analysed by means of correlations and stepwise multiple regressions to test the model and the moderating effects of self-identity, dietary acculturation, moral obligation and trust on behavioural intention.

A positive personal attitude towards the consumption of halal meat, personal conviction, motivation to comply, perceived control over consuming halal meat and perceived availability of halal meat predict the intention to eat halal meat among Chinese Muslims.

Limitations include the focus on only four individual characteristics related to religious food consumption, namely, self-identity, dietary acculturation, moral obligation and trust. Additional individual characteristics such as individualism-collectivism and involvement or values could improve the predictive power of the model.

Practical implications extend to food marketers and food policy decision-makers who might pursue identity, acculturation, trustworthiness and moral obligation-related strategies in their distribution and communication efforts targeted at the growing halal food market segments across China and worldwide.

The current study addresses the important limitation of previous studies regarding the inclusion of additional possible individual characteristics such as moral obligation and trust in the TPB model to investigate the determinants of halal meat consumption within a food-religion context.

The paper aims to explore the food needs of a growing Muslim population in Italian kindergartens and primary schools and to provide a basis for further quantitative research.

The methodology is essentially qualitative – historical, anthropological, social sources were studied to set the scene for a number of interviews (now 14, eventually 20) with cultural mediators, who know the implications of both cultures, and are trained to see the differences. The results of the interviews were then validated through interactions with anthropologists, food and religious historians, religious authorities and others.

The main findings are that: food and food prohibitions bear fundamental religious and identity-related implications for Muslims, that reverberate onto migrants' children of school age and dramatically limit their access to canteen food; halal meat traders exist in Italy, and can provide legally compliant, halal-certified meat, but school/public administrations do not seem to be aware of their interest.

The number of available mediators is relatively small, although they generally agree on all the basics. The research is qualitative and will require more in-depth analysis.

Better awareness of the Maghrebi Muslims' food requirements in school canteens. The need to develop a halal meat trade for public institutions and to lobby for the right of these children to bring packed lunches from home.

The paper has a heuristic value. It could have immediate implications for the stakeholders and, on the other hand, promote quantitative studies.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the impact of halal logo as an extrinsic food packaging cue on perceived food quality moderated by the role of consumer knowledge.

An exhaustive literature review has been undertaken for the conceptual development. The nexus between halal logo and perceived food quality has been developed which provides a foundation for the further research.

The findings of this paper indicate that the halal-labelled products create a psychological impact about the quality of the food product.

This paper presents a brief overview of the lucrative opportunities in halal business for Pakistan. The findings of this paper can be adopted by the marketers for the development of proper marketing strategies. The empirical investigations of this paper could offer the base to the marketers to invest in favorable product packaging cues. The role halal logo as a food quality indicator has previously been overlooked in the literature. The impact of halal logo on food quality perception is emergent with avenues for study across various cultures and religions.

This is a useful paper which proposes a useful testable model for study in Pakistani consumer market to fill the gaps of Islamic consumer behavior literature.