The Importance of Quality

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Quality in the Food and Wine World: What Quality?

Quality is one of the most used (and abused) words today; if it is much talked about, in other fields such as the wine one, however few really know what it means to "produce" it and, consequently, give it the right weight.

Quality is defined with respect to ability of a given good or service to satisfy the needs, expressed or latent, of consumers and/or customers.
Sometimes the term is used, improperly, to express concepts closer to the taste and tradition of the collective imagination, sometimes losing sight of the true values ​​on which it is based.
This may end up favoring the nutritional and health content of foods, neglecting fundamental aspects such as, for example, health safety.

In this context, the quality of the food product, required by the consumer, can be "separated" in a series of ways, which can be summarised as:

1. “Organoleptic” quality (senses): visual appearance, smell, taste;
2. “Typical” quality (history): production area, agricultural product, composition, production methods, etc.; these are elements that can be traced back to the origin of the product, which can be enhanced, in terms of added value, through clear and adequate labelling.
3. “Industrial – commercial” quality (service): preparation, packaging, storage, delivery, etc.;
4. Quality including “healthiness” (health): dietary and nutritional characteristics;
5. “Hygienic-sanitary” quality (safety): food hygiene, absence of harmful substances;
6. “Ecological” quality (environment): eco-sustainability and impact on the environment.

The wine world is no exception to this rule and can also be traced back to the six points mentioned above; marketing and media communication mainly leverage the first three points, contributing to creating an incomplete and distorted concept of Quality in the consumer.

The sensory quality is mainly given by the ability to create a product that conforms to the tastes of the consumer, that is able to "intrigue" and "conquer" him. Although taste is a subjective concept, it is nevertheless significantly influenced by the social context in which one lives, creating real food and wine "fashions" that can vary depending on the market to which one relates.

Quality from a historical point of view It is mainly linked to the traditions of a place and therefore to the producer's ability to create a product with organoleptic characteristics typical of the territory.
The legislator has responded to the needs of typicality, tradition and consumer habits by issuing Community Regulations on products with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) and, with reference to wines, Quality Wines Produced in Determined Regions (in Italy DOC, DOCG and IGT, which today also fall within the DOP and IGP categories following the modification introduced in the CMO wine by EC Regulation 479/2008).
With the introduction of DOP and IGP products and organic farming products, regulated “quality brands” have been created, which the producer accesses by voluntary choice, but for which the reference regulatory criteria and the conformity/certification assessment procedures are defined by binding rules.
These regulated certifications are issued by bodies specifically authorised by the competent authority.

Il servizio offered to the Customer is a very important parameter from a qualitative point of view. Although it does not have a direct influence on the product, it is nevertheless a fundamental part of the design and production process, sometimes having a greater weight (in the customer's perception) than the product itself - think of Amazon which has made the speed and monitoring of delivery its strong point.

La healthiness of a food product is instead intrinsic to the product itself.
It is in fact the composition of the product itself that determines its effect on health, with consequences at a nutritional level (eating a lot of fatty foods contributes to obesity) and well-being (eating fruit and vegetables guarantees a natural supply of vitamins to the body). Quality from the point of view of "health" is a factor very often unrelated to the production methods of the product and the raw materials and, although it has an important weight with regard to psycho-physical well-being, it is often conditioned by fashions (the consumption of carbonated drinks is increasing, although it is demonstrated that their excessive sugar content is a possible factor for obesity) and by individual nutritional philosophies (a person who follows a particular nutritional regime, for example vegan, considers certain foods to be of higher quality than others).

The term “security” in the food sector it has two different meanings, which the English language identifies with two different words: the “food security” , “food safety”.
La “food security” identifies the security of supplies, that is, the availability of food in adequate quantities to satisfy basic needs.
La “food safety” refers to the absence of possible negative impacts on the health of consumers.

Hygienic-sanitary quality (food safety) is guaranteed by the relevant legislation and by an adequate system of controls.
Today it is governed by a multiplicity of standards, within which the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) principles play an important role.
In response to the market demand for environmental protection and sustainable development has been answered with the introduction of the organic production system, defined by a specific Community Regulation, and, in part, also with the integrated production (IP) defined, for now, on the basis of very different specifications in both the national and European context. In recent years, there has also been an increase in attention by manufacturing companies to the sustainability of production processes (to have a lower environmental impact) and to product packaging (increasingly oriented towards the philosophy of recycling materials).

To complete and integrate the more or less direct forms of quality assurance of agri-food products mentioned above, other methods have also been established, albeit to varying degrees. indirect forms of insurance, represented by the Quality Certification.
Quality certification is aimed outside the company to demonstrate the product's characteristics to third parties (Product Certification) or the processes adopted to obtain it or the production systems (system certification).
In the words of the UNI CEI EN 45020 conformity certification, this is a "act by which an independent third party declares with reasonable confidence that a given product, process or service complies with a specific standard or other regulatory document".
The task of certification, therefore, falls to third-party, independent and qualified bodies (depending on the field), which verify and certify the conformity of the product and/or management system to the requirements specified in specific reference documents.

There are two fundamental characteristics of voluntary certification, whether of product or system:

- transparency, that is, the visibility from the outside of the procedures, of the criteria followed, of the relationships existing between the various operators involved, so that anyone who wishes can express an opinion on the system's ability to provide the required guarantees;

- credibility, that is, the acquisition and maintenance over time of the trust of the recipients of the certifications (who in the case of system certification are mainly the customers, while in the case of product certification they are the customers themselves but above all the consumers), in the correctness of the application of the control procedures, in their effectiveness and in the loyalty of all the operators involved with respect to the promises made.

there different types of Voluntary Certification, which provide for the standardization and guarantee of some aspects or requirements requested by companies operating in the agri-food chain (ISO, BRC, IFS, etc.).
These possess a international recognition and they are present in all nations, although with different intensity.
Furthermore, they contain certifications that comply with legal requirements (rarely) or those that go beyond these (very often): it is precisely for this characteristic that they Voluntary Certifications act as a guarantee in commercial exchanges.

For a company, however, undertaking the path to Quality Certification often means encountering operational difficulties and various problems.
In fact, we often find ourselves faced with problems such as:
- “crowding” of checks, with a consequent increase in costs and bureaucratic burden for companies, which often do not correspond to adequate market remuneration;
- confusion and poor understanding by consumers of such products (especially for system certification);
- poor integration of supply chain relationships and crushing of the agricultural company upstream and downstream of its production processes (suppliers, traders, processing companies) due to its weak bargaining power.

Quality Certification cannot therefore be summed up in a "slogan" to be used to increase sales, but is in all respects a percorso (more than a process) in which the Company strongly believes, which must be lived daily and understood by all departments, in order to be able to offer the customer a final product that expresses the concept of 360-degree Quality.

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