Evaluation of consumers’ perception regarding inspected and non-inspected cheeses by free word association

Abstract

The Free Word Association technique was used with the objective of knowing the perception of consumers about inspected and non-inspected cheeses and their main drivers. Participants residing in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, were recruited online and invited to list the first four words and/or expressions that came to their minds when faced with images of uninspected homemade cheese and inspected cheeses, both artisanal and industrialized. All valid words were grouped by semantic meanings in dimensions/categories, and those cited by at least 5% of the participants were analyzed using the chi-square test of independence, considering 5% of the meaning. There was no statistical relationship (p>0.05) of acceptance or rejection between the three types of cheese, most words related to feelings were positive for all products analyzed. For uninspected homemade cheeses, consumers’ perception is linked to traditional forms of production, mentioning words such as colonial, artisanal, homemade, and familiar; the correlation of these cheeses with cultural habits and forms of consumption is also strong. The artisanal inspected cheeses were associated with the words industrialized, standardized, label, packaging, and expensive, clearly linked to industrial manufacturing processes, greater consumer safety and greater added value. For inspected industrialized cheeses (mozzarella), the words pizza, snack, melted, and delicious indicate good acceptance and refer to gastronomy. The findings reveal that the perception of inspected cheeses is directly related to quality and control, which is not the case for non[1]inspected cheeses, related to traditional production and cultures.