Customer Communication of Regional Quality Efforts: A Case From the Grain Sector

Abstract

Usually, marketing communication efforts in the agrifood sector address the end consumers and concentrate on products that are processed and ready for consumption, thus quality efforts often concentrate on the final product. Moreover, there’s a widespread view that agricultural commodities like wheat aren’t suitable neither for product focused marketing nor branding. However, recent developments in the in agrifood sector challenge this view. The increasing use of biotechnology, the globalisation of markets and changing consumer demands for quality, food safety and process attributes require improved communication concepts and information sharing along whole production chains. This paper considers the development of a quality communication system to support a regional wheat brand and prerequisites for quality management efforts.