The food we eat: a range of perspectives

Citation

Vignali, C. and Kenyon, A.J. (2007), "The food we eat: a range of perspectives", British Food Journal, Vol. 109 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/bfj.2007.070109haa.001

The food we eat: a range of perspectives

There are a variety of article types in this publication of the British Food Journal. The edition begins with an exploration of the UK’s top ten food retailers who are keen to report their commitment to corporate social responsibility. Professor Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort and Professor David Hillier provide an interesting debate of the way retailers are using corporate social responsibility as an innovative means to market and communicate with customers. After a discussion of the characteristics of corporate social responsibility and the UK’s top ten food retailers, which post their adherence to it, via Company Reports and Annual Report and Accounts, a walk-through visual inspection was completed within the largest store operators in Cheltenham and Gloucester. The findings provide a huge variety of ways in which retailers use corporate social responsibility to communicate with consumers. Therefore, next time you are collecting your groceries, consider the themes presented by our researchers and consider the messages the retailers are communicating to you.

Articles discussing rhetoric in advertising make readers step back and reconsider advertisement after the visual metaphors and verbal puns have been described. Dr Alexandra J. Kenyon and Pollyanna L. Hutchinson have investigated the playful and artful deviation used by creative directors in Absolut Vodka advertisements. Phillips & McQuarrie, the leaders in advertising rhetoric, produced a typology of visual rhetoric in 2004. The researchers have used this typology to show how Absolut press advertisements are filled with juxtapositions, fusion and oppositions. The article also presents readings by informants of the Absolut “Everything” television advertisement. The article provides useful guidance on structurally reading rhetoric and presents an interesting projective technique for future research.

The third article, by Hao Li, Dr Guozhong Xie and Dr Alan Edmondson, presents evidence of a subject that affects our daily lives – the “bad” bacteria that live and grow in our food. Our scholars analyse existing mathematical models that predict the survival and growth of the “bad” bacteria during food processing. Using empirical mathematical models and mechanisms that have not previously been used, the researchers develop and discuss a range of methodological approaches for future consideration.

After a meal, there’s always time for a coffee and we are taking our coffee onto the high street and into the coffee shop. Dr Des Monk and Daniella Ryding investigate the strategic implications of providing training to “all” employees of coffee shops in the UK. “All” employees include temporary and part-time workers. Excellent service quality, it is argued, is essential to the overall enjoyment of any encounter in the hospitality industry. Our scholars consider two main elements in their paper. The first element discusses whether training can significantly improve service quality and the second element is to analyse whether the substantial resources, required to implement a successful training plan, are worthwhile.

Our fifth contribution is a case study takes us across the world to the Middle East and their dairy food market. Brand competition is a factor the world over as Dr Muhammad Asad Sadi and Dr Joan C. Henderson explain. A full profile of the Almaria Dairy Food Company and the dairy food market in which they are working highlights that Almarai is very effective in its use of integrated marketing strategies. The researchers make us realise that competition from home and abroad is healthy. They also point out that organisations cannot stand still as customer tastes are changing, technology is advancing, and there is always a competitor that will move you from the number one market position if market research reports are left on the shelf and not put into action.

In the final article, Assistant Professor Kenneth C. Herbst and Professor John L. Stanton remind us that our own daily lives are forever changing. The researchers provide a lively written article, underpinned by some interesting statistics, about where we eat and with whom. Our whistle-stop lives seemed to have placed the “family meal” on the back burner. This article makes one realise that the changing role of the family influences no industry more dramatically than the food industry. The article also makes one reflect that meal times are more than just fuel for the body.

We would like to end this editorial by thanking all the researchers that have spent time collecting data and submitting such thought provoking research papers. Certainly, we have enjoyed reading each of the research papers, and indeed positive comments came back from the panel of editorial reviewers.

Claudio Vignali, Alexandra J. KenyonGuest Editors