Viewpoint Innovative traditions in swiftly transforming foodscapes: An exploratory essay Anneke Geyzen a , Peter Scholliers a and Fr ed eric Leroy b, * a Research Group of Social & Cultural Food Studies (FOST), Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium b Research Group of Industrial Microbiology and Food Biotechnology (IMDO), Faculty of Sciences and Bio-engineering Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium (Tel.: D32 2 6293612; fax: D32 2 6292720; e-mail: fleroy@vub.ac.be) The ability for innovation is society’s best asset in its existential need to respond to change. Change is increasingly manifesting itself in food production and supply chains, as well as in the dietary requirements of altering populations and life styles. On the one hand, food innovation is considered by many as a necessary response to major societal and economic chal- lenges. It offers opportunities to improve the food’s shelf life, nutritional value, microbial and toxicological safety, conve- nience, environmental impact, etc. Others see it as a possibility to engage in gastronomic adventure. On the other hand, some people fear that it may erode habitual cooking and thus lead to loss of culinary heritage. Food behavior has evolved over centuries, but current hyper-paced food innovation may be overlooking gastronomic complexity. Driven by economic interest, food innovation has become, almost dogmatically, the core of industrial, academic, and governmental strategies in the area of food technology and research. Yet, leading chefs increasingly acknowledge alleged tradition as the basis for gas- tronomic merit by constructing culinary habits as collective, cumulative inventions and not by pursuing innovation for the mere sake of novelty. The present paper explores the role of food innovation in dynamic foodscapes, its technological role, and its relationship with what are imagined to be tradi- tional values. Introduction ‘Food innovation’ is a buzzword. Nevertheless, the concept as such is certainly not new. Throughout history, some food innovations have been world-shattering. The Columbian Exchange of the 16th century and the introduction of the cold chain in the late 19th century are illustrative examples (Crosby, 1972; Teuteberg, 1995). However, the pace of such innovations has greatly accelerated since the Second World War due to the industrialization of the food chain and a growing belief in technological utopianism (Belasco, 2008). Nowadays, every link of the food chain seems to transform relentlessly, involving products, processing methods, preservation techniques, transport, packaging, retailing, cooking, serving, the food’s signifi- cance, and the eating environment. Social researchers suggest that the postmodern consumer, emerging in the 1980s, takes food novelty for granted and, moreover, looks frantically for new foodways that reflect personal and ephemeral moods or situations (Urry, 1990). It remains to be seen whether this type of consumer actually is that widespread, but it cannot be ignored that today’s consumers are continuously supplied with numerous novelties, includ- ing ingredients (e.g., outlandish herbs), tools (e.g., multi- use smoker), recipes (e.g., molecular gastronomy and science-based cooking), forms (e.g., convenience food and wrapping), or places (e.g., diverse types of eating out). To illustrate this rapid pace of innovation, it may suf- fice to mention that no less than 12,000 new grocery items appear in a common US supermarket every year, of which more than 80 percent disappear within the year (Jekanowski & Binkley, 2000). The increasing speed of transformation, however, seems to upset some people and leads to intensifying feelings of estrangement and anxiety toward the industrialized food chain (Kjaernes, Harvey, & Warde, 2007; Warde, 1997). * Corresponding author. 0924-2244/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2011.12.003 Trends in Food Science & Technology 25 (2012) 47e52