Determination of the impact of labeling terms on consumer sensory evaluation

The objective of this study was to evaluate consumers’ palatabilityratings of ground beef from the same source when provided information about thelabeling prior to evaluation. Chubs (n = 15) from the same productionlot and day of 80% lean / 20% fat ground beef were procured and fabricated into151.2 g patties. Pairs of patties from each chub, which was randomly assignedto one consumer panel session and were randomly assigned to 1 of 8 differentlabeling terms: all natural, animal raised without added antibiotics (WA),animal raised without added hormones (WH), fresh never frozen (FNF), grass-fed,locally sourced, premium quality, USDA organic (ORG), and a blank sample(NONE). Consumers (N = 105) evaluated each sample on 0-to-100-point linescales for tenderness, juiciness, flavor liking, texture liking, overall likingand purchasing intent, as well as evaluated each palatability trait as eitheracceptable or unacceptable. Prior to sample evaluation, the consumers wereprovided additional labeling information about the ground beef. Consumers foundno differences (P > 0.05) among the samples with the differentlabeling terms for tenderness, juiciness, texture liking, overall liking, tendernessacceptability, flavor acceptability, and texture acceptability for all thetreatments evaluated. For flavor liking, there was a larger increase (P <0.05) in ratings for samples labeled as grass-fed in comparison to WA, WH, andpremium quality labeled samples. There was a large increase (P <0.05) in the consumer ratings for overall liking when product was labeled as allnatural, WA, WH, FNF, locally sourced, premium quality, and ORG. Additionally, therewas a larger decrease (P < 0.05) in the percentage of samples ratedas acceptable overall when labeled as WA in comparison to all other treatments.These results indicate that adding production claims that consumers arefamiliar with can improve their palatability perception.