Cross-cultural conceptualization of the words Traditional and Innovation in a food context by means of sorting task and hedonic evaluation Luis Guerrero a,⇑ , Anna Claret a , Wim Verbeke b , Filiep Vanhonacker b , Géraldine Enderli c , Claire Sulmont-Rossé c , Margrethe Hersleth d , Maria Dolors Guàrdia a a IRTA – Monells, Finca Camps i Armet, E-17121 Monells, Spain b Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Gent, Belgium c INRA, UMR 1129 FLAVIC, F-21000 Dijon, France d Nofima Food, Matforsk as, Osloveien 1, 1430 Ås, Norway article info Article history: Received 21 March 2011 Received in revised form 5 January 2012 Accepted 21 January 2012 Available online 31 January 2012 Keywords: Traditional food product Innovation Sorting task Hedonic score Conceptualization Consumer abstract Traditional food products (TFPs) are an important element of human culture, identity and heritage. How- ever, their production still relies on traditional manufacturing practices, often with low competitiveness, efficiency and R&D investment. The introduction of innovations could help producers to increase the market share of TFP, although some innovations could have a negative impact on their traditional char- acter and image. The objective of this study was to understand the meaning of the concepts ‘‘Traditional’’ and ‘‘Innova- tion’’ in a cross-cultural context by means of a sorting task. The study was done in four regions of four European countries (Belgium, France, Norway and Spain). A total of 476 participants performed a sorting task with 13 different key words written on cards (one word per card), including the words ‘‘Traditional’’ and ‘‘Innovation’’. An additional affective evaluation was car- ried out by each participant by assessing how they perceived each key word in a food context. The sorting task proved to be an efficient method to conceptualize the words ‘‘Traditional’’ and ‘‘Inno- vation’’ from a consumer perspective. The affective test complemented the sorting task and helped to bet- ter understand the groups obtained. A noticeable incompatibility between the two concepts, ‘‘Traditional’’ and ‘‘Innovation’’ was detected as well as the relative unhealthy character of some tradi- tional food products. The information provided in this study may help producers of TFP to improve the image of this category of foods and to implement potentially successful innovations in the European traditional food sector. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Innovation is widely accepted as one of the keys to being suc- cessful. However, companies can innovate and still fail if markets are not ready or willing to accept the innovation. According to Ste- vens and Burley (1997) approximately 3000 new ideas must be generated to have one commercial success. The acceptance or rejection of innovations can be regarded as the result of a complex decision-making process which involves an assessment of the perceived risks/benefits associated with the innovation and with the existing alternatives (Henson, 1995). In general, the acceptance of an innovation depends on the innovation itself as well as on the carrier product to which it is applied, especially in the food domain (Guerrero et al., 2009). As stated by Moskowitz and Hartmann (2008), the food industry has a rather slow-moving nature, given that it is not subject to the innovation pressure that other sectors are subjected to. This is par- ticularly accentuated in traditional food products (TFPs) because consumers perceive traditional foods as having a strong distinctive character linked to the cultural heritage (Guerrero et al., 2009, 2010; Trichopoulou, Soukara, & Vasilopoulou, 2007), thus being perceived as something to preserve intact for future generations. This may obviously be contradictory to the idea of innovation. The traditional food sector in the European Union (EU) consists mainly of Small or Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) (Molnar, Gel- lynck, Vanhonacker, Gagalyuk, & Verbeke, 2011), representing more than 99% of the companies and about 60% of the employment in the European food and drink industry (CIAA, 2006). Additionally, TFP are an important element of European culture, identity and heritage, thus contributing to the development and sustainability of rural areas and increasing the variety of food choice for consum- ers. However, the production of traditional food still relies on tra- ditional manufacturing practices, often with low competitiveness 0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2012.01.008 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 972 630052; fax: +34 972 630373. E-mail address: lluis.guerrero@irta.es (L. Guerrero). Food Quality and Preference 25 (2012) 69–78 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Food Quality and Preference journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual