Preference and acceptance of fresh rabbit, pork and chicken meat sausages among young consumers

The rabbit sector has proposed sausages as a suitable presentation format to increase rabbit meat consumption among young people in a context in which it is declining in several traditionally-consuming countries. In order to confirm its suitability in this context, this work compares the acceptability and preference of commercial fresh rabbit sausages with those of chicken and pork meat, using an untrained panel of 70 young Spanish consumers (22.1 yr old on average; 57.1% male and 42.9% female). In the first part of the trial, cooked sausages were evaluated for: a) acceptability of organoleptic characteristics (odour, colour, appearance, texture, flavour, elasticity and juiciness) and the overall rating using a 9-point hedonic scale, and b) order of preference of sausages (first to third). Overall acceptance and sensory attributes were rated in the medium-high range (6.1-7.9 points) and differed among the cooked sausages, except for odour and appearance. Rabbit sausage was rated at the same level as chicken and pork sausages in terms of odour, appearance, texture, flavour and overall assessment, outperformed pork sausage in colour, elasticity and juiciness acceptance, and was only rated lower than chicken sausage in terms of juiciness. Cooked chicken sausage was preferred in first place, followed by rabbit sausage, while pork sausage came last. In the second part of the trial, raw sausages were evaluated visually for: a) acceptability of colour and visual appearance, and b) order of preference of the sausages. No difference was found between the raw sausages in terms of colour, while the appearance of the raw pork sausage was rated better than that of the rabbit and chicken sausages, with no difference between the latter two. The visual appearance of the raw pork sausage was ranked first, followed by the chicken sausage, while the raw rabbit sausage came last. Only 40% of the young panellists could identify the meat ingredient of the rabbit sausage in both cooked and raw sausages. No interaction was found between the type of sausage and the gender of the panellists in evaluation of either the cooked or raw sausages. Young women rated the texture, flavour, elasticity, juiciness and overall assessment of the cooked sausages lower than men, regardless of meat type, whereas no gender difference was found for the visual assessment of the raw sausages. In conclusion, cooked rabbit sausage was accepted as well as chicken sausage overall and better than pork sausage, while raw rabbit sausage was accepted as well as chicken sausage overall and worse than pork sausage in the visual assessment, showing its potential to promote rabbit meat consumption among young people.