“Quality does not sell itself”

Abstract

Purpose Food quality is a multi-dimensional concept comprising both objective and subjective components. Quality as defined from an industry perspective usually relies on different instrumental assessment and on ratings of “experts” which may not necessarily align with consumers’ perception of quality. The purpose of this paper is to deal with consumers perceptions of intrinsic quality in coffee from a sensory scientific and behavioral economic perspective. Design/methodology/approach In a blind taste test (n=205), naïve consumers tasted two cups of coffee and decided which they preferred. The two coffees varied greatly in their “objective” quality (based on expert grading) and retail value. Consumers were then revealed that one of the cups contained a coffee that was much more expensive than the other, and that they could get a free cup of their preferred coffee if they could correctly identify the most expensive one. Findings The results showed that preferences were equally distributed among the high- and low-quality samples, and that consumers did not perform better than chance level in the identification task. These results suggest that current grading systems used in the industry may be poorly correlated with the way consumers actually experience coffee, and thus that quality inference in the marketplace is more likely influenced by external cues (e.g. brand, label and price) than to intrinsic product quality. Nevertheless, the results also show that consumers who correctly answered the identification task were also significantly more likely to prefer the high-quality sample. This tentatively suggests that better sensory expertise is correlated with a preference for higher quality, though future studies are needed to confirm the correctedness of this interpretation. Originality/value This work highlights the difficulty of objectively defining food quality, and the limited usefulness of experts’ ratings widely used in the industry. Managerial implications of these findings, as well as implications for consumer policy, are discussed.

Very beyond subjectivity: The limit of accuracy of Q‐Graders

“…The instruments may be sophisticated, sensory evaluation depends to a great extent on the practitioner's physiological and psychological characteristics (Zhang & Chen, 1997 On the first and second day of the study, the data indicated that the quality measured and perceived by Q-Graders did not present statistical difference between these professionals. According to Giacalone, Fosgaard, Steen, and Münchow (2016), taste preferences are learned mainly after repeated exposure. Q-Graders, when trained and familiar with a certain quality standard, will tend to the right ones.…”

Roasting Conditions and Coffee Flavor: A Multi-Study Empirical Investigation

“…With increasing demand worldwide, particularly in the specialty coffee segment, scientific sensory evaluation of coffee is increasingly sought after to understand and meet consumer demands [3,4]. The sensory quality of coffee is a function of all the links in the coffee production chain-plant genetics, terroir, transportation, storage, roasting, grinding, brewing-which, together with social, psychological, and situational factors, determine the final consumer experience [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. A clear picture of how each link, as well as the subprocesses in each link, modulates the flavour of the coffee is necessary in order to inform product development and quality control, that is to have the opportunity to create high-quality products that consistently give a satisfying consumer experience [5,10].…”

“…Finally, roasting time was negatively associated both with respect to "balance" and "clean cup", although for "balance", only the effect of development time was significant. Results for these two attributes should be interpreted with caution in light of their semi-hedonic nature; in particular, because expert scores may not necessarily correlate with consumer preferences [8] and also because in-depth analyses revealed a poor agreement between experts for these attributes [39]. Table 5.…”

Identifying objective quality attributes of functional foods

“…Quality Assurance and Safety of Crops & Foods, 2020;12 (2): 24-39 Every product or service has two types of quality, which are objective and subjective quality. Objective quality refers to product-related characteristics that can be measured using technical instruments (Giacalone et al, 2016). Subjective quality, on the other hand, is consumers' perceptions (i.e.…”

“…A product would sell if consumers perceived its quality to be high. Perception or subjective quality has more weight than objective quality (Giacalone et al, 2016). However, in the drug and functional food industry, this inequality was reduced by regulations that control the objective quality of functional foods.…”