Impact of disclosing fat content, primal source, and price on consumer evaluation of ground beef

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of providinginformation about the fat content, primal source, and price on consumers’palatability ratings of ground beef from the same source. 80% lean / 20% fatground beef chubs (n = 15 / panel type) were obtained, and 151.4 gpatties were manufactured from the chubs. Chubs were assigned randomly topanels for one of three different panel types. The fat content panels hadsamples labeled as: 90% lean / 10% fat (90/10), 80% lean / 20% fat (80/20), 73%lean / 27% fat (73/27), lean and extra lean. Price point samples were assignedto one of five different points: ultra-high, high, medium, low, and ultra-low. Primalpanel samples were labeled as: ground chuck, ground round, ground sirloin, andstore ground. Each panel had one sample with no information given (NONE). Sampleswere evaluated by consumers (N = 305), who were informed of thetreatment prior to evaluation for tenderness, juiciness, flavor, texture,overall liking, and purchasing intent, and rated each trait as acceptable orunacceptable. Labeling ground beef as 90/10, 80/20, and 73/27 resulted inincreased (P < 0.05) consumer ratings for tenderness, flavor, andoverall liking. Informing consumers of the price of the product resulted inincreases (P < 0.05) for all palatability traits for samples labeled withultra-high, high, medium, and ultra-low prices. Furthermore, attaching a primalblend label to the samples resulted in an increase (P < 0.05) for allthe palatability traits evaluated for all four primal blend types.Additionally, purchasing intent was increased (P < 0.05) for sampleswhen consumers were informed of the price and primal blend. Ultimately,providing consumers with information about the fat content, price, and primalblend type influences their perceived palatability of ground beef.