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Consumers' expectations and acceptability for low saturated fat ‘salami’: healthiness or taste?
Author(s) -
Marino Rosaria,
della Malva Antonella,
Seccia Antonio,
Caroprese Mariangela,
Sevi Agostino,
Albenzio Marzia
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.8205
Subject(s) - saturated fat , food science , taste , purchasing , fat substitute , health claims on food labels , product (mathematics) , processed meat , total fat , substitution (logic) , nutritional information , animal fat , business , psychology , marketing , medicine , chemistry , mathematics , geometry , cholesterol , computer science , programming language
Abstract BACKGROUND Nutritional properties of meat and meat products are becoming very important in purchasing behaviour, because consumers are even more concerned about healthiness. The present study aimed to examine the influence of health information on the expected and informed acceptability of salami. Traditional salami and two low saturated fat salami produced with partial or total substitution of pork backfat with extra virgin oil were evaluated. RESULTS Perceived acceptability was the lowest in salami with total animal fat substitution. In both low saturated fat salami, expected acceptability was significantly higher than perceived acceptability, while in traditional salami it was lower. Consumers completely assimilated their liking in the direction of expectations for salami with partial animal fat substitution, whereas incomplete assimilation was observed for salami with total animal fat substitution. The results also revealed that some sociodemographic characteristics discriminate consumer clusters from each other. CONCLUSION The present study highlights that nutritional information is not enough to satisfy consumers' expectations if the product is not sensorily acceptable. Findings about the relevance of information and consumers' segmentation could have important implications for policy makers and the meat product industry. © 2017 The Authors. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.