Mobilizing scientific discourse to rebrand organizational identity

Traditionally interest in the marketing of food has focused on understanding purchase choice rather than food consumption or branding. However, more recently the symbolic dimensions of food and the cultural context in which it is consumed, rather than the physical attributes of the product, are highlighted (Kniazeva and Ventkatesh, 2007; Berger and Rand, 2008; Thompson, 2004). From this perspective, food is understood as both a commodity and a metaphor (eg. Fast Food Nation, Schlosser; 2001). In this paper we examine the branding of food and how organizations deploy scientific discourse in order to shift consumer understandings of food brands and the organizations that produce them. We propose that food science not only changes the process of food production but also changes the meanings that consumers attribute to food brands. Our analysis utilises Foucault's (1988) theory of discourse technologies - including technologies of production, sign systems, power, and the self - to explore the use of scientific discourse in the branding of food products and food organizations (Motion and Leitch, 2002). The application of science may facilitate a discursive shift in which a product that was conceived as a food is rebranded as a nutraceutical or medicine and the organizational identity is similarly transformed.