The price of quality

It has been a long time since we last had a shortage of food in Hungary. Today, between 45-50 thousand food products are available in Hungary. According to a survey by GfK Hungária Piackutató, average families had spent over a third of their household income on food in the 80's. Today, this proportion is only 22 per cent. This percentage will probably continue to shrink. However, quality is still the privilege of a few at the moment. Retailers and consumers can be confident, that they will not be sold sub-standard quality. The question is, how far can quality be improved? Members of the supply chain have different priorities regarding the specific properties of products and it is not easy to tell what properties they are willing to pay for. Quality is a term that has a different meaning for farmers, for food processing businesses, for retailers and consumers. Consumers have complex preferences. They are willing to pay for a higher level of processing, and also for the time which can be saved when preparing he food. Flavour, fragrance and colour can also be measures of quality, as well as the influence on our health. It has been calculated that merchants get over two-thirds of the total profit generated by sales of poultry, while farmers and processing businesses have only a third to share. The picture is much the same for all major product categories.