The universe of food quality

The universe of food quality is presented as a system of product requirements both material and immaterial, related to the product in itself, the production context, the product-packaging system, and the product-market system. Also, the dynamics of the quality system is shown as a relationship between processing conditions, product characteristics, product performance, and consumer requirements. All this poses the problem of methods and strategies for studying/optimising the overall quality of food products. Two approaches are presented: (a) pyramiding by comparing pairs of antithetic consumer requirements, and (b) minimizing rejection as a more useful approach than maximizing preferences. It is suggested that sensory science be considered as the “science of quality perception”.