HUNGARU\NJOURNAL 
OF INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY 

VESZPREM 
Vol. 30. pp. 229-234 (2002) 

INTERNET BASED SURVEY AS 110 SUPPORT IN PROCESS APPROACHED 
QMS OF FOOD/AGRO INDUSTRIES 

B. KAPOLNA, R. SZABO, G. VICZIAN1, G. KOLLAR 

(Postharvest Department, Szent Istvan University, 1118. Budapest, Menesi ut 45, HUNGARY 
1
Dept of Chemical Information Technology, Bp. Univ. of Technology and Economics, 

H1521 Budapest, Pf.91. HUNGARY) 

Received: October 17, 2002 

This paper was presented at the 8th International Workshop on Chemical Engineering Mathematics, Bad Honnef, 
Germany, September 18-21 2002 

The ISO 9001:2000 standards encourage the adoption of the process approach for the management of organizations and 
their processes. 
Using our quality audit experiences, several Internet questionnaires have been created to identify and support 
the most important I/0 elements in a process approached QMS in different fields of the foodlagro industries. 
Evaluating the Internet answers, we found some interesting properties of meat and fresh fruit/vegetable 
(FFV) consumption. In our Internet based QM research we have focused on these two special fields. 

Keywords: quality management, meat and fresh fruit/vegetable consumption, internet CGI-forms 

Introduction 

Any activity that receives inputs and convert them to 
outputs can be considered as a process. The goal of a 
Quality Management System is to explore and to satisfy 
customers' requirements at the highest level, developing 
and using a policy that ensures the goal of real time 
satisfaction [1,3]. 

The new ISO 900X:2000 standard family uses the 
term "quality control" instead of the category uquality 
assurance" and a process approach of QMS (Quality 
Management System) whose most important 
input/output element is customer requirements and 
satisfaction. 

In one of our earlier papers [4] we discussed Internet 
vs. paper-based replies to questionnaires surveying the 
rates of food consumption in different areas of food 
market Comparing these types of replies we found an 
interesting~ but - in view of the number of answers -
insignificant difference between the two groups in FFV 
consumption and in meat consumption. This fact 
inspired our workgroup to create newer questionnaires 
on these topics, and to develop new software that makes 
it easy to evaluate both Internet based and Hardcopy 
answers. 

Contact information: E-mail: kollarg@omega.kee.hu 

The QM process model and the model of customers' 
habits 

The ISO 9001:2000 standard helps on one hand the 
top management to be increasingly successful if they 
pay attention to their customers' requirements. On the 
other hand if the organisations use this standard they 
will come closer to the TQM, which is the last step in 
the quality control process [2J. 

In addition to the input/output elements there is 
another very important part of the process model: the 
product service. This can help customers in case they 
have any problems or questions regarding a product or 
service. And this information could help the consumers 
in their decisions. In the model on Fig.J, one can see the 
three factors, which influence consumers. 

The Fig.l describes a decision process that consists 
of the following three factors: 

• Property of food attributes it contains 
physiological influences. 

• Personal factors - biological, psychological and 
social impressions. 



230 

Personal facto res 

Biological 

Psychological L social 

Property of food 
atlributes 

Physiological 
influences 

Evaluating 

Choosing 

Fig.l Customer habit's model 

Environmental 
Facto res 

Cultural 

Economical 

Marketmg 

• Environmental factors - cultural, economical and 
marketing impressions. 

All of these factors have impressions on all 
customers when they realize their demands. They 
collect information about the product or service and 
then - by their own opinion - they choose the best. 
That's why organisations should offer as much 
information as possible e.g. in forms of advertisements. 

Using our quality auditing experiences, we have 
created several Internet based questionnaire forms to 
identify and to investigate customer requirements, 
satisfaction and preferences [7]. Evaluating the replies 
to the Web-forms and to the control group consisting of 
Hardcopy answers [ 4] we have found an interesting 
difference between the groups with respect to the meat 
and FFV consumption. Considering this fact we have 
decided to investigate deeper these fields, and we have 
created three new Internet-forms to be found at the 
following Web sites: 

http:/ /knight.kit.bme.hulbea, 
http://knight.kit.bme.hu!rita 

On the first and second questionnaires we have 
investigated the FFV producers, market and 
cQnsumption. The questions covered properties of fruits 
and vegetables grown in Hungary, which are influenced 
by postharvest activities and procedures. In the last ten 
years the number of hyper- and supermarkets in 
Hungary have been increasing. They offer goods at low 
prices. which are welcome to the customers, but their 
quality is not as good as the price. That's why we 
investigated price, quality and customer service of 
distribution centres. 

On the third Internet form we attempted to get 
information about Hungarian meat consumption. Earlier 
surveys show that most of the Hungarians consume 
meat everyday. In the last years. however some 
problems have aroused (e.g. BSE~ foot and mouth 
disease) and healthy nutrition has also become more and 
more important in our lives. For this we wanted to 
gather more details of the "new .. Hungarian meat 
consumption habits. 

Web server: 
knightkit.bme.hu 

Mailing server and client 
in Szt. Istvan Univ. accepting emails, 
extracting and processing answers by 

MAILPROC (Delphi or VBA) 

Filling in Internet Questionnaire 
anywhere 

Fig.2 Internet data collection using email 

MAILPROC: 

Separating answer-variable's 
name and value, 

rewriting Hungarian fonts 
from hexadecimal characters 

Statistical evaluation, 
diagram specification 

and drawing 

yes 

Opening kMt answer-file 
Extracting sender's name, address 
and answer-line, closing the file 

Fig3 The main steps of processing email answers 

The structure of Internet data collection and 
evaluation 

In our first Internet questionnaires we used forms 
posting the answers in emaiL Although the evaluation of 
emailed answers is more complicated than the 
evaluation of forms sending answers to a CGI program, 
at first we decided to use email answers. The plain 
reason for this being that it is not easy to get farmers 
and housewives to use the Internet (or a PC 
questionnaire at all). In several cases they do not have 
full Internet connections, at most they are familiar with 
emailing. They usually have only email connections to 
the Internet. The html files of the Web-forms generating 
email replies can be sent to users via email, then it is 
possible for the users to fill out the forms offline. The 
completed questionnaire is then saved in the outbox 
folder, to be automatically sent back at the next dialup 
connection to the Internet. 
The process flow of this kind of data collection and 
email processing is shown on Figs.2 and 3: 



~;~r 

~. 
Client in Szt. Istvan Univ. 
downloading answer-file, 
processing by TABPROC Filling in Internet Questionnaire 

anywhere 

Fig.4 Internet data collection using CGI program 

TABPROC: 

{*) QD file includes: 
• #of questions {qnum) 

• questions' type and description 
as it is given in Fig 6. 

Comparing k11 question in ICA and QD 
Detecting question's type 
Processing each answers 

(parameter of answer-processing routine 
is the question's type) 

Fig.5 Steps of processing CGI program-collected answers 

We tried to find the food customers, who could use 
this type-1 questionnaire, but in several fields the 
number of answers was not enough for proper statistical 
evaluation. At this point we decided to create a CGI 
program on our server. Type-2 questionnaires were 
created to utilise the CGI script. 
The process flow of this type of data collection and 
evaluation is shown on Fig sA and 5. 

As one can see on Figs.2 and 4 or on Figs.3 and 5, 
there are no big theoretical differences between type-1 
and type-2 questionnaires and their processing 
programs. The difficulty in type-1 is the collection and 
separation of email messages; in type-2 on the other 
hand we have to generate a questionnaire description 
(QD) file before running the processing software. Some 
parts of this QD description file is shown on Fig. 6 
comparing with the corresponding parts of the IITML 
file. 

When the QD file is generated from the HTML 
source, we have the possibility not only to collect 
Internet answers, but also to collect the Hardcopy 
answers in a separated~ but very similar file. 

231 

<select n~orf<> 

and the 
Q-description file: 

<option val~~<><" selected> <option valua:"whit<>"> 
<option value='blue"> <option valuP"bolh"> 
<option value="r<>lired"> <option value="student'> 
<Is elect> 

"Rellsonof·\-,•hite meat". 1, 3 
"health', "like', "BSE" 
'Preferred type (besl=1, worsl=3}", 2, 3 
"raw", 'buffet', "semiprep" 

<seloot name="dlly/year"> 
<option value><"" Sl)l<>cled> 
<option valoo="365"> <option value="52'> 
<option value="12"> <option value="O"> 
<lset..ct> 

R""son of white meat <ld colspan..S> 
<INPUT type=chackbox nalllQ="hea1th"> 
<INPUT typ~ackbox narne="lika"> 
<INPUT type=chackbox nama='BSE"><IId> 
Preferred type (besl=1, worat=3) 
<ld><INPUT natne='raw' size=2>)<11d> 
<ld><INPUT name='buffet" size=2><11d> 
<id><INPUT name=•s,amiprep• aize=2><11d> 

Fig.6 QD file generated from a Web-Form 

Fig. 7 Source of FFV consumption 

:adequate: 
2% 

Fig.8 Qualification of infonnation system in distribution 
centres 

Evaluation of FFV consumption data 

From our FFV project we show here the evaluation-
graphs of extreme qualifications, as well as the answers 
about the most important Hungarian FFV areas with 
respect to produced quantities in Hungary or Hungarian 
customers' habits. 

On Figs.7-9 we show some results of our first Web-
based questionnaires. 44 % of responders said they had 
bought FFV in small shops and 36 % of them in 
hypermarketslsupermarkets. 

Fig.8 gives information about the preferred 
distribution centres - in this question we wanted to 
know if the participants were satisfied with the 
information system of the chosen distribution centre or 
not. 

Unfortunately most responders said that the amount 
and quality of the information had nor been adet~uate 
(56%) and only 2% of them said that it had been 



232 

Fig.9 Frequency of FFV consumption 

storage: 
11% 

Fig.l 0 Most important factor at buying 

Fig.ll Qualification of FV freshness and quality at 
distribution centres 

adequate. The e participant do their shopping in market 
pia es \ here they can get references about FV from the 
farmer. 

Fi .9 how that mo t Hungarian people eat FFV 
daily. Thi i a ery good rat a thi mean that\! e try 
to live healthler but v e ha een many of them do not 
h e nough inform tion about u age of thes produ t . 

La k of ge in tru tion i the ftr t problem but as 
we an e in the Fig.JO mo t r ponder an \ ered to 
th que tion con eming the pur h e influen ing 
f tor that th pric \ a le important than quality. 

It' well kn wn that Hungarian people demand 
but as Fig.JJ how , the qualifi ation of 

and quality i not enough to ati fy the 
tom r. 
Fig. 1 ummarize the qualifi ation of apple. Apple 

i one of the mo t popular fruit in Hungary. Cu tomer 
can buy it in e er ea on and Hungarian apple 
produ tion i on iderable in Europ t o. 

Figs.JJ-1- hm: the many problems among the 
pr fl rred and qualifi d pr p rtie of FFV ry well. e 

-·····-
35 

30 ~ 
25 I"'J..£ 

20 I ~ r 
15 

II'---
.._._'-lk-

10 

~u I~ ~ I}~ lft 5 
0 

1 point 2polnt 3 point 4 polm 5polnt 

Orljleness 0 0 10 33 15 

cwholeness 0 6 23 21 B 

orreshness 0 1 22 23 12 

a selected 0 13 25 12 B 
•pack ina 7 t9 21 7 4 

a Information 17 13 18 7 3 

Fig.l2 Qualification of apple 

~5/ 
30 v ~~ 

II 
25 I' 

1/ 
~ T 20 

1/ 
15 

·J~ • 1 point 2poinl 3 point 4 point 5polnt Orloeness 2 3 19 23 10 
Owholeness 0 0 15 32 10 

Ofreshnes:s 0 3 19 29 6 
Osalected 0 6 19 22 10 

•~aching 2 10 14 21 10 
o Information 10 17 16 14 0 

Fig.l3 Qualification of citrus 

have investigated the same problems - with similar 
results - for other fruits and vegetables: stone fruits, 
citru tomato, paprika, cabbage, onion, root vegetables 
and mushrooms. From the FFV investigation we will 
now discuss the results concerning the citrus group 
(Fig.l3). 

As our climate is not appropriate to grow citrus 
fruits, the properties of the imported citrus are 
sati factory quite on every level. The lack of customers' 
information is the only problem in this field. 

Evaluation of meat consumption data 

Meat con umption patterns vary widely with the 
economic conditions and cultural or relioious 
ba kground of different region . In reasing fracti~n of 
the younger generation cannot cook so they need the 
emi prepared produ ts. Among others, this is the 

rea on f; r the in rea ing demand for the deep frozen 
produ t and the 1i ed old meat in Hungary. Another 
fa tor i , that cu tomer prefer white meat to red one, 
be a e of health con ideration [56]. 

Sin e the fir t igns of the BSE cri is turkey 
on umption ha grown especially: experiment in 

Germany ha e hown an increase of 8,6 ~ . In the first 
part of year _oo 1 it ha reached 16 ~ . This increase is 
al o alid for the fre h and deep-frozen products. The 
pri e have a1 o been grm: ing, becau e the upply wa 



5% 1% 1% 

Fig.l4 The meat consumption patterns in Hungary 

Fig. IS Form of bought meat 

not able to keep pace with the demand. Even after 
expanding the livestock the prices seem to stay at this 
higher level. In July of 2001 turkey costed 17 %higher, 
than in the previous year. Furthermore in the last few 
years there were some epidemics (BSE, foot and mouth 
disease) in Western Europe. Customers are frightened, 
because the meat could be infected, so they prefer the 
product from their own country. The most important 
aspect for them is the safety. 

To understand the structure of the meat consumption 
patterns in Hungary, a type-2 Internet based survey was 
applied. The online forms consisted of simple, multiple-
choice questions and text fields. The first part of the 
questionnaire included questions regarding to the 
demographic backgrounds of the subject, for example 
gender, age etc ... In the second part we asked the 
consumers about their meat consumption habits. In the 
following section we summarise the statistical 
evaluation of over 200 replies to this survey. 

Fig.l4 shows, that amongst the people replied, only 
a small percentage ( 1 %) is vegetarian. 50 percent 
consumes meat every week, and also a big fraction 
(43 %) of them has meat daily. The reason for these is 
that in Hungary the healthy way of living is not yet 
usual. The other reason could be, that meat consumption 
belongs to the traditional Hungarian lifestyle. 

The next question was, how much money would be 
spent monthly for meat ( Fig.15 ). More than half of the 
returned answers suggested that over 1500 HUF were 
spent for meat products. It was an interesting experience 
to see, that mostly the retired have pent below 500 
HUF. This is in connection with their lower incomes. 

Fig.l6 shows, where the meat products are 
purchased. 43 ~ get the meat from the butcher, which is 
possibly the best way, because you can always get meat 
of highest quality. 

233 

12% 1% 10% 

Fig.J6 Meat production purchase in Hungary 

2% 

Fig.J7 The meat consumption patterns in Hungary 

In Hungary the hypermarkets and supermarkets are 
also gaining ground. That is why 34 % goes to 
hypermarkets, when they need these products. The 
growing needs and the increasing work time require 
faster shopping. These hypermarkets have the sale 
strategy to sell as much as possible, so th~y have long 
opening hours, or they are open 24 hours a day, even 
days a week (sometimes non-stop). They k ep the 
largest product variety, and because of the huge 
amounts, the prices can be lower. They can afford 
regular sales, which is also preferable for the customer . 
It is a weekend family program, too, you can find there 
something interesting, no matter, how old you are. 
Market is also a beloved place to get meat products. 
Especially retired people and hou ewives go there. 
where they have time to look for the highest qualit. at 
the lowest price. They are those people who would 
travel across the city to save some coin on a pound o 
meat. 12 % belongs to the other group who hop at 
small shops or they rai e their animals. 

Fig.l7 shows a clear trend in the ratio f red and 
white meat consumption, in favour of the latter. Thi 
can be the result of both the recent health crisis (foot 
and mouth BSE, etc.), and the growing number of 
health conscious consumers. 

The BSE, or Bovine Spongiforme Encephalopathie 
is an infection of the cattle. The whole nerve- y tern i 
destroyed, and the animal die . It take about 5 years 
from the infection to the fir t isible sign. Cattle catch 
this di ease with the feed, which contain flour made 
from animal meat or bone . The first B · ri i started 
in year 2000. At that time the price o b f fell. But 
afterwards the price were rai ed again b ·aus in the 

etherland there was foot and mouth di a e, o there 
wa a hortage of beef. 



234 

Fig.l8 Form ofbought meat 

The literature writes about this trend extensively, so 
we were curious, what people think about this question. 
We asked them, why they preferred the white meat. 
They were listed 3 options, with a possibility to mark 
several of them. Most of the customers eat meat because 
they like it, but an increasing fraction of them are 
cautious about what they eat, because they are interested 
in healthy food, as they want to stay healthy. It was 
interesting to see, that more and more people in 
Hungary are worried about BSE, so they prefer the 
white meat. 

The next question was, in which form they eat the 
meat. They had to mark, whether they eat it row, semi 
prepared or buffet (Fig.18). We can see a trend, because 
earlier the raw meat was very popular, and now it is at 
third place. The people work a lot, they have less time 
for cooking, so they prefer the semi prepared meat, 
because it is much easier to prepare, this way they can 
save time. 

The last question was, about the most important 
aspect of buying meat. This was also a multiple-choice. 
It was very interesting to see, that the quality is much 
more important, than price ( Fig.19 ). Because of the 
diseases in the last few years, everybody is looking for 
safe food. 

Conclusions 

Using our audit experiences in foodlagro industries and 
the literature data, we developed effective Internet 
questionnaires to identify the FFV and meat 
consumption patterns and customers' requirements in 
Hungary. Two types of Web Forms were created to 
collect the replies; both types contain several 
questionnaires each having its special application area. 
For the statistical analysis of the replies we developed 
the corresponding software in Delphi and in VBA. 
Applying our different Web Forms the number of 
replies was between 50 and 300. 

Acknowledgements 

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the 
members of the Postharvest Club~ to Klara Kollar-

200 
154 

150 

100 

50 

0 

price quality healthy 

Fig.l9 Aspects of buying meat 

Hunek (BUTE, Budapest) and to Zoltan Lakner (SziU, 
Budapest). 

The work has been supported by the Hungarian 
National Research Foundation (OTKA, grant # 
T030241199). 

SYMBOLS 

BSE Bovine Spongiforme Enzephalopathie 
CGI Common Gateway Interface 
FFV Fresh Fruit and Vegetable 
ICA Internet Collected Answers 
I/0 Input/Output 
QM Quality Management 
QMS Quality Manag~ment System 
SC Shopping Centre 
QD Questionnaire Description 
VBA Visual Basic for Application 

REFERENCES 

1. ISO/CD2 9001: 2000, Quality Management 
Systems - Requirements, ISOffC 176/SC 2/N 434, 
1999 

2. KoLLAR G., VICZIAN Z., FOSTOS Z. and HUNEK K.: 
Computers & Chern. Eng. 1999, 23, 687 

3. Kou.AR G., VICZIAN Z., SYPOSS Z., FOsms Z. and 
DI6SPATONYI I.: Hung. J. Ind. Chern., 2000, 28, 162 

4. KoLLAR. G., SYPOSS Z., VICZIAN G., MEszARos L. 
and KoLLA.R-HUNEK K.: Hung. J. Ind. Chern., 2001, 
29, 135 

5. LAKNER Z., SZAB6 E., MONSPARTNE SENYI J. and 
BAGLYAS F.: Publication of Horticultural- Food-
and Landscape Sciences of SziU, ed. Papp J., Szlli, 
Budapest 2001, 60, 18 

6. SYPOSS Z. and LAKNER Z.: 44th European Quality 
Congress Business Excellence in the New 
Millenium Quality for Society 2000, 2, 419 

7. VICZIAN G., KoLLAR G., KAPoLNA B. and 
Kou..AR-HUNEK K.: MKN 2002 (Veszprem), 2002, 
1, 162 (in Hungarian) 


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