THE ATTITUDES OF EUROPEAN CONSUMERS TOWARD INNOVATION IN BREAD; INTEREST OF THE CONSUMERS TOWARD SELECTED QUALITY ATTRIBUTES

This survey concerns industrial bread making and has been carried out within the European project entitled EU-FRESHBAKE (October 2006 to October 2009), which concerns the bake-off technology. This technology consists in producing bread at industrial level (frozen most of the time) and to retail the bread in "baking stations" or in small vending shops.
The objectives of this survey were (1) to better understand the attitude of the European innovations in bread and (2) to understand the main determinants of it. Two main categories of consumers were observed; (1) frequent (daily) buyers with a focus on quality and pleasure and (2) less frequent buyers (once a week) with a more pronounced interest in nutrition, shelf life and energy (process). The first group was named the "crust group" and the second one the "crumb group." The "crumb group" seems to be the one that is the most interested in the outcomes of the EU-FRESHBAKE project.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

This survey brings interesting information regarding the expectations of EU consumers toward innovation in bread making. Bread is a very symbolic food, carrying a lot of messages coming from religion, social classification and from well being.
Among the key messages to be withdrawn from this survey, it appears that northern and eastern Europe, and also the young population, are expecting from bread a food that must adapt to the constrain of life. It must have a long shelf life and it must carry a nutritional value. On the other hand, French and southern Europe countries are bringing more attention to the pleasure and to the freshness of the product. There is thus a complex matrix of social and qualitative attitudes toward bread from one country to the other. Innovation can be considered as a positive image in some countries, whereas it may have a very negative image in other countries.