Assessment of French multi-actors' expectations on milk and dairy products quality and authentication

The H2020 European research project INTAQT aims at developing innovative tools to assess and authenticate beef, chicken, milk and dairy products quality. This project studies more specifically the link between husbandry systems and intrinsic quality criteria. A group of stakeholders is involved to consider their expectations, suggestions and concerns. They represent the whole supply chain, from farmers, to dairy plants, retailers up to citizens and consumers organizations. Their consultations were meant to address recommendations to add to the experimental dispositive 1/ husbandry systems and practices of interest to them, 2/ quality criteria, and analysis according to the expressed needs. Furthermore, one of the challenges in the project is to build a synthetic multicriteria scoring tool including the quality criteria studied and consider stakeholders’ expectations and fears. In France, 17 qualitative interviews were led with stakeholders on their views on dairy product quality, its link to husbandry and their reaction about the project. The organoleptic, safety, technological and nutritional criteria, referred as intrinsic dairy product quality were cited spontaneously. As well as the extrinsic factors of naturalness, environment, animal welfare, social aspect and rearing conditions. The need for transparency and visibility related to husbandry and dairy process are considered by all the stakeholders as a central stake. Environment, animal welfare, products naturalness and the recipes simplification are regarded as growing challenges. On the opposite, dairy products substitution by vegetal products or synthetic products represents a real threat to some of them. The stakeholders’ expectations on the INTAQT project echo the opinions expressed on the dairy products quality evolution perspectives. Lastly, the multicriteria scoring tool divides the stakeholders. For some of them, this tool could be an opportunity to counterbalance the Nutriscore. Some others fear to bring more complex information to understand to the consumer, getting lost. In any case, stakeholders advised to define precisely the target of such a tool, and the messages to deliver. Those consultations allowed to consider the professional and societal expectations as core questions of this European research program. They will enable to bring some implementations to the experimental dispositive, considering its feasibility. Thus, it will bring objectified scientific elements to answer to those expectations.