De Zwart, Onno (author), Veldhuijzen, Irene K. (author), Elam, Gillian (author), Aro, Arja R. (author), Abraham, Thomas (author), Bishop, George D. (author), Richardus, Jan Hendrik (author), Brug, Johannes (author), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2007-02
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 155 Document Number: C25250
In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in new type, direct and short supply chains (SSC) Hungary, and the markets have proved to be globalisation-resilient, keeping their market share from sales of fast-moving consumer goods. We conducted a consumer and producer survey to identify the most important expectations and experiences about markets in Hungary. We applied a service quality model (SERVQUAL) to measure the consumers’ and producers’ opinions and satisfaction of Hungarian markets. A warning result of our study is that vendors estimate their level of service above that of the consumers’ experiences which means that, in spite of the direct communication, they do not have an accurate understanding of their customers’ requirements. Our surveys also showed that there is a substantial deficiency between the services expected and experienced at markets in all dimensions (environment, service, convenience and produce) that influence the choice of retail channel. The most important dimension proved to be produce quality which should thus remain in the focus of market developments. In recent years, new trends in urban local food movements have started to emerge in Hungary which could not be detected at the time of our survey (2012). Thus we intend to extend our survey in the future to see whether these new local-alternative food movements have formed a new consumer segment for farmers’ markets in Hungary, and in what way should the market vendors modify their services to be able to ride this new trend.
Findings suggest it is unlikely that farm hazards will be diminished by educating farmers. They suggest that changes in behaviors insuring safer practices have questionable correspondence with the introduction of information about farm hazards. Author advises looking at societal dynamics (e.g., changing technological society) rather individual responsibility.
Research revealed areas of need for knowledge about food handling methods and identified a gap between the food safety behaviors that caregivers said they perform and behaviors they actually perform. Researchers found evidence of need for culturally appro
"It is obvious that the farmers need more training. But, according to them, only a few trainers with low qualification and little time are available either from commercial channels or from government organizations."
