Consumers’ perceptions of organic food processing – first insights in milk and juice processing

Summary

Little research has been done on consumers’ expectations and preferences related to processing technologies. This is also the case for processed organic food. Nevertheless, consumers may have specific expectations of processing in organic food. Thus, this study explores consumers’ knowledge, expectations, and opinions of processing technologies in organic foods. Fo- cus group discussions were conducted with occasional buyers of organic products. For organic products, partic- ipants preferred physical technologies over thermal tech- nologies, because ‘nothing is added to or changed the product’. However, they showed a great uncertainty re- garding the complexity and opacity of the topic. Thus, communicating processing technologies in a transparent way is crucial to ensure a further growth of and trust in the organic market.