Consumer Expectations Towards Origin- Claimed Food Products Compensation and Acceptance for Global Trading System

Originclaimed food products mainstream gives diverse features over the world. The food labelling practices based on origin or provenance are frequently developed as a reaction to global trading system: private and NGO’s initiatives (Fair Trade), enterprises in UK (Local Foods) and USA (Food Alliance), medals for winners in local exhibitions awards, or public regulation in European Union (PDO, PGI, Organic Farming). These practices claim at reaching consumer expectations. For a consumer who is frequently being uprooted and is stressed by his/her urban environment, the emotional content of where one’s food is produced is greater than ever. With a longing for one’s home, the consumer becomes an identity seeker. Origin, organic or fair trade food products respond to this need of native tangs revival. Such food products help consumer to identify his/her lost roots, to have recall of exotic holidays, to resist against ethical values’ decline and finally to accept globalisation of food trading system. Because of their historical and cultural content, these foods give a meaning to taste. The demand for origin, organic and fairtrade food products is to be found somewhere between lifestyle habits and changes. The future of these products is supported, strangely enough, by the development of novel food products such as fator sugarfree foods, restructured meat, alcoholfree wine, and GMOs. The reference to tradition makes modernity tolerable. The arrival of High Tech food products should also result in a demand for compensatory products, and thereby favour those that can help to remove the guilty feelings of readytoeat consumers. Therefore, origin, organicand fairtradelabelled foods seem to contribute to the modern food globalisation. The paper focuses on the place of these products within European food consumption. It examines in turn the rare estimation of market share of labelled food products, and their consumers’ perception and purchasing behaviour in different sales channels, with a special focus on fairtrade and organic farming. It concludes with consideration of the marketing dynamics, which should be followed in order to favour consumption of originclaimed food products.