Can information affect sensory perceptions? Evidence from a survey on Italian organic food consumers

This paper aims to investigate the influence of information on consumers’ preferences and sensory perceptions of organic food using a sample of 301 Italian organic food consumers. Consumers stated their preferences for “core organic” attributes, labels and information on food products and performed blind and informed tests on strawberry yoghurts and cookies. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results revealed that consumers appreciate “core organic” attributes, like artisanal production and variability of sensory attributes. Comparing blind and informed tests, results showed that information affects the overall liking of products and consumers’ perception of product-specific sensory attributes. However, the influence of information on sensory perceptions depends on the product category, sensory attributes and the type of information provided

Challenges in marketing quality food products

This special double issue of the Journal of International Food & Agribusiness Marketing is based on a selection of papers that were originally presented during the 105th seminar of the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE) on "International Marketing and International Trade of Quality Food Products". This seminar was held at the Faculty of Agriculture in Bologna on March 8-10, 2007. The 105th EAAE Seminar was organized by the Department of Agricultural Economics and Engineering in concurrence with the third meeting of the BEAN-QUORUM project (Building a Euro-Asian Network for Quality, Organic, and Unique food Marketing - TH/Asia-Link/006) funded by the European Union's Asia-Link Programme. The Asia-Link Programme is dedicated to the promotion of regional and multilateral networking between higher education institutions in European Union Member States and South Asia, South-East Asia and China. The BEAN-QUORUM consortium is composed of five Asian and European Universities, aiming at setting up long-term relationships and enlarging the initial network to other Higher Education Institutions, companies, governmental bodies, or any other subjects in the food industry who are interested in the topic of marketing for quality food. The EAAE seminar raised a good deal of interest. Approximately one hundred scholars from twenty-five Countries attended the many plenary and concurrent sessions where sixty contributed papers and posters were presented. The main motivation for this initiative was the increasing relevance for agricultural and food products of the keywords "Marketing," "International Trade" and "Quality" in the scientific debate among agricultural economists. These three keywords raise many controversial issues. The word "Marketing" may be interpreted in many ways, by which the specific topic of the agricultural and food marketing may be considered. "Quality" is a controversial word too. It is apparent that an overall improvement of the quality of agri-food products is a strategic task for agriculture and rural economic development and has become a policy priority. Finally, \u201cInternational Trade,\u201d the related actions for its development and regulation, and the magnitude of the traded volumes of commodities within and between the main trade blocks are undoubtedly hot issues. In this context, however, we focus our attention on trade of food products as differentiated goods, rather than as commodities. Rather than gathering the issues linked by these three keywords, the aim of the EAAE seminar was to link them together and consider connections, overlaps, contradictions and complementarities. The intimate link between marketing and quality is a matter of fact, and the specificity of the food industry has highlighted the need to develop a conceptual approach that could be more consistent with the peculiarities of both the organization of the food sector and the behavior of food product consumers. The publication of numerous studies on consumer preferences and behavior considering quality and value-adding attributes of food is a demonstration that this link is already a cornerstone of recent research in agricultural and food economics. The analysis of trade still mainly focuses on commodities in the economic literature, but the issue of quality and the related marketing problems are also gaining ground. The present special issue contains articles that cover several aspects of food quality in an international context and the related marketing issues. This special issue opens with the article "Food quality and product export performance \u2013 an empirical investigation of the EU situation", authored by Christian Fischer, which provides a general framework for the context outlined above. This article investigates the relationship between product quality (as indicated by unit value) and export performance, measured in both absolute (per capita) and relative terms, in five EU countries. Fischer find..

The role of sensory attributes in marketing organic food: findings from a qualitative study on Italian consumers

The organic food market is characterized by an uninterrupted growth during the past decade (Fibl, 2010; Spiller, 2006; Hamm and Gronefeld, 2004). Between 2006-2007, the organic food market in Europe is growing on average about 10% per year with an average per-capita spending of 27 Euros across all European countries (Padel et al., 2009). This increase is accompanied by challenges in market structures, distribution channels as well as differentiation of expectations and buying motives of organic food consumers. On this regard, the “hedonistic” motives for purchasing of organic food such as health, taste and wellness gained importance in comparison with the “altruistic” purchasing motives such as environmental protection and animal welfare. Therefore, some scientists pointed out that sensory attributes are important elements that should be taken into account in the marketing strategies by organic food distributors (Brennan and Kuri, 2002, Padel and Foster, 2005) than even before. On this regard, available literature lacks of empirical research investigating experiences and expectations of organic consumers which may support organic food producers, processors and distributors in drafting their marketing strategies. The objective of this paper is to explore in-depth sensory experiences, expectations and perceptions of organic consumers when purchasing and eating organic food, using qualitative marketing research techniques. The output of this research will be the identification of some key elements which may make researchers able to address further research and may provide useful recommendations to food industry practitioners interested in marketing organic food. Focus group interviews supported by semi-structured questionnaire were performed during 2009; five groups composed by 6-10 organic food consumers in different locations in Italy were invited to join group discussions focused on their approach to sensory characteristics of food. Each interview had a duration of about 1 hour has been video recorded. The interviews content was transcribed and then analyzed with the method of content analysis. The results indicate that some consumers still appear to be confused about the meaning of the term „organic food‟. The term is often associated with a set of desired features of food such as naturalness, freshness, but without any reference to the method of production, or with other types of niche products, such as artisanal or “home made” foods, etc. Although it is not possible to draw reliable conclusions on the basis of a qualitative approach like this, we may make an attempt to raise hypotheses that can be tested in a following research based on a quantitative approach. Based on the analysis of interviews contents, the sensory and safety attributes seem to be more relevant to consumer choice for older participants (46-75 years) than younger (18-45 years), the latter paying more attention to environmental protection, animal welfare, absence of chemical preservatives or additives when they purchase organic food. This is presumably because childhood memories seem to be important for older participants, as they apparently serve as a “personal sensory-quality term of reference” when taste experiences of the childhood or former times are compared with nowadays sensory characteristics of food, suggesting that education and training on food taste may play a role in shifting preferences. However, basically sensory attributes still appear to be less important than other attributes such as environmental protection, animal welfare, absence of additives, etc., consumers take into account when purchasing and eating organic food. Consumers largely agree that organic food should be different from conventional ones in terms of shape, odour, colour, taste, texture, etc, but variety is also expected and between organic food themselves. Few consumers, however, also expect that organic food may mimic some successful branded products. Appea..