Information about production system and attitude toward sustainability: Do they influence the perception in consumers of sheep milk cheese?

Influence of information provided about the product on sensory perception was studied with consumers of sheep milk cheese. A group of 109 consumers from Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country) and 115 consumers from Palencia (Castile and Leon) evaluated 2 cheeses from the Basque Country and 2 cheeses from Castile and Leon to rate their acceptability and to describe them by the "check all that apply" (CATA) method. Each cheese was evaluated 3 times throughout 2 sessions, presented with different codes and claims: the first time without information and, later, presented as cheese of milk from sheep in a grazing system and from sheep in nongrazing system, in a balanced design to avoid presentation bias. Acceptability scores were analyzed by ANOVA and Tukey's honestly significant difference test to study the effect of the information provided, the origin of the cheese, the origin of the consumers, and the consumers' attitude for sustainability (they were previously classified as low-medium or high sensitivity toward sustainability). The CATA data were analyzed by Cochran's Q test to study the terms discriminating among samples and correspondence analysis was run to display a plot with samples and descriptive terms. Providing information about grazing or nongrazing system had an effect on acceptability of sheep cheeses. Samples presented as from sheep in a nongrazing system had lower acceptability but samples presented as from sheep in a grazing system did not receive higher acceptability scores than samples without information about grazing or nongrazing systems. These effects were observed in both consumers with low-medium and high sensitivity to sustainability, and among consumers from both locations. Differences in acceptability toward specific cheeses were observed between the 2 cities where the tests were run, and a possible familiarity effect among consumers from Palencia was observed, with a trend to score better cheeses from Castile and Leon. Perceived sensory characteristics were not influenced by the information provided, but samples presented from a nongrazing system were associated with "seems industrial," whereas "seems handmade" and "seems natural" are close to samples presented as from grazing systems and without information about the grazing system. These findings suggest that informing the consumers about the sheep management can be of interest in cheeses made with milk from animals in a grazing system, whatever the consumers' sensitivity to sustainability is. Also, possible differences in liking due to familiarity with the product should be considered.