Craft beer – building social terroir through connecting people, place and business

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to propose the concept of social terroir to help navigate phenomenological and epistemological conditions of small-scale food entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This study used a qualitative research approach and was implemented in the peripheral region of Jämtland in northern Sweden. The study interrogated the ambitions of craft brewers when starting up, their long-term goals and visions, including questions about the reason for starting up a brewery, how the different brewers cooperate and how and why the products are designed and labelled the way they are. Findings This study shows that the production of craft beer is an inherently social practice that is part of a particular sociocultural milieu. This milieu informs production in distinct and interrelated ways: through connecting to place and locality in the different aspects of production and marketing, through cooperation to develop production and overcome barriers, and through embedding their work in sustainability discourses. Originality/value The study addresses how, in the context of craft beer, terroir or taste of place, is a matter of social ties to place and community–social terroir. What is novel is the way in which social terroir becomes a critical ingredient in the production of craft beer. This illustrates how small-scale food production and gastronomic efforts can link people, places and businesses.

A serious leisure perspective of culinary tourism co-creation: the influence of prior knowledge, physical environment and service quality

“…Therefore, the evaluation of physical terroir within the cooking class environment is shaped by considerations pertaining to serious leisure. This extends the concept of terroir from wine tourism literature (Sjölander-Lindqvist et al, 2019) to the cooking class context by highlighting how serious leisure influences perceptions of the physical environment, stimulating experiential value from participation.…”

“…Thus, culinary experiences can be characterised as serious leisure, given their efficacy in encouraging knowledge and skill development, and exposure to 'experts' in a field, all while developing "unique social worlds around the activity" (Curran et al, 2018(Curran et al, , p.1119. The benefits of serious leisure emerge via culinary experiences thanks to both the physical (Kruger and Viljoen, 2019) and social aspects of terroir (Sjölander-Lindqvist et al, 2019). However, this proposition remains untested in hospitality and tourism literature.…”

Arctic narratives: brewing a brand with neolocalism

“…As microbreweries appear to be rooted in place, they "are marketing 'place' as much as they are marketing beer, and they actively seek out distinctly local imagery, local landscapes, and local stories to position themselves as intrinsically rooted in place" (Schnell 2013, p. 57). Local ingredients can also be sourced in craft brewing to establish the image of a business strongly integrated with the local community (see Schnell and Reese 2014;Fletchall 2016;Sjölander-Lindqvist et al 2019), although this is not overly common due to their uneven availability (Schnell 2013;Schnell and Reese 2014).…”

“…On the other hand, the concept of "terroir" has recently gained intensified attention in marketing and management literature due to renewed interest in place branding. While previously perceived through economic and relational logic as a synonym of the physical region determined by environmental conditions like soil, climate and topography, social, historical and cultural factors are today stressed as equally important constituents for assigning uniqueness to local produce (Riviezzo et al 2017;Sjölander-Lindqvist et al 2019;Smith Maguire and Charters 2020). As these placespecific values and meanings are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate, they might constitute a way to achieve distinctive positioning in the marketing context (Riviezzo et al 2017, see also Spielmann et al 2019).…”

“…Neolocalism, "a conscious effort by businesses to foster a sense of place based on attributes of their community" (Holtkamp et al 2016, p. 66), has received substantial and prolonged attention in the context of microbreweries and craft beer (e.g., Flack 1997;Schnell and Reese 2003;Garavaglia 2020) since the introduction of the concept by Shortridge (1996). While the early studies focused on identifying the most obvious expressions of neolocalism in beer names and labels, their significance to the marketing of craft beer and brand management has lately attracted growing attention (e.g., Sjölander-Lindqvist et al 2019;Melewar and Skinner 2020). These studies have confirmed the notion that local ties are cultivated intentionally rather than by necessity (Zelinsky 2011), and not only constructed, as they also need to be maintained actively (Schnell andReese 2003, 2014;Schnell 2013).…”