Authenticity, sustainability, and independence as a branding strategy for selling fermented functional food and beverage

2 Table of contents

1 Abstract

2 Table of contents

3 List of figures and tables

4 Introduction
4.1 Problem statement
4.2 The trend timeline and its current state
4.3 The research aim
4.4 The target audience for this thesis
4.5 The structure of this paper
4.6 Methodology

5 Definition of the terminology
5.1 How are SMEs defined in Europe?
5.2 Fermented functional food and beverage

6 Branding and the positioning strategy in theory and practice
6.1 Market segmentation and targeting
6.1.1 The Sinus-Milieus Model
6.1.2 The use of the Sinus-Milieus Model in the fermented food and beverage niche
6.2 Positioning
6.2.1 Adapted Braunegger‘s positioning model
6.3 The meaning and execution of branding for SMEs
6.4 Chapter summary

7 Three qualities as driving factors of branding in this area
7.1 Authenticity
7.1.1 Why are people buying authentic small-scale products?
7.1.2 Six aspects of authenticity
7.1.3 Authenticity from the consumer perspective
7.2 Sustainability
7.2.1 Packaging, product, processes, distribution
7.3 Independency
7.4 Chapter summary

8 Marketing communications analysis with the focus on authenticity, sustainability, and independence
8.1 Fairment & Completeorganics: How does a well-run SME in the fermented food industry look like?
8.1.1 Fairment
8.1.2 Completeorganics
8.1 Overview of 8 European SMEs from the fermented food and beverage industry
8.2 What the above fermented foods businesses have in common?
8.3 Communicating authenticity
8.3.1 Best practices: How are SMEs communicating authenticity?
8.3.2 Storytelling, appearing as artesian amateurs
8.3.3 Biographical authenticity, sticking to the roots
8.3.4 Procedural, material, and temporal authenticity, love of the craft
8.3.5 Geographical authenticity, being one with the community
8.3.6 Oppositional authenticity
8.3.7 Comparison and possible outtakes
8.4 Communicating sustainability, best practices
8.4.1 Certification
8.4.2 Cooperations
8.4.3 Sustainable packaging and delivery
8.4.4 Comparison and possible outtakes
8.5 Independency, a customer point of view
8.6 Chapter summary
8.7 Conclusion
8.8 Limitations and the need for further research

9. Preliminary list of references
9.1 Scientific articles, books, corporate documets
9.2 Online sources
9.3 Figures and tables