An Assignment On "Quality of Food Products"




Definition:

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells in an effort to produce energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
Food product is a substance that can be used or prepared for use as food.
Quality of food and food products may be defined as the degree of excellence of the various characteristics that influence consumer acceptance as well as consumer safety.

Classification of food products:

3.     Fats and Oils.



Importance of Food Quality Assurance Systems:

Some reasons for the implementation of food quality assurance programs are:
Ø  Customer expectations - Today the customers have become more demanding and knowledgeable. They are more concerned about the ingredients of the food products and hence maintaining optimum quality standards in food industry has become very necessary.
Ø  Environmental concerns - Nowadays, people are more concerned about the environment. Environment protection laws have also become stringent. Hence, employing environmental friendly methods in the food industry has become necessary. QA plays a big role in all this.
Ø  Organic Foods – There is more demand for organic foods because people have realized the ill effects of in-organic foods like damage to the environment and health. Hence quality monitoring and guarantee ensures that the chemicals are within the specified limits in any food product.
Ø  Technology - With the development in technology, various methods for food processing and other food related activities have emerged. These methods provide safer and higher quality food to the customers. Today all organizations related to food have to ensure good quality systems to compete in the market.
Ø  Regulatory requirements - Food being a critical element of life, the regulatory agencies have also put in place stringent requirements for its safety and quality. Here also food quality assurance
Ø  Programs help the food industry to meet these requirements consistently and deliver food that is fit for consumption.

Most of the organizations dealing with food and allied products have built their quality monitoring and guarantee systems based on requirements of standardization and analysis. This ensures that they fulfill the requirements related to food quality as well as food safety and hence give confidence to the consumers.
The standardization quality management system is focused on building the quality system through standard documentation, processes and periodic audits – internal as well as external. The corrective and preventive actions taken for closure of the non-conformities found during the audits make sure that the organizations quality system is continually improving.

Types of food quality:

There are four different types of food quality (Grunert et al., 1996). These are product-oriented quality, process-oriented quality, quality control, and user-oriented quality. Product-oriented quality is measured by means of food product’s physical properties, like fat percentage, muscle size of meat, sell content in milk, etc. Process-oriented quality is concerned with characteristics of the production process, which are not necessary mirrored in physical characteristics of the product, like the fulfillment of ecological and ethical production standards. Quality control refers to the extent to which product- and process-oriented quality remains stable at pre-specified levels. Finally, user-oriented quality is the subjective quality perception of a user.
The four types of quality are interrelated. Specifically, the user-oriented quality will be affected by the other three types of qualities. In addition, the user-oriented quality is influenced not only by the physical characteristics of the product, but also by its price, the purchase situation, the type of the retail chain, etc.

Quality dimensions and consumer segments:

Up to now different frameworks have been described for the analysis of food quality perception. In this part of the thesis, attention is focused on food quality dimensions and consumer segments, which differ according to their food-related lifestyle. Later in the thesis the perception of quality dimensions will be described through empirical works with relation to the Total Food Quality Model.

Quality dimensions:

According to Steenkamp, Wierenga, and Meulenberg (1986), four dimensions are identified in their research covering thirteen food products. These are nutritional value (correlations with attributes like protein content, vitamin content and nutritional value), additives (correlation with preservatives, artificial flavour and colour additives), energy (correlation with attributes like fat, protein and caloric content) and sensory (correlating with smell, appearance and taste). The food products differ considerably with respect to the importance attached to the four dimensions.

Grunert et al. (1996) identified other four quality dimensions, which more or less coincide with those that were shortly described above. They are called taste and appearance, health, convenience and process.

The important dimension of quality for consumers is related to the hedonic characteristic of food, which is presented by taste, and appearance and smell. This hedonic characteristic can only be ascertained after consumption and therefore, it is called experience characteristic of food.

Health has become a very important food characteristic to consumers and they consider it as important as taste. Consumers form preferences for this food characteristic motivated by expectations for a longer, high-quality life (Roininen, Lähteenmäki, & Tuorila, 1999). This characteristic of food quality is related to the way consumers perceive food to affect their health. This dimension includes functional qualities of food, but also safety and risk-related issues. The health quality of food is a credence characteristic, because consumers cannot establish the consequences for his/her health right after consumption, so the consumer needs to trust this characteristic.

Consumers consider convenience as an important experience quality dimension of food but it means much more than just ease of purchase or quick consumption. According to Les Gofton, consumers perceive the quality dimension convenience as such that saves time in the overall meal process: planning and purchasing, storage and preparation of products, consumption, and the cleaning up and disposal of leftovers (Gofton, 1995).

Finally, consumers are also interested in the way food is produced, that is the production process dimension of quality. This characteristic covers organic production, production that takes into account animal welfare, and production with no genetically modified organisms. Those consumers that pay attention to the process dimension of food quality focus on the naturalness of the food. Just like the health dimension, process dimension is a credence characteristic, since the consumer has to trust various sources for the production-oriented quality of food.

The all four dimensions of food quality are interrelated and sometimes overlapping but it depends on the food product. For example, consumers sometimes consider taste and healthiness of food to be positively corelated, in other times, they are negatively correlated. Such kind of assumptions are typical of consumer quality perception and they will be discussed later in the thesis.

Also, none of the four quality dimensions is a search dimension (except for the cases when food can be tasted in the store before purchasing it). This means that consumers can only establish the quality of a particular food product only after consumption, not before or during purchase. Thus, purchase decisions are based on quality expectations. Quality expectations are formed based on previous experience with the product or on familiarity with the brand. Thus, quality expectations are inferred.

Consumer segments:

The importance of the four quality dimensions that were just described differ among consumers. That is, the process of food quality perception and consequently, the choice of food they make is individually defined. Although there are individual differences, people can be segmented according to specific traits that explain the way people relate food to the attainment of values. These traits, called food-related lifestyle (Grunert et al., 1996), are non-product specific and can be summarized as purchasing motives, quality aspects, shopping habits, cooking methods, and consumption situations.

Involved:

These consumers find life’s challenge in other areas than food. Their purchase motives for food are weak, and the interest in food quality is only related to the convenience dimension. They are uninterested in shopping, lack brand loyalty, and cannot perceive differences among different food products. Their price interest is also low. They mostly eat snacks, have little interest in cooking, and tend not to plan their meals. These consumers are, on average, young, single, living in big cities, with low-level of income.

Careless food consumer:

These consumers share some of the characteristics of the involved consumers in that they do not find food important and focus only on the convenience quality. However, they are interested in new products, but as long as they do not require new cooking methods. They are young, living in big cities, with more education and higher income in comparison to the involved consumer.

Rational food consumer:

These are the consumers who are most open to better quality food products with functional characteristics like, healthiness, naturalness, freshness. They look for a lot of information when shopping, which makes them easy to inform about product improvements. New products are not appreciated, so information about product imporvements should be communicated. The major purchase motives for these consumers are self-fulfilment, recognition and security. This segment is represented mostly by women with families, who live in medium-sized cities. This segment is considered to consist of highly critical consumers.

Conservative food consumer:

The major purchase motive for these consumers are security and stabilty by following traditional meal patterns. They are very interested in taste and health aspects of food, so the convenience factor is not prioritized. This segment is difficult to win with new products or different marketing initiatives, because they have concrete preferences for food and shops. Consumers in this segment are least educated, living in rural areas and have generally low income.

Adventurous food consumer:

This segment is represented by consumers who use food and cooking for self-fulfilment, expressing creativity and social purposes. They are not interested in convenience but insist on good food quality and good taste. They are interested in exotic food products and like to experiment in cooking. These consumers are young and members of large size family. They have the highest education, high income and live in big cities.



Impact of technologies of on foods fortification procedure:

In order to achieve the required level of nutrients in fortified products reaching the consumer, manufacturers have to estimate processing and storage losses and add the necessary excess during production. The introduction of new processes, equipment and packaging materials can affect processing and storage losses and hence fortification procedures.


Thermal treatments in food processing serve multiple functions: destruction of microorganisms, inactivation of enzymes and toxic factors, modification of flavor and texture. In many cases the heat treatment is selected based on consideration of the required lethality of the process so as to render the product safe under stated conditions of storage.

The lethality of a process is a function of both temperature and time of exposure at each temperature. The Arrhenius activation energy of spore inactivation is high as compared with that for vitamin destruction. For this reason, at high temperatures the microbiological requirements of the thermal process can be met with relatively low losses of vitamin being incurred. Heat treatments based on the principle of 'High Temperature Short Time' (HTST) or Ultra High Temperature (UHT) are less destructive to the vitamin content and require the addition of lower levels of excess vitamins to account for processing losses.


The shelf life of aseptically processed foods can exceed 1 year and storage losses over this entire period must be taken into consideration in the calculation of required overages. During aseptic processes the product is cooled prior to packaging into sterile containers, headspace oxygen and dissolved oxygen levels are therefore higher than for hot-filled products or for traditional thermal processes which involve exhausting or vacuum sealing prior to processing. Problems of vitamin loss in aseptically processed foods have been attributed to dissolved and headspace oxygen, oxygen and light permeability of the packaging material and to commodity-specific reaction which are only dependent on storage temperature (Ryley and Kajda, 1994). In aseptically processed milk the dissolved and headspace oxygen lead to rapid initial losses of vitamin C activity. 

This in turn causes substantial losses in folate as vitamin C plays an important role in the protection of folate. Oamen (1989) also reported heavy losses of vitamins B6, and B12 during storage of aseptically processed milk.

Improvements in the barrier properties of plastics and laminates also impact on the potential for nutrient loss on storage of products other than those aseptically processed.

Irradiation and Microwaves:

Irradiation is used to a limited extent in food processing and as such cannot be expected to impact upon fortification procedures to a large extent. One common use of food irradiation is in the prevention of insect infestation in grains. Losses of vitamin B1 on irradiation of whole grains are small, but increase in the irradiation of milled grains. Losses of this vitamin can be reduced by exclusion of oxygen during irradiation and storage (Kilcast, 1994).
The increased use of microwave cooking on sous-vide and other cook-chill foods does not have a major effect on vitamin retention (Hill. 1994).



The maintenance of a well functioning Quality Assurance (QA) programme is essential if a consistent product is to result which meets all required standards. Such a programme should be based on Hazard Analysis and Quality Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP and QACCP) systems. HACCP and QACCP are more proactive than traditional approaches to QA/QC activities. The establishment of such programmes is the responsibility of QA personnel but the execution of it involves everyone in the company. To avoid ambiguity regarding responsibility for any QA function, it is important to assign specific HACCP/QACCP accountabilities to responsible persons and groups (Corlett, 1992).

A QA programme must consider all activities impacting upon product quality, from raw materials and ingredients used to product handling through distribution channels all the way to the final consumer. In respect of this, Wilson (1991) has outlined the following required components of a QA system:

i) Raw material control - standard specifications must be adopted for all ingredients which must then be inspected to ensure conformity;
ii) Process control - all chemical, physical and microbiological hazards as well as quality factors must be identified, critical control points (CCP) must be established, monitored and a record made of any action taken;
iii) Finished product control - this requires that the finished product be unadulterated, properly labeled and that the integrity of the finished be protected from the environment.


All food production activities must be monitored and controlled within the framework of an effective QA programmed. The addition of nutrients to a food for the purpose of fortification adds to the control points which have to be considered. Poor manufacturing control leading to excessively high levels of nutrients in the finished product could have important health implications for the consumer if intake of the nutrient reaches the toxic dose. Conversely, low levels of nutrients in the finished product could render it nutritionally ineffective. This could also have serious health implications if the target population in the fortification programme was at high nutritional risk. Poor manufacturing control could also lead to other quality defects related to interactions of added nutrients with other components of the system.

The following steps in the implementation of a quality assurance programme in the production of a fortified food have been outlined by Wilson (1991):

i) Product specifications - All specifications for fortificants, food vehicle and any other ingredients must be documented as well as acceptable deviations of these. These include specification of particle size, colour, potency, level of fortification as well as any other requirement which might be deemed necessary.

ii) Product safety assessment - This involves an assessment of microbiological, chemical and physical hazards for all ingredients and the finished product

iii) Product analysis - Sampling and testing procedures for all ingredients and the finished product must be explicitly stated.

iv) Determination of critical and quality control points - Based on first hand knowledge of the total process (including the plant facility, equipment and environment) stages at which inadequate control could lead to unacceptable health risk or adversely affect product quality are identified. The system of controls and actions to be taken at each control point are documented.

v) Recall system - A mechanism must be put in place whereby product can be recalled if such action becomes necessary.

vi) QA audit - Periodic checks are necessary to verify that the QA system is effective and product quality is maintained up to the ultimate consumer.

vii) Feedback mechanism - Response to consumers and other relevant groups to correct any deficiencies discovered.

viii) Documentation of QA system - Details of the QA programme used in the production of the fortified food must be readily available to relevant individuals and organizations.

Shortcomings of many fortification programmes in the past have been due to failure to establish an adequate quality assurance programme. Evaluation of the fortification of sugar with vitamin A in Guatemala showed that only 30% of samples tested were fortified at levels within the legal limits (Nestel, 1993). A study of iodine content in iodised salt samples obtained from several plants in India also provided an example of the need for greater control in processing (Ranganathan and Narasinga, 1986).

In the determination of critical and other control points for any process accurate flow diagrams outlining the total process have been used (Pierson and Corlett, 1992). The construction of an accurate flow diagram for any given process requires firsthand knowledge of the processing facility and its environs so that all factors which might be expected to impact on product safety could be identified. Annex 1 includes a list of common critical control points and examples of monitoring procedures in the processing of selected fortified foods, which are intended to demonstrate the main points of a quality assurance programmed.

Recommendations of the FAO/WHO Expert Technical Consultation on "The Use of HACCP in Food Control' (1995c) included the following:

i. Use of HACCP serves to improve food safety control and should be applied on that basis;

ii. The elaboration of food safety policies by government and international agencies should use risk analysis as the basis for establishing food safety priorities and for focusing inspection resources. These policies should be implemented through national strategic plans;

iii. In the post Uruguay Round of GATT, the Codex Alimentarius Commission should recognize the importance of its role in harmonizing and establishing food standards, guidelines and recommendations particularly as it relates to safety of food in international trade. Codex should develop a strategic plan which will include a strengthening of the scientific basis for risk analysis, equivalence and the elaboration of its standards, guidelines and other recommendations and should include specific instructions to the Codex Committees on incorporating HACCP.

 Food adulteration:

Food adulteration is the act of intentionally debasing the quality of food offered for sale either by the admixture or substitution of inferior substances or by the removal of some valuable ingredient. Food is declared adulterated if:
Ø  a substance is added which depreciates or injuriously affects it
Ø  cheaper or inferior substances are substituted wholly or in part
Ø  any valuable or necessary constituent has been wholly or in part abstracted
Ø  it is an imitation
Ø  it is colored or otherwise treated, to improve its appearance or if it contains any added substance injurious to health
Food-preservatives have a very extensive use, which often constitutes adulteration. Salt is the classic preservative, but is seldom classified as an adulterant. Salicylic, benzoic, and boric acids, and their sodium salts, formaldehyde, ammonium fluoride, sulphurous acid and its salts are among the principal preservatives. Many of these appear to be innocuous, but there is danger that the continued use of food preserved by these agents may be injurious. Some preservatives have been conclusively shown to be injurious when used for long periods.

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act (1938) provides that food is "adulterated" if it meets anyone of the following criteria:

(1) It bears or contains any "poisonous or deleterious substance" which may render it injurious to health;
(2) It bears or contains any added poisonous or added deleterious substance that is unsafe;
(3) Its container is composed, in whole or in part, of any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render the contents injurious to health;
(4) It bears or contains a pesticide chemical residue that is unsafe. Food also meets the definition of adulteration if:
(5) It is, or it bears or contains, an unsafe food additive;
(6) It is, or it bears or contains, an unsafe new animal drug;
(7) It is, or it bears or contains, an unsafe color additive;
(8) It consists, in whole or in part, of "any filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance" or is otherwise unfit for food; or
(9) It has been prepared, packed, or held under unsanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth or rendered injurious to health. Further, food is considered adulterated if:
(10) It has been irradiated and the irradiation processing was not done in conformity with a regulation permitting irradiation of the food.


Discussion and recommendation:

The main challenge for consumers, however, is that food products like meat, fruits, bread, are usually unbranded and their quality vary. Still, there are food products, which are branded but the consumer is either unaware of their existence or s/he does not relate the particular brand to consistent quality. In this case, consumers will rely on other extrinsic cues, like price, store image, packaging, origin, and so on.

Health is important part of the consumer’s food quality perception and food choice. Health quality is related to basic life values, like good health, long life, family’s welfare, high quality life, healthy body and physical well-being. Eating healthily and health concept is subjective and norms are considered to influence food intake. Consumers have developed their own way of judgment of food healthiness but they clearly demonstrate awareness on low fat, vitamins, cholesterol, unsaturated fatty acids and so on terms considered to be good indicators of food healthiness.

Health is a credence characteristic of food products, so credible and effective communication plays an essential role towards the achievement of positive evaluation of this quality dimension. The effectiveness of communications depends on three factors: the credibility of the source, the receiver’s motivation and ability to process the information. On the other hand, the food manufacturer is legally restricted on the health claims. Thus, the final communication has to abide by legal requirements and in the same time, has to integrate consumers’ individual understanding of health concept.

Just like health dimension, the process dimension is a credence characteristic of food, so consumers rely on credible information when evaluating this food quality. The process characteristics or more precisely the organic production characteristics of food are considered to be better for the environment, better for animal welfare, and better for working conditions during production. In addition, consumers associate organic production with health and better taste, as the latter makes the characteristic ‘organic’ also partly an experience characteristic. Overall, consumers expect organic food to be of better quality across all quality dimensions. But positive inferences do not necessarily lead to a purchase, if consumers find the trade-off between give and get component unfavorable. In this respect, consumers find limited availability, high prices and mismatch between the expected taste and experienced taste to be the main problems related to organic food.

Finally, what consumers associate with organic foods, that is, their reasons for buying or rejecting it, is affected by national conditions, food cultures, and traditions. Despite the identification of similar food-related lifestyles across countries, the beliefs and attribute to value chains associated with organic foods differ substantially between countries, even within the same cross-national segment. This leads to the conclusion that when food quality and choice are analyzed, cultural characteristics need to be considered playing important roles in the consumers’ quality perception processes related to organic food.

It is recommended that this approach is further broadened by investigating the effects of convenience orientation on the purchase of convenience products, the use of convenient shopping outlets and the use of eating out and home meal replacements. Also, for results that better reflect the perception of convenience quality of food, segmentation of consumers is advisable.

It is essential to mention, that consumers apply all the four dimensions when judging food quality, which means that all of them simultaneously play a significant role in the formation of quality expectations and the consequent quality experiences. In this case, it can be said that consumers are involved in a multidimensional quality perception process when choosing food. One thing is clear that quality dimensions and applied quality cues are idiosyncratic to the product category investigated and generalizations should be carefully made.

Consumer segmentation is very important when food quality is analyzed. This is because individuals are unique and as consumers they differ in the perception of food quality.

Some are price sensitive, other - are product-involved, still other are conservative or adventurous. Whatever their characteristic, in order to better understand processes related to quality judgments, consumers need to be grouped in different segments and analyzed according to the specific characteristics of the group.

In this respect, social, cultural and demographic variables are essential to be considered in future works, since their influence has been proven to affect consumer’s quality perception and food choice. In the current thesis, reference groups, advertisements, magazines, are not reflected in the quality judgment processes. It is recommended to do so, because they have impact on consumer’s behavior, which can be related to food choice, as well.

More research is needed on expected and experienced convenience; the effect of food sensory characteristics on experienced convenience quality, the effect of eating situation on the experienced taste, health, convenience, and process qualities.




 References:
Ø  www.wikipedia.com
Ø  Alien, D. H. 1991. Monosodium Glutamate. In Food Allergy: Adverse reactions to foods and food additives, (ed.) Metcalfe, D. D., Sampson, H. A. and Simon, C. A.. Blackwell Sci. Pub. Boston.
Ø  Anderson, R. H., Maxwell, D.L., Mulley, A. E. and Fritsch, C. W. 1976. Effects of processing and storage on micronutrients in breakfast cereals. Food Technol. 30:5, pp. 110-114.
Ø  Andersson, E. 1994. Le saviez-vous? Rapport du conseil de l'alimentation et de la nutrition Neerlandais. Med. et Nut. T. XXX No. 6.
Ø  Aguilar, J. R., Arroyave, G. and Gallardo, I. C. 1977. Manual de Supervision y control de programas de forticacion de azucar con vitamin A. INCAP Pub. E913, Guatemala.
Ø  Anon. 1995a. Indicators for tracking progress in IDD elimination. IDD Newsletter 10:4 pp. 38-40. Anon. 1995b. Calcium fortification monitoring. Food Labelling News 3:24 p. 9.
Ø  Anon. 1995c. Vitamin E fortification of fat-modified foods predicted. Food Chemical News; 37:42, 39-40.





If you have any  opinion Please, comments ...

Data accumulated & compiled by:
Dewan Pavel (M. PHARM)
       Mundipharma (Bangladesh) Pvt. Ltd.
       Officer, Quality Assura






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