Introduction
Meat and meat products are an important source of protein in
human diets, and their consumption depends on socio-economic
factors, ethics or religious beliefs, and tradition. Globally, pork is
consumed the most (15.8 kg/capita/year), followed by poultry
(13.6 kg/capita/year), beef (9.6 kg/capita/year) and
finally sheep and goat meat (1.9 kg/capita/year) (FAOSTAT, 2014). The consumption varies among and within countries. For instance, in Muslim countries pork consumption is extremely low or absent, whereas it can exceed 50 kg/capita/year in countries such as Austria, Poland, Germany and Lithuania (FAOSTAT, 2014).Fig. 1shows the distribution of meat con-sumption by continent, and it is possible to see important differences in both quantity and type of meat.
Consumers are the last step in the production chain,and having their
Expectations met is an important part of their satisfaction and shopping
behavior. It is therefore important to understand the factors affecting
consumer behavior. In this paper we will divide the issues that explain
these factors into three types: psychological (individual factor), sensory
(product-specific factor) and marketing (environmental factor) (Fig.2).
These aspects are interrelated and, in turn, depend on additional fac-
tors that affect consumers' decision-making. The importance of the
components of the model depends on the consumer, context, culture
or available information and might influence individual behavior to
different degrees. In this paper we focus only on some of these as-
pects and how they affect consumer behavior and preferences for
pork, beef and lamb and/or their acceptance. We also examine pref-
erences for some meat products, especially dry-cured ham.
The following general and theoretical overview of the psychological
Aspects will be examined in order to better understand the sensory and
marketing variables, which are presented afterwards via specific
examples.