Quality related communication approaches for organic food

As food quality becomes more complex, consumers are tending to reduce their involvement in the food purchase decisionmaking process. Consequently, prices are becoming more significant as they represent an easy choice criterion when consumers have less information about the differences between the product and process quality inherent in food items (including environmental or social issues). The organic food sector provides high, complex food quality profiles and has therefore been seriously affected by this development. Consequently some SMEs in the food business sector are starting to emphasize certain quality factors, such as sustainable production and processing, as a means of communicating their added value to consumers. Based on published scientific and unpublished literature, this paper provides an overview of the main instruments and media of communication on food quality, illustrated by case studies. It also presents the results of a test by means of an information display matrix, conducted in order to analyse the consumer information and quality assessment behaviour involved in apple purchase in Switzerland.