Consumer Perceptions of Quality: Key Issues for Horticultural Research

Abstract

Horticultural producers and retailers are experiencing increasing consumer concern regarding food quality and safety. While some of these concerns may be unwarranted, consumers will always express their opinions about a product through their pocketbooks. Lacking information about these trends, producers and retailers have often found themselves out-of-step with changing tastes and preferences. An alternative and much more profitable approach would be for producers and retailers to better anticipate consumer concerns regarding quality and develop new products, practices, or information that satisfy the consumer’s real and perceived needs. An important consequence of this approach is that producers and retailers would need much more information on consumer preferences than they currently possess and would need to develop in-house research programs or fund external researchers to develop the needed information. However, little research at land grant universities examines consumer demand for or economic implications of providing various levels of quality. Consequently, the lack of an explicit consumer orientation in horticultural research may have reduced the earnings of horticultural businesses by forcing them to search for relevant research findings rather than having readily available results from goaloriented research programs. To better understand this approach, we will discuss the theory and definition of quality. A discussion of the use of perceived quality to enhance profitability will show how the theoretical precepts can be applied. While many of these studies use food products, a few use fresh foods or horticultural products.