Designing food packaging to present healthy and ethical diets to the New Chinese middle classes

Abstract

Healthy' and 'ethical' food is one of the fastest-growing food trends around the world. Yet scholars in this journal have shown that what this means in many territories tends to be dominated by Westerncentric concepts. They call for the need to decenter the dominant Euro-American and Anglo-centric food scholarship in order to throw light on these processes. To better understand food globalization, one must consider how regional history, culture, economics, and politics foster a complex dynamic of global-local and West-East flows. Aligning with these concerns, we analyze food packages from China marketed at a rapidly growing health and ethical food market. Using an in-depth qualitative method, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we examine the discursive and material power of healthy and ethical food products as these are communicated through packaging designs, showing how these carry ideas, value, and identities. We explore how this might be understood in the context of where such designs target an emerging Chinese middle class, concerned about food integrity, but also who seek out distinction and modern cosmopolitanism. We ask how the ideas carried by the packages might shape and steer local understandings of healthy and ethical food.

Exploring textual–visual strategies in internet-based light food advertising: a study of Taobao advertisements in China

“…That's why the issue of a healthy diet has gained a high political profile in many countries (Slavin, 2015), such as "Healthy China 2030 Initiatives" in China. In recent times, there has been a strong emphasis on the consumption of nutritious food, as it is believed to improve health and aid in weight loss (Chen and Eriksson, 2019;Eriksson and Machin, 2020;Ho, 2020;Montefrio and Wilk, 2020;Machin and Chen, 2023). At the same time, the rise of the obsession with a "thin culture" also entices more people to join the groups for weight loss and fitness.…”

Influence of Complexity in Low-Fat Food Packaging on Chinese Consumers’ Purchase Intentions

“…Healthy food is also on the rise in the food industry with demand for healthy and ethical food on the rise everywhere, especially among the emerging middle class in the Asia Pacific region who are seeking healthier, safer, and more environmentally friendly food options [13]. As people have paid more attention to body management in recent years, the consumption of low-fat foods has begun to increase, and the demand for food has also continued to rise.…”