“An incredible voyage through Portugal” – the promotion of rural provenance foods by urban specialty shops

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how rural provenance foods are portrayed by the promotional materials, websites and social media issued by urban specialty stores in Portugal. Even though provenance food may be defined in multiple ways as, among others, local, regional, traditional, and authentic, provenance is mostly about territories of origin: their biophysical characteristics, cultural values and practices of food production and preparation with socioeconomic and historical features. Interest in and consumption of rural provenance foods have increased in the last few decades and more recently have been accompanied by a growth of specialty food stores in urban contexts. To analyze these stores’ role in promoting rural provenance foods, content analysis was conducted on 7489 text and image files, collected from the websites, social media pages and printed materials of 30 stores located in three Portuguese cities (Aveiro, Lisbon and Porto). Data shows that the role of these stores is not limited to the commercialization of food products, but is also key in the promotion and dissemination of their physical, sensorial and symbolic features as well as of the material and immaterial characteristics of their places of origin at local, regional and national scales.