Lithuanian consumer preferences towards products of different fatness

The objective of the study (made in TREASURE project) was to analyse how Lithuanian consumers perceive pork products from fatty pigs and identify their attitudes, and the possibility to include special branded products from Lithuanian local pigs to the marketing scheme. Since ancient times Lithuanians have been cultivating animal husbandry and eating fresh, salt-cured and smoked meat. The interest in traditional and healthy food has increased in recent years encouraged artisans and restaurants to revive old food preparing traditions. The breeding of animals from rare breeds (genetic pool) and income from their production is not competitive compared with industrial breeds because of high amount of fat. One of the first steps to promote breeding of local pig breeds and their traditional products was their demonstration and knowledge dissemination during different agricultural exhibitions and shows. Lithuanian Endangered Farm Animal Breeders’ Association contributed to producing and testing of two products: dried sausages and a kind of lard sausages ‘Lašiniuotis’. To describe the preferences of consumers, the test of frequencies and chi-square tests were applied using the SPSS Statistics program. Respondents of different genders, age and employment presented consumption frequencies of different meat, including pork. Obviously, Lithuanians justified the reputation of pork eaters (Χ2=78.7, df=2 P<0.001). Although only 25.2% of the respondents were involved in animal production, more than 80% of them answered that they possess information on pig growing and this shows that many people did not lose touch with the countryside. Public testing of the presented products showed that 227 (48.4%) consumers of different age and occupation preferred and voted for dried sausages and 242 (51.6%) respondents preferred and voted for ‘Lašiniuotis’. It can be concluded that more fatty products could find consumers among Lithuanian population. Funded by European Union’s H2020 RIA program (grant agreement no. 634476).