Designing food experiences for well-being: A framework advancing design thinking research from a customer experience perspective

Purpose. Literature from across design studies and innovation management as well as food marketing research evidence are examined to highlight interdisciplinary and experiential research approaches to food consumption and well-being. The review article addresses the need to expand the food industry’s goals through consideration of its contributions to consumer’s overall food well-being. By proposing a holistic and integrative framework Food Experience Design (FED) that seeks to understand how food professionals can design healthy and pleasurable food experiences aiming at enhancing food well-being. Design/methodology/approach. Examining design thinking established literature through adopting multidisciplinary critical meta-analysis of the literature, we address the gap in the literature by advancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of food design thinking through the lenses of experiential theory and consumer well-being. Findings. This review article clarifies the scope of food experience design (FED) scholarship and offers a call for collective efforts to establish a focused body of knowledge that leads food marketing professionals and scholars to adopt an experiential perspective to food consumption and production focused on experiential pleasure of food as a driving force for consumer’s well-being. Originality/value. This research highlights the imperative to take multidisciplinary, transformative, and experiential approaches to researching food innovation strategies from a consumer’s well-being perspective.