Preference Choice Survey of Pork Chop by French and Korean Consumers

Digital photographs of 16 pork chops were each modified to give 16 treatments, such as two levels each of fat cover, color, marbling and drip, giving a total of 256 images. Consumers from three locations in France and six locations in Korea selected their preferred chop from 16 treatments in different chops and repeated this selection process eight times from different groups of chops, respectively. Respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire on socio-demographic information. Both the results of the French and Korean surveys gave four clusters of consumers, but they were not the same in terms of the choice strategies used, or in terms of their relationships with the socio-demographic items. The interesting apparent similarities (such as, both color levels being equally important to consumers in both countries) and differences(such as, the strong preference for lean meat in France; no fat preference in Korea) suggest a need to compare the results from the two countries. However, due to the difference of the socio-demographic make-up of the consumer panels from the two countries, a simple and direct comparison of the clusters based on choice and their relationships with the questionnaire items is not possible, but is currently being explored.