Approaching sustainable development practices and quality strategies in the Romanian dairy industry

The Romanian dairy industry has experienced a significant evolution in the last 30 years. Improving product quality is a decisive and important factor for increasing competitiveness in both domestic and foreign markets. The concept of sustainability is increasingly found in the quality policies and objectives set by dairy producers. This paper aims to capture the current sustainable development practices and quality strategies applied by companies in the dairy sector in Romania and how they are perceived by consumers. In order to highlight the opinions and attitudes of Romanians regarding the quality strategies and sustainable development practices that are applied in the dairy sector, the authors conducted a quantitative marketing research among the Romanian population. The sampling method was non-random, and a questionnaire was used to collect the data, which was displayed on a web page (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing). The research revealed that many Romanians have heard of the concept of “sustainable development”, but do not know very well what it refers to. The authors consider that the topic is up to date and that based on the results of this research, companies in the analyzed sector can improve their applied quality strategies and adopt new sustainable development practices in order to improve their products and increase consumer satisfaction.