L. Bredahl et al., RELATING CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF PORK QUALITY TO PHYSICAL PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS, Food quality and preference, 9(4), 1998, pp. 273-281
Consumers form expectations about pork quality at the point of purchas
e based on the quality cues available to them in the shop. These expec
tations can be confirmed or disconfirmed during consumption. A study i
s described showing how consumers' quality expectations and experience
are formed, hotel they are interrelated, and how both of them are rel
ated to a number of physical product characteristics commonly used to
assess objective pork quality. Results show that quality expectations
and quality experience diverge widely, and that both of these are only
weakly related to objective product characteristics. In some cases, a
n objective product characteristic may even have a positive effect on
quality expectations but a negative effect on quality experience, or v
ice versa. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.