FOOD QUALITY - RELATIVITY, CONTEXT AND CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS

Food quality is a complex concept that is frequently measured using objective indices related to the nutritional, microbiological, or physicochemical characteristics of the food or in terms of the opinions of designated experts. However when food quality is defined in terms of 'degree of excellence' none of these measures serve as adequate indices of food quality. The argument is presented that food quality is a consumer-based perceptual/evaluative construct that is relative to person, place and time and that is subject to the same influences of context and expectations as are other perceptual/evaluative phenomena. It is further argued that the measurement construct that comes closest to being an adequate index of food quality is that which has come to be called 'consumer acceptability.'