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As the demand for organic foods has grown globally, disputes have arisen on whether organic foods are more nutritious, safer, and better for the environment. To many consumers, though, a major issue is whether organic foods taste different and, especially if they are being asked to pay a premium price, whether they taste better. Via the use of sensory analysis using trained panellists, and consumer testing, research was carried out to determine whether the claim of “organic food tastes better” could be substantiated. The study found that organic orange juice was perceived as tasting better than conventional orange juice; however, no differences were found between organic and conventional milk. Therefore, it is concluded that the global claim that “organic food tastes better” is not valid, and each product type should be treated separately before a claim can be made.

Social media platforms allow near‐unfettered creation and exchange of user generated content (UGC). Drawing from network science, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether high and low quality UGC differ in their connectivity structures in Wikipedia (which consists of interconnected user generated articles).

Using Featured Articles as a proxy for high quality, a network analysis was undertaken of the revision history of six different language Wikipedias, to offer a network‐centric explanation for the emergence of quality in UGC.

The network structure of interactions between articles and contributors plays an important role in the emergence of quality. Specifically the analysis reveals that high‐quality articles cluster in hubs that span structural holes.

The analysis does not capture the strength of interactions between articles and contributors. The implication of this limitation is that quality is viewed as a binary variable. Extensions to this research will relate strength of interactions to different levels of quality in UGC.

The findings help harness the “wisdom of the crowds” effectively. Organisations should nurture users and articles at the structural hubs from an early stage. This can be done through appropriate design of collaborative knowledge systems and development of organisational policies to empower hubs.

The network centric perspective on quality in UGC and the use of a dynamic modelling tool are novel. The paper is of value to researchers in the area of social computing and to practitioners implementing and maintaining such platforms in organisations.