THE EFFECT OF PRODUCTION SYSTEM INFORMATION ON CONSUMER EXPECTATION AND ACCEPTABILITY OF LECCESE LAMB MEAT

Twenty lamb meat’s habitual consumers (eight females and twelve males, from 25 to 62 yrs of age) took part in a centrallocation test, organised to assess consumers’ expectations generated by information on animal feeding system, lambs fedwith maternal milk from mothers reared on grass (T1) versus lambs fed with maternal milk from mothers reared on stall(T2), and to assess the effect of this knowledge on the hedonic ratings of lamb meat from the Leccese breed. Using anone-point hedonic scale, first blind and then informed scores were collected on two types of Leccese meat. The blind testprovided information which was different from informed test; in fact, T2 meat receiving higher hedonic scores than T1 meat. Onthe contrary, with the label information on animal feeding system, meat from T1 lambs was liked more than meat from T2lambs. The lamb meat’s habitual consumers showed a higher interest in extrinsic quality attributes which referred to the origin orproduction system.