Authenticity and food experience – commercial and academic perspectives*

This paper compares and contrasts commercial and academic perspectives on the nature of authenticity and the role it plays within the hospitality, tourism and leisure industries. The discussion commences by looking at the complex nature of the relationship between food and ourselves as consumers and then goes on to examine how society seeks to regulate the authenticity of food by using terms such as organic, protected and local. The paper examines some of the perspectives on object reality and a move to subsume the wide range of thought on this subject under a single, but very broad understanding, developed by Heidegger. The author challenges this view and concludes that our perceptions of authenticity involve an interaction between what we are considering (the thing), society (the others) and the individual that is contemplating this whole idea of authenticity (the self), particularly with reference to food.