Abstract
The concept of country-of-origin (COO) has at least five dimensions: country-of design, of assembly, of parts, of manufacturing, and of brand. This complexity reflects the different ways in which the COO can influence consumers' product evaluations. This study investigated consumers' evaluation for the importance of the country-of-manufacture (COM) by proposing the country-of-cuisine (COC) concept, which is the new COO dimension, to distinguish from other dimensions and identified COM. This study employed Best-Worst-Scaling to evaluate the food values of Japanese-cuisine in Shanghai, China. In addition, using latent-class-logit analysis, we classified respondents and compared the attributes characterizing their consumption behaviors to evaluate the COM. The main findings indicate that origin—conceptualized as COM as a food value - was generally not considered important by residents of Shanghai, but it played a more significant role for older and more frequent consumers of Japanese cuisine. These findings have implications for Japanese-restaurant owners and policymakers promoting Japanese-cuisine and agricultural products internationally. This study, as an initial exploration utilizing the COC concept, will also serve as a reference for future researchers.