The impact of sensory quality of pork on consumer preference

Danish consumers from Roskilde, a town near the Danish capital Copenhagen (n=213), and from Holstebro, a provincial town in the north-western part of Jutland (n=162), rated nine different samples of pork on an unstructured hedonic scale from "do not like at all" to "like very much". The samples represented variation in raw meat quality (pH, IMF and carcass weight), muscle (LD and BF), origin (Danish/French Pay Basque), cooking method (pan/oven) and end point temperature (65°C/75°C). The meat was described by sensory profiling and chemical and physical analysis (pH, fat, water, colour, fatty acid composition). All the consumers preferred tender, juicy meat with a fried flavour and no off-flavours. However, within this description there were differences. The consumers from Holstebro put more emphasis on tenderness and the absence of off-flavours, while the consumers in Roskilde preferred the fried flavour. The young consumers put less emphasis on tenderness, compared with consumers aged over 30 years, but preferred instead some crumbliness in the meat. A segmentation of the consumers showed that about 6% of the consumers were only influenced by flavour attributes in their preference. In contrast, 12% of the consumers were mainly influenced by texture irrespective of flavour attributes other than sour-like taste. Most of the consumers were, however, influenced by both flavour and texture as well as appearance.