Maria Saarela^1,*, Göran Roos² 

*Corresponding author
1. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Finland
2. Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract

A summary on the findings of the project lead by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA), Government of South Australia, on Functional and Luxury Food Value Chains into Asia and Australia is given. The work included a roadmap outlining where food value chains may potentially be transformed to higher value add, i.e. functional and luxury food and beverages, with emphasis on domestic and Asian markets. This article focuses only on the luxury food part of the project only.

The concept of luxury is not well defined in the literature and neither is the demarcation between luxury, prestige and premium products. The literature seems to be in agreement that premium products occupy the top end of the product range and that in the food domain it is about having higher performance on objectively measurable quality attributes as well as having the highest price in the product range of the producer (1). In a recent article Sjöström et al. (2) reviews the literature to identify attributes of luxury products and finds the following attributes: premium price; premium quality and craftsmanship; authenticity; brand architecture and name; unique; paucity, exclusive and limited; performance and reputation; pedigree and heritage; personal founder/designer reputation; placement and location; public figure; method of production; country-of-origin; low commercial links; recognisable style and product. The relative importance and the specific meaning of these different dimensions is culturally context specific and will change as the specific cultural context change.

The luxury food market is estimated to be between €40bn and €45bn with about 60% in Europe ...