Conclusion

Abstract

Over the past decade-and-a-half or so, the debate about food quality, and its constituent parts, has intensified in the UK. The detail of this debate owes much to the fact, that quality is a practical, business issue. It is recognised that value must be created for consumers, and that quality must be managed. There are two key components to the management of quality, i.e., the management of innovation and consumer value (quality of design) and the management of product and process conformity. This book focuses largely on the quality of design, i.e., on the fit between the nature of some raw material, a company’s capabilities, and a consumer’s requirements and buying motives. Food marketers commonly exploit the quality concept in order to draw consumers’ attention to their products. The need to draw attention to individual offerings exists in all consumer-oriented markets, in which the consumer’s input constitutes one half of the market mechanism. The consumer demands a product, the producer offers it, and finally the consumer evaluates it. Quality in any product relates to individual requirements, which will have been identified in respect of some target market. In the absence of a consumer capable of perceiving quality, there is none. Hence in advertising terms, quality and similar words act as signals rather than as carriers of specific meaning. Specific foods, and food consumption patterns, can be adopted by a consumer to express certain aspects of his or her lifestyle, e.g., green consumerism. Producers are similarly able to express their business philosophy through the products that they offer, through the products that they do not offer, and in their actions in respect of society.