Attentes et responsabilité des consommateurs.
Résumé
This paper sets out to discuss three ideas in connection with consumers’ relations with their food, three generally accepted ideas whose current fixed position on a scale of certainty should, like a cursor, be adjusted and even moved. The first idea relates to the assertion that consumers currently have expectations – expectations that need to be known and anticipated if they are to be satisfied. Questioning this idea results in exploring the other end of the cursor, that which sees these so-called expectations as the socially induced result of the actions of players in the food processing sector, the media and various intermediaries (associations, etc.). The second idea relates to the question of consumer responsibility. The majority of interventions in the food sector are based on the idea that consumers should be provided with appropriate information and told of the consequences of their behaviour, for their health, the environment and society, and that this knowledge will lead them to make rational and thus reasonable choices. They can then be offered a wide range of products that are more or less good for their health or for society. In any event, it is the consumer who becomes responsible for making the right choices. Might it be possible for that responsibility to be shared? The third idea, related to the previous one, is also the object of a consensus and consists in thinking that to regulate the various societal problems that the evolution of agriculture and agrifoods poses, it is sufficient to integrate new quality attributes into products: nutrition, environment, social equity, etc. Is this really the way to establish a durable bond between agriculture and society via food?