Connecting food consumers to organisations, peers, and technical devices: The potential of interactive communication technology to support consumers’ value creation

Background: Consumers' possibility of connecting to the surrounding world has rapidly increased the use of interactive communication technologies in their daily lives. This constitutes a major trend in the food sector, which is worth investigating in order to improve the understanding of the influence of the technologies on consumers' value creation, understood as consumers’ improved well-being, in relation to food. Scope and approach: This paper focuses on consumers' value creation in the food domain. It defines value as a dynamic concept and develops a framework for categorising and discussing interactive communication technologies based on their potential to support consumers in their interaction with their surroundings. The aim is to provide an overview of how these technologies support consumers’ value creation as well as to provide some critical reflections. Key findings and conclusions: Interactive communication technologies can facilitate consumer interaction with organisations, peers, and technical devices. Value creation potential can be related to two processes: 1) the product development process improving products and assortments responding to consumer needs, or 2) the product usage process supporting dietary management, access to information, entertainment, sensory experience, and finally, more flexible social relational aspects. Critical reflections on consumers’ use of these technologies, such as privacy concerns and the risk of misinformation influence, are provided. Finally, implications for the implementation of interactive communication technologies in the food domain as well as suggestions for future research are provided.