Acceptability of hamburgers in Uruguay; study of the three products sold in the top category of the local market

Abstract

Consumers’ behavior in Uruguay has been evolving since the last decade of the past century. Although this product still has a small portion of the market, in 2005 about 1762 Tons were traded in the local market without considering the gastronomic sector. On the other hand there is a steady increase in the consumption of manufactured hamburgers with maintenance forecast trend (according to experts “still hasn’t reached its limit”). In order to explore the consumer’s market of hamburgers, an acceptability study of the three products in the range of higher price on the domestic market was performed. This study was conducted with 92 consumers of hamburgers. The samples, previously cooked and portioned, were presented hot and were identified with random three-digit numbers following a balanced complete block design. Assessors were instructed to indicate their acceptability in appearance, texture, taste, and global acceptability of each sample. It was used a structured hedonic scale of nine points (minimum: 1 = “dislike extremely”, middle: 5 = neither like nor dislike, maximum: 9 = “like extremely”) as a tool for the assessors. The data obtained was analyzed by ANOVA and Tukey test (α = 0.05) and the frequency of responses grouped into four categories like / dislike studied. Significant differences between all samples (p <0.05). Sample with the worst performance was 526, with a median of 6 (x = 5.4). It proved to be a product that the consumers barely liked it. Sample 643 had the best performance, with a median of 7 (x = 6.9), with the highest quantity of positive responses (82%).