The Social Process of Defining Quality Food, Based on the Opinions of Polish Consumer Cooperative Members

Abstract

This article describes how members of consumer cooperatives define quality food. Cooperatives are seen as one of the forms of Alternative Food Networks. The concept of quality food is defined subjectively. The analysis presented in the paper is based on the results of a questionnaire conducted in winter 2015/2016 among members of consumer cooperatives in Poland. The spontaneously made three main associations with the notion of “high quality food” indicate that customers consider qualities that are the result of the ways and methods of production. Food quality and safety are the results of individual and organisational trust and mutual relations, among consumers themselves as well as between consumers and producers. In the case of mass-produced food, issues of safety have become crucial: for the indicated group food safety means shifting from the rules of the “industrial world” to the rules of the “domestic world” where safety is the result of trust, direct consumer/supplier relations, and/or traditions rather than standardised norms.