Mapping the italian cured meats’attributes: A qualitative approach

In the last decade consumers have been paying growing attention to healthier food, at the same time several studies on food consumer behaviour have approached the issue linked to a minimisation of the harmful substances and ingredients in dietary intake. In this view the objective of this paper is to understand the consumers’ perception of concern associated with cured meat attributes and the importance assigned by consumers to potentially dangerous eating compounds normally present in this products such as fat, salt and nitrites. With this purpose paper reports preliminary findings derived from a three-steps qualitative analysis. The first part presents and discusses the qualitative and sensory attribute of cured meat, second part shows the results of consumers’ preferences for different processed meat by using a perceptual map while last part reports main outcomes on the intention to buy cured meat with low salt and fat content and without nitrites.