Understanding consumer perception-of food quality: the cases of shrimps and cheese

Purpose - The paper proposes to investigate empirically consumers' quality perception of shrimps and cheese. Design/methodology/approach - A sample of 320 respondents was included in an experimental design in which two food products, shrimps and cheese, two price-levels, two levels of purchase involvement, and two types of physical surroundings, elegant and less elegant, were manipulated. The experiments included both simulated buying situations and simulated usage situations. Findings - The research finds that in the buying situation both experiments perceived price had a positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents but not for low-involved respondents. In the usage situation the effect of expected naturalness on experienced naturalness was in both experiments stronger for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. In addition, experienced eating quality positively affected respondents' pleasure-feeling. The positive effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling was stronger for respondents exposed to elegant physical surroundings than for respondents exposed to less elegant surroundings. Research limitations/implications - This research concentrated on analyzing two food products, fresh-shelled shrimps and solid cheese. This could mean that the results may suffer from a lack of generalizability. A large cross-section of products ought to be studied to improve the generalizability of the results. Also, the manipulation of price and physical surroundings were confined to two different levels. Thus, this research offers no specific guidelines on how to set specific prices or how to establish specific physical surroundings for the purpose of manipulating, e.g. consumers' perceived quality. Practical implications - The results emphasize that food producers and retailers, among others, should seek an understanding of consumers' quality perception process in relation to both the buying and the usage situation. Originality/value - This paper empirically investigates consumers' quality perception in both buying and usage situations. Also, the paper includes purchase involvement and physical surroundings as moderating variables of the quality perception process.