What your country can do for your brand

If you work as Export Manager in the Food & Drink Industry you have already found yourself promoting your country cuisine when you visit your partners or clients or when you have the pleasure of receiving them in your home country.

For some of us, it’s even more important due to the fact that, our products make up the list of basic ingredients of the best staple dishes and desserts of our national cuisine.

More than explaining the richness and uniqueness of your national cuisine to partners and clients we also need consumers to value our country of origin, since they are the ones who will ultimately buy our products at the store.

Regardless of the product you sell, ingredient or a finish product, the perceived value of a country regarding a particular cuisine or category, can help you sell your brand.

A good example is the Italian Cuisine that is considered the first most popular Cuisine around world and Italian Olive Oil is considered by the majority as the best olive oil origin. That’s one of the reasons we see “Made in Italy” in so many Food & Drinks products in supermarkets all over the world.

But this is not exclusive to Italy. Many brands from other countries do the same and there’s no reason for you not to use your country of Origin as a differentiation point when you sell abroad. ??

Defining Cuisine and types of Cuisine

According to Jordan Kocevski and Michael Risteski paper – Defining Cuisine and types of Cuisine, “Cuisine is a specific set of practices and traditions in cooking, often connected to specific culture or time period of history”. The origin of the word comes from France, and it means cooking as an art or kitchen.

According to the authors there are 4 criteria when determining the different types of cuisine:

• The origin of Food – It can be defined as: National Cuisine (that can evolve over time based upon the current foodways), International Cuisine (meaning a cuisine that has characteristics which are the same wherever you go) and Traditional Food (based upon local types of food and techniques of preparation).
• Types of Diets – Where certain foods or ingredients are required or prohibited. It can be defined by Religious Practices (Kosher or Halal Diet), Individual Practices (Paleo, Macrobiotic or Vegetarian Diet) and Health related Cuisine (Gluten Free and Diabetic Diet). ????
• Geographic Aspects – Where there are common characteristics like climate which influences the raw materials and ingredients that can be grown in a certain soil. It can be defined by a region (Mediterranean or Oriental cuisine), a Country (Italian, Japanese or Greek cuisine) or a region within a country (Parma or Modena products).
• Historical Aspect – Which refers to the evolution of practices and habits in cooking along the time. Today, the most common in Europe are the Classical Cuisine (where meals take time to prepare) and the Modern Cuisine (Fusion, Fast Food, pre–prepared Food, Frozen Meals).

Other Criteria that I would suggest for you to take in consideration are:

• Type of Meals (different occasions to have a meal) – When your product is going to be consumed. At breakfast, lunch or between meals. On the go or at home.
• State need – Better for You, Indulgence or Comfort Food.

Taste Atlas Rewards

Last week, I saw on Linkedin the latest results of Taste Atlas Awards. And it’s with great joy that I tell you that my country has been recognized by TasteAtlas as the 4th best-rated Cuisine in the world! This reward is based on the dish and food product ratings. These cuisines have recorded the best average scores of the top 50 highest-rated dishes and food products for their country.

But for Portugal Food & Drink Export Business is not enough to be considered one of the best-rated cuisines in the world. It is in our best interest to internationalize our cuisine if we want to use it, to our advantage, to sell our brands abroad.

In the last decade, Portugal became a very important touristic destination. When people come to my country, they can taste Portuguese cuisine and brands which benefits the Country’s Cuisine brand awareness.

But we don’t see many Portuguese restaurants in other countries as we see in other cuisines like the Italian, Japanese or Greek.

“The Country-of-Origin Effect”

According to Martin Roll in his article “Country Branding Strategies for Nation and Companies”, the Country-of-Origin Effect (COO) is “the country from which a company (product/service/brand) originates has a profound effect on the company’s perceived quality and likability in the minds of consumers by lending credibility, respect and status to its products and services offered”. He also mentions that “COO has a very strong influence on customers’ willingness to purchase products and the price level they are willing to consider. The country of origin alone can be the reason for success or failure of a certain product sold at a certain price point, due to the associations they conjure in consumers’ minds”.

EU Food Country-of-origin labelling

In the European Union, it is mandatory to indicate the country of origin for certain specific foodstuffs, such as: fresh fruit and vegetables, fishery products, honey, olive oil, eggs and meat.

Other categories can be covered by the EU quality schemes. The European Union created a policy to protect the names of specific products linked to their geographical origin.

According to the EU “Product names can be granted a 'geographical indication' (GI) if they have a specific link to the place where they are made. The GI recognition enables consumers to trust and distinguish quality products while also helping producers to market their products better. Recognized as intellectual property, geographical indications play an increasingly important role in trade negotiations between the EU and other countries”.

Geographical indications comprise:

• PDO – protected designation of origin (food and wine)
• PGI – protected geographical indication (food and wine)
• GI – geographical indication (spirit drinks).

Depending on the degree of the links to the place in which they are made they can be called PDO if the raw materials are from the region and every stage of production, processing and preparation process have taken place in that specific region. To be called PGI most of the raw material must be from the region, but you just need one stage to have taken place in the region.?

What can your country do for your brand?

When you are comparing your points difference between your brand and the competition, to build your Unique Selling Proposition, the statement of origin can be a differentiation point, when it comes to buying an imported brand in our target market.

The internationalization of a country’s cuisine can help you sell your own brand.

When we speak about internationalization of Food and Drinks, we also speak about Tourism and Travel. Today, when people go abroad, they want the full experience of eating and drinking in a foreign country.

It’s a good occasion to start selling our brand to the foreign consumers visiting your country!