Sensory Experiences and Expectations of Organic Food. Results of Focus Group Discussions

Abstract

This executive summary describes the main objectives and findings from a qualitative survey on consumers’ sensory experiences, expectations and preferences with respect to organic food. The survey was conducted in the frame of the European Commission funded project ECROPOLIS in 2009 in Germany (DE), France (FR), Italy (IT), Netherlands (NL), Poland (PL) and Switzerland (CH). The objectives of this research were to explore:
\n- the range of experiences, expectations and preferences for specific sensory properties of organic food.
\n- words that are used by consumers to differentiate the taste of organic products amongst themselves and compared to conventional ones.
\n- symbolic’ meanings and images which participants relate to sensory characteristics of organic food.
\n- consumers’ sensory expectations and preferences related to the variability and standardisation of organic food.
\n- consumers’ experiences to marketing of sensory characteristics of organic food.
\n- possible differences in consumers’ sensory expectations and preferences between the participating countries.