“Personal relationships in food are making a comeback.”
- What you eat is a signal of your connoisseurship. Purchasing from Laduree does not hold as much social value these days as knowing and buying from an emissary of the macaroon world.
- The trust of a continued relationship with a conglomerate is not everything anymore.
- Social ties, social status, and social knowledge are more valuable than impersonal transactions.
- The success formula of food used to be wide distribution. The playbook has shifted. Brands make money with quality and price instead of distribution.
“The food and drink market is rearranging itself according to the same aspirational lines as fashion or design.”
The backbone of status is social and cultural, not economic.