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 providing information about the fat content, primal source, and price on consumers’ palatability ratings of ground beef from the same source. Ground beef chubs that were 80% lean/20% fat (n = 15/panel type) were obtained, and 151.2 g patties were manufactured from the chubs. Chubs were assigned randomly to panels for 1 of 3 different panel types. The fat content panels had samples 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 assigned to 1 of 5 different points: ultra-high, high, medium, low, and ultra-low. Primal panel samples were labeled as ground chuck, ground round, ground sirloin, and store ground. Each panel had one sample with no information given (NONE). Samples were evaluated by consumers (N = 305), who were informed of the treatment prior to evaluation for tenderness, juiciness, flavor, texture, overall liking, and purchasing intent and rated each trait as acceptable or unacceptable. Labeling ground beef as 90/10, 80/20, and 73/ 27 resulted in increased (P < 0.05) consumer ratings for tenderness, flavor, and overall liking. Informing consumers of the price of the product resulted in increases (P < 0.05) for all palatability traits for samples labeled with ultra-high, high, medium, and ultra-low prices. Furthermore, attaching a primal blend label to the samples resulted in an increase (P < 0.05) for all the palatability traits evaluated for all 4 primal blend types. Additionally, purchasing intent was increased (P < 0.05) for samples when consumers were informed of the price and primal blend. Ultimately, providing consumers with information about the fat content, price, and primal blend type influences their perceived palatability of ground beef.