Of the 890 consumers, 104 indicated they could
not detect a difference between the raw milk cheese
(RMC) and pasteurized milk cheese (PMC), and
41 indicated no preference (Figure 1). A larger portion
of consumers indicated preference for the RMC
when the cheeses were labeled and thus consumers
knew which samples were made from raw milk (P <
0.05; Figure 2). However, a test evaluating whether a
significant difference existed in the mean proportion
preferring RMC between the 2 treatments (labeled and
unlabeled) was not significant, and thus the data were
pooled to evaluate overall preference. This test showed
that a significant difference existed in preference between
the cheeses made with pasteurized and raw milk
(P < 0.001), with 426 consumers preferring RMC and
319 preferring PMC. The results were less consistent
when looking at the individual cheeses and showed that
consumers may not always prefer an RMC version of a
particular cheese maker (Table 2). One of the unlabeled
cheese pairs tested (Cheddar 1) actually had more individuals
preferring the PMC version,