Relations between consumer's concern with own health and their perception about frankfurters with functional ingredients

Abstract

This study investigated possible relationships between the consumer's concern about their own health and their perception of frankfurter sausages incorporated with functional ingredients. A 5-step online questionnaire was applied as follows: identification and recruitment; application of the completion test; the shopping list technique (to determine the consumers' impressions about food incorporated with dietary fibre and omega-3 fatty acids); attitudinal issues; socioeconomic matters. The addition of dietary fibre and omega-3 to the frankfurters provided predominantly positive associations. Consumers perceived the neutral shopping list as having been written by individuals who are unconcerned with healthy eating habits and/or have allegedly normal eating habits while the healthy shopping list was perceived as having been written by an individual with healthy eating habits/lifestyle, who is concerned about his/her weight. The predominantly positive attitude towards added dietary fibre and omega-3 to frankfurters and the consumers' perception of these functional ingredients show that formulating meat products with both ingredients may be successful for the consumer's market.

Keywords: Dietary fibre; Meat products; Omega-3; Projective techniques; Shopping list.