fresh products. I regard good taste as a must-be attribute of food. Con-
sumers are hardly likely to want food products that do not taste good,
so this is also a necessary attribute of ecological products. That food has
no health risks is also a must-be attribute, which should be guaranteed
via legislation and production processes.
Translation of Consumer Needs
After the identification and structuring of needs follows the transla-
tion where the QFD team suggests quality characteristics (measurable
or documentable attributes, part of the objective product quality) that
correspond to the identified needs. In the case of food products, it can
be both technical and sensory attributes (Bech et al., 1994). As already
mentioned, development of fruit and vegetables may be less technically
oriented than more traditional food production. Many quality character-
istics are based on qualitative or semi-objective judgements instead of
actual measurements (e.g., the assessment of ripeness and robustness).
A short and precise description of the quality criteria may be useful to
support the assessments.
The general approach is described in the discussion of the House of
Quality. With a focus on fruit and vegetables, it is important to bear in
mind that the objective quality, when the consumer gets access to the
product in a purchase or consumption context, is a result of the total
process from seed development, growing, handling, storage and distri-
bution—corresponding to the often many participants in the chain.
Traditionally, each participant pays most attention to the recent and/or
the most powerful participant in the chain. This sequential approach may
result in suboptimization in the chain, both with regard to product qual-
ity and profit. Alternatively, a parallel QFD approach covers all partic-
ipants in the chain, as illustrated in Figure 11.3. This approach has many
similarities to supply chain management where product flow and infor-
mation flow play important roles (see, e.g., Gattorna and Walters, 1996).
However, one major difference is that the QFD approach also considers
product changes that are overlooked by the supply chain management
approach. For fruit and vegetables, product changes may be either im-
provements (e.g., controlled ripening) or deterioration (e.g., overripen-
ing or spoilage). An attempt to model the quality changes is suggested
by Sloof et al. (1996).
The figure illustrates five parts in the chain from seed producer (S),
grower (G), wholesaler (W), and retailer (R) to the consumer (C). The
Translation of Consumer Needs 211