Rethinking Innovation in Gastronomy: Exploring the Potential of Innovation of Meaning to Overcome Key Challenges in Restaurant Innovation

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of innovation of meaning to overcome key challenges of restaurant innovation, namely low customer acceptance, low employee engagement, and dependence on few senior professionals. Drawing on Verganti’s theory of innovation of meaning, the study questions the prevailing innovation paradigm of the restaurant industry focused on product functionality as the tangible dimension of products. Through a theory-driven and interpretive exploration, supported by examples from Copenhagen as an extreme case, the paper demonstrates how meanings, as the intangible dimension of restaurant’s products, can be systematically shaped to enhance restaurant innovation’s success. The result is an operational framework that helps restaurants co-generate and communicate product meanings, offering a strategic complement to product-based innovation and contributing to an extended understanding of restaurant innovation.