bles are served in meals prepared for the whole family and most appre-
ciated by the real family mother and connoisseurs. No statistically sig-
nificant differences were found in the perception of fresh vegetables
between the four groups of vegetable consumers.
Of all processed vegetables, frozen vegetables had the best image in
terms of vitamin and mineral content. This attribute was significantly
more mentioned by typical consumers of frozen vegetables. Frozen veg-
etables were perceived as easy and fast to prepare, providing variety and
ideal for active and modern people. An association with the attribute
“industrial” was mentioned. Canned vegetables were perceived as cheap
and industrial. Other associations included convenience, speed and va-
riety. Canned vegetables had the image of being the preferred vegetable
of single people. Glass vegetables had a less industrial and cheap con-
notation but a more traditional image than canned vegetables. Apart from
offering variety, important product benefits included a good presenta-
tion and that quality of the product can be judged visually. A similar re-
sponse pattern for glass and canned was found for situation and image
components.
These quantitative results about perception and image of vegetables
fully confirm the findings of the qualitative research. That is, frozen veg-
etables are clearly the preferred alternative for fresh, which can be ex-
plained by greater familiarization of consumers with the freezing
preservation technique rather than with the vegetable sterilization tech-
nique, which was commonly applied in households some decades ago.
The Ideal Product
A definition of the ideal product is determined on the basis of asking
the consumers to describe the ideal production process from the begin-
ning till the final prepared product as it is presented on a plate. During
the focus group discussions, respondents were asked to think about every
step, each element in the production process and to describe the ideal
picture. Qualitative research revealed that consumers attached specific
attention to the soil, the seed, the growth process, harvesting practices,
vegetable processing and preparation. Using a pick-any scale enabled a
quantitative assessment of the consumer concerns related to each of these
six steps in the production process. For each step in the process, rele-
vant attributes were selected based on the qualitative research. These
attributes were labeled as “must” and “should not” be present, which,