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The purpose of this paper is to examine a specialty food loyalty model which includes perceived quality, satisfaction, and motivation, and to assess the model’s applicability in two distinct groups of customers: tourists and residents.

Data were collected from 455 specialty food customers in Bandung, Indonesia. Variance-based structural equation modeling (partial least squares (PLS)) was used to examine the relationship between the drivers (perceived quality, satisfaction and motivation) and loyalty according to the data presented by tourists and residents.

This study indicates that the perception of quality is an important factor affecting tourists’ and residents’ satisfaction with, and loyalty to, a product. Furthermore, this study suggests that motivation factors are important for tourists and residents in regard to developing loyalty to specialty foods.

This study provides a venue for retail managers and producers to improve their business performance by developing specialty foods of high quality. To improve their quality, this research suggests that managers and retailers focus on innovation based on exotic and unique traditional food reflecting the richness of local culture. To ensure their loyalty, customers of specialty foods need to be motivated by internal and external factors.

This study is one of the first to examine the formation of specialty food loyalty in two distinct groups of customers: tourists and residents.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: “Does purchase frequency influence consumer behaviour in the specialty food retailing setting?”, since purchase frequency is a consumer-based undertaken variable. For this purpose, the authors provide and empirically test a conceptual model focussed on specialty food retailing.

Data were collected through a structured questionnaire in the USA, gathering 592 valid responses and analysis was developed through structural equation modelling.

Findings indicate that satisfaction and loyalty towards specialty food stores are strongly influenced by consumers’ purchase frequency of specialty food products. Additionally, the findings support the moderating role of purchase frequency on the relationship between store service and satisfaction, as well as on the link store environment satisfaction.

Specialty food retailers should carry out marketing strategies focussing on consumer behaviour and segmentation could be developed considering purchase frequency.

Online shopping is one of the most rapidly growing forms of shopping and provides a global shop window for producers who wish to sell and market their products. This paper seeks to investigate the internet as an alternative distribution channel for Irish producers of speciality food products.

Primary data collection involved consumer focus groups, a producer web audit, producer depth interviews and an e‐mailed online producer survey.

Consumers of speciality food appear to trade off the convenience and variety potentially available with online shopping for the sales experience associated with more traditional outlets, particularly speciality food outlets and direct sales channels. Nonetheless, the internet can be a significant sales channel for some speciality food producers with products of specific attributes, e.g. high value goods, and products with elaborate and gift‐oriented packaging and for those targeting consumers with previous purchase experience. For the majority of producers, the internet can complement other marketing channels and its role in managing information and relationships may be more important than online sales. Significant challenges exist for speciality food producers to use the internet as a significant sales channel.

The paper considers food as a category comprising a number of different types of products based on their search, credence and experience characteristics. It applies this categorisation to speciality food and examines the influence of these characteristics on the role of the internet as both a sales and marketing channel in Ireland. It uses both consumer and producer perspectives in the analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following issue: “Does the products’ perceived quality influences the consumer behaviour in the specialty retailing setting?”

For this purpose, the authors propose and empirically test a conceptual model on the creation of consumer satisfaction and loyalty in specialty retailing, to examine the influence of products’ quality perception and its potential moderating role. Data were analysed through structural equation modelling on a sample of 592 consumers

The findings show that the store-based attributes have different influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty, according to the quality perception of products, and suggest the moderating role of products’ perceived quality.

Retailing managers may use the product’s perceived quality as a segmentation variable in the specialty food retailing context.

The major contribution of this paper is the empirical analysis of one subjective customer-based variable in the specialty retailing setting.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast customer perceptions related to satisfaction with conventional grocery stores as compared to specialty grocery stores. The study examines store attributes of product assortment, price, quality, and service in order to determine which attributes have the greatest impact on store satisfaction for each store format.

A mail survey was sent to a sample of specialty and conventional grocery store customers. The ten state sample was drawn from US households located in postal (ZIP) codes in areas where national specialty stores (e.g. whole foods) were located.

Perception of satisfaction were higher among specialty grocery store customers compared to conventional grocery store customers. For both store formats, store price, product assortment, service and quality positively influenced satisfaction. Stepwise regression indicated that each store attribute contributed differently to store satisfaction for conventional and specialty store formats.

The results demonstrate that price, product assortment, quality, and employee service influence store satisfaction regardless of store type (conventional stores or specialty stores). However, the degree of influence of these attributes varied by store type. The results imply that while specialty store shopper satisfaction characteristics are clearly delineated, conventional store shopper characteristics are more difficult to pinpoint. Research limitations include a sample that is more highly educated and has higher incomes than the average American household.

Despite the growth of new product categories and new industry players, few studies have investigated customer satisfaction within the retail food industry. Comparisons of specialty and conventional food stores are equally scarce.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and typify the characteristics and diverse features of urban speciality stores selling rural provenance food, taking the case of three cities in Portugal.

The study was based on hierarchical cluster analysis, performed upon data collected from a survey to 113 shops, located in Aveiro (n = 15), Lisbon (n = 56) and Porto (n = 42).

The study identified three clusters of shops according to the type of rural provenance products sold, services provided and clientele characteristics: the wine focused, the rural provenance focused and the generalist. The study confirms that in Portugal, small food retail outlets, with different rural provenance patterns and degrees of specialization have considerably grown in large cities over the last decade.

The study contributes to typifying urban speciality food stores selling rural provenance products and to addressing critical research gaps on this topic. The study highlights the dynamism of small food retail outlets and their significance, mediating and responding to changing patterns of food consumption in urban spaces.

This study contributes to a better understanding and characterization of food speciality shops in urban settings and their links with rural territories of provenance, an under-researched topic on the food retail literature.

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 paper is to contribute to a better understanding of alternative processes of restructuring in the agri‐food chain, emphasising the socio‐cultural aspects.

A conceptual discussion as to how qualities are embedded in speciality products to make them different from conventional products leads to the presentation of a model of modes of designed qualities. This model is applied to an empirical study of the milk supply chains and the related infrastructure in Norway and Wales.

The research argues that qualities of food are constructed in relations between participants along the supply chain, consumers included. Development of speciality food needs new networks to create other modes of quality than the standard.

The concepts are contributions to analytical generalisations and not to statistical generalisations, i.e. they must be applied to cases. This study is related to the milk sector in two contexts. There is a need to explore other empirical cases.

This paper uses new conceptual tools to analyse how food qualities are constructed in relations between food producers, processors and consumers. It contributes to the debate on the alternative food economy, especially with relation to aspects of quality.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an authenticity model for food specialties considering both the subjective and the object-based dimensions of authenticity. Moreover, the relationship with personality traits – such as consumer self-concept and identification with the product – (antecedents) as well as with the consumption intention (consequences) are measured.

Hypotheses were analyzed by means of a structural equation model using AMOS. Calculations were based on data collected through an online survey of 138 German respondents who were recruited by a consumer panel.

Both subjective and object-based perceived authenticity significantly influence the purchase intention. Object-based authenticity's role is mediated by the subjective authenticity, which is affected by the consumers self-identification with the product and personality traits such as determination and passion.

The results presented in this paper will help to understand what influences the perception of authenticity of a traditional food product and how it affects purchase intentions. More influencing variables should be considered in future research, as well as other product groups. Repeated analyses considering larger samples are necessary to confirm the presented results.

A deeper understanding of which psychological and social factors affect the perception of a product's authenticity is important for creating appropriate marketing strategies.

While there is a vast literature on authenticity theories, remarkably few scholars have provided empirical evidence on this subject by using a quantitative research design.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of growth processes of speciality food firms and how these processes influence the producers' perception of quality demands of the products.

A case study approach was chosen covering four specialty food companies in Norway. This explorative study was conducted from the producer's perspective.

Results show that, as part of growth processes, firms invest in different activities to strengthen the quality of their products to achieve distinctiveness in more competitive markets. The most important quality that contributes to distinctiveness and increased value seems to be traditional handicraft production processes. In some cases, expensive and time-consuming processes are invested in developing qualities that are not transformed into higher value in the market.

The number of cases is too small for statistical analysis, but this explorative case study may provide a basis for a survey of a larger sample of firms.

The study indicates a need for companies to gain more knowledge about consumers' preferences and behaviour, and to develop product qualities and market communication accordingly.

Research is scarce on obstacles to growth in specialty food firms. This study contributes important knowledge to enhance further development of the industry.