Reinvention through Nordicness: values, traditions, and terroir

New Nordic Cuisine has now matured and evolved from the rather elitist ‘fine dining’ into a diversity of brands that rely on varying values in addition to the geographical typicality for their reinventions. Little research has, however, focussed on such developments and we ask how brand actors negotiate Nordicness in their branding. We do this through empirical investigations in the cuisine sectors of Odense in Southern Denmark and of Bodø in Northern Norway. Our results show that meaning of traditions, social ‘hygge’, inclusiveness and egalitarian values are centrally held resources for brand constructions. We discuss how the symbolic resources related to the geographical place with its tangible, physical focus on brand value are pushed into the background in favour of social place and cultural values as resources for reinvention through Nordicness.