How do you define "artisinal" in an objective sense? Organic ingredients, locavore, etc. all have definitions, but including them doesn't make something "artisinal" or "craft".

I have this awful feeling it'll wind up like the whole organic beef fiasco. USDA certified organic is pretty meaningless, thanks to the lawsuits of large beef producers.

I'm curious how another entity could establish quality of something better than you could yourself?

Independent verification.

For example, this could have helped in [1][2][3] where toxic food products were very mislabeled.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Taiwan_food_scandal

I guess I was interested in distinguishing between quality and safety.

Quality is a tricky word, but in terms of the appreciation of craft goods, your ability to identify the subtleties that make more higher quality products _better_ is a learned trait.

If your references are wrong, or you miss out on the identification of a nuance, you haven't learned from the experience.

For example, individuals who say "I can't taste the difference between a $30 and $300 bottle of wine" are not _wrong_ - they just lack the formative experiences and education to appreciate the attributes that the more expensive product has.

Thus, if you decide that wine or beer or chocolate was of interest to you, it may be worthwhile to validate and trust your reference products.

HaaS: Hipster as a service.

TaaS: Taster as a service.

I got lots more, including a few choice ones I decided not to post :-)