Consumers’ study on traditional pork products from local breeds: expectations and hedonic evaluation

Assessing consumers’ acceptability of traditional pork products (TPP) from local pig breeds is essential to ensure sustainability of regional pork chains. As part of TREASURE project, expectations and hedonic perception of Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Noir de Bigorre (NB) dry-cured ham produced from pure Gascon breed were assessed. The study was conducted in Toulouse (France) as expanding market for TPP with 124 consumers, regular purchasers of TPP (quota sampling method). Three products were used, described as follows: ‘NB-PDO drycured ham 24 months ripening – local pig breed in extensive system’ (NB24), ‘NB-PDO dry-cured ham 36 months ripening – local pig breed in extensive system’ (NB36) as innovative TPP to enhance sensory quality, and ‘Iberian ham – 50% Iberian pig’ (IB) as competing product. Following the expectation disconfirmation theory, the sensory test included three phases: blind (tasting without information), expected (product description only: no tasting) and actual liking (tasting with information), assessed using a 9-point scale from 1: extremely dislike to 9: extremely like. Data were submitted to ANOVA (mixed model). Blind hedonic test showed no differences (P>0.05) between products that all displayed high liking score (6.7 to 6.8). Product description strongly influenced expected liking (P<0.001) with higher score for NB36 than NB24 (7.8 vs 7.2, P<0.05) and lowest score for IB (5.2). Hedonic test with information showed higher actual liking for NB36 and NB24, that were similar, than for IB (7.4 and 7.2 vs 5.9, P<0.001). Both NB hams displayed higher actual than blind liking (P<0.05), denoting positive effect of information on acceptability. Actual liking was similar to expected for NB24, indicating fulfilment of hedonic expectations. By contrast, actual liking was lower than blind for IB (P