Eldrimner Mathantverk : a collective brand for artisan produced food items

Abstract: Although mass production of undifferentiated commodities dominates the market for food products, a shift has turned consumers’ interests towards alternative food chains with a focus on quality attributes, origin and a stronger control and guarantee. But as the variety of food products expands, consumers require more information in their purchase situations. Several of the attributes of food items, such as origin, quality or socially constructed concepts as authentic and traditional, are difficult for the customers to identify before consumption. The brand’s function to transfer such quality attributes is one way to decrease the customer’s informational problems and to raise the producers’ differentiability. According to the Swedish food strategy small-scale food producers are important in several aspects. Artisan food producers create job opportunities with geographical divergence, offer a variety of products and produce food with high quality and local origin. The certification Eldrimner Mathantverk was introduced by the Swedish national resource centre, Eldrimner, with the aim to promote artisan food products and prevent the concept of artisan food from dilution. To assure the products quality, certified producers are obligated to follow criteria covering several aspects of the production such as production processes, origin of raw materials and additives. The problem of this study concerns the impact that Eldrimner Mathantverk has for the artisan food producers. This problem initially concerns their producers’ view of the collective brand as a tool bearing marketing advantages, but also governance of the collective asset that this jointly used brand constitutes. The aim of this study is to from the producers’ perspective, discover the strengths and weaknesses of the collective brand Eldrimner Mathantverk. These strengths and weaknesses concerns the producers’ perception of Eldrimner Mathantverk as a brand and quality signal, but also the collective behaviour among the producers. To nurture cooperation and prevent deceptive behaviour among the users, coordination mechanisms are essential. This study emphases the informal mechanisms provided by social capital. This study is a quantitative study performed through a survey with 422 artisan food producers registered at Eldrimner’s website Mathantverk.com. The results show that the producers have a high belief in the functions provided by Eldrimner Mathantverk, such as the brands’ ability to promote artisan food items and to facilitate the customers’ purchase of artisan food items. The producers perceive Eldrimner Mathantverk as a signal of the qualities of artisan food production and as a reliable quality signal to the customers. The risks of opportunistic behaviour among the producers is perceived as low and even though the producers believe that formal coordination mechanisms to regulate the users of the brand is important, there are indications of social capital among the group of producers that might be positive for the government of the collective brand. The producers’ knowledge about Eldrimner Mathantverk is fairly high, but the customers’ awareness of the brand is seen to be limited. Further marketing efforts are important, as the low awareness and reputation might limit the producers’ perceived value of the brand. Significant differences were found between subgroups of respondents. Females have a more positive belief in and appreciation for the brand’s function as a marketing tool and seemed to experience a higher amount of social capital among artisan food producers. Certified producers seemed to have a significantly higher overall belief in the functions provided by the brand, while producers with more employees experience a lower need for the functions provided by Eldrimner Mathantverk.