Why Prepare a Meal When Supermarkets Will Do It For Us? a Study of Meals As a Metaphor

Despite the fact that, thirty years ago, family meals were predicted to disappear, the tradition still prevails today. Why do parents continue to prepare the daily meal whereas the food industry is ready to help them to ‘dispose’ of the burden? In order to understand this paradox, our study explores the underlying meanings associated with family meal production in a latin culture. Results suggest that feeding can be considered through four metaphors: the “child’s well-being”, “family ties”, “discovery” and the “domestic chore”. This research suggests that studying meal production in the context of family consumption opens up potential new research avenues for analysing food consumption.



Citation:

Céline Del Bucchia (2011) ,"Why Prepare a Meal When Supermarkets Will Do It For Us? a Study of Meals As a Metaphor", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 477-478.

Authors

Céline Del Bucchia, Edhec Business School, Lille, France



Volume

E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9 | 2011



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