Are They Careful Enough? Testing Consumers’ Perception of Alternative Processing Technologies on the Quality of Organic Food

Summary

Abstract: Given the increasing public interest in how ingredients are processed and the growing
demand for organic food products, it is critical to understand consumers’ expectations about the
process-related quality of organic products. Consumers perceive organic food to be nutritious, healthy
and either natural or less processed, as they are afraid of the loss of nutritional, organoleptic and
sensory properties of the food products. However, alternative food processing technologies might
generate healthy and safe food options with nutritional quality properties. Simplified communication
schemes might help to overcome this barrier for the consumer. The main objective of this study is to
propose a working definition of “careful processing” for organic products and test its consistency
through an experiment, while being used to rate different processing methods by consumers. Results
show that the proposed definition allows the consumer to consistently rate alternative processing
technologies. Consumers tend to score alternative processing technologies such as pulsed electric
fields and microwaves as less careful, supporting the idea that organic consumers want as little
man-made interference in their food products as possible. Results show that a simple but effective
definition of careful processing may help consumers to distinguish more organic food products from
conventional ones, no matter which communication scheme is used.