foods Article Study on the Lamb Meat Consumer Behavior in Brazil Heloísa Valarine Battagin 1, * , Begoña Panea 2,3 and Marco Antonio Trindade 1   Citation: Battagin, H.V.; Panea, B.; Trindade, M.A. Study on the Lamb Meat Consumer Behavior in Brazil. Foods 2021, 10, 1713. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/foods10081713 Academic Editor: Andrea Garmyn Received: 23 June 2021 Accepted: 21 July 2021 Published: 23 July 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Faculty of Animal Science and Food Engineering, University of São Paulo, Av. Duque de Caxias Norte, Pirassununga 13635-900, Brazil; trindadema@usp.br 2 Production Unit and Animal Health, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA), Avda. Montañana 930, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain; bpanea@cita-aragon.es 3 Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón—IA2, CITA-Universidad de Zaragoza, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain * Correspondence: heloisa.battagin@usp.br Abstract: In Brazil, the sheep market, including lamb meat consumption, is regionalized, and the consumption of lamb meat is higher in production areas; yet, consumption of lamb still remains below that of other meat livestock. The aim of this study was to identify the profile of Brazilian lamb meat consumers in order to understand their behavior in relation to food in general and on the consumption of this species. Therefore, a survey on consumer habits and preferences regarding food buying and consumption habits, their preferences in relation to the quality attributes of lamb meat, and sociodemographic characterization was performed. Data collected were analyzed by nonlinear canonic relationship analysis and categorical principal component analysis, followed by multiple factor analysis. Three consumer profiles were identified: traditional, interested, and disinterested, and a fourth group was considered independent but could not be described. Among lamb meat consumers, men with higher income seemed to be more frequent consumers than the others, and the intrinsic characteristics of meat quality, especially color and freshness, were the most important at the time of purchase. Thus, the results could be important to the industry in order to guide marketing strategies to certain niche markets. Keywords: preferences; quality cues; attitudes; categorical principal component analysis 1. Introduction Lamb meat is nutritionally very rich, as it contains proteins, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals of great importance for the maintenance of vital human functions [1]. Its consumption varies widely in different regions of the world, and an increase can be observed in developing countries [2]. In Brazil, sheep farming is characterized by a regional concentration of the national herd; in general animals, are raised on family-based, small farms, playing a secondary role in the property, and informal market of products is commonly observed [3]. Despite challenges for the growth of the sheep-farming production chain, the lat- est agricultural censuses in Brazil indicate production growth, with the Brazilian herd representing 1.5% of the world herd, the largest in South America, concentrated in the northeastern and southern regions of the country [4]. These regions are recurrently influ- enced by extreme weather events and reduced rainfall, which represents an advantage of the sheep farming in relation to other species, such as cattle and poultry, due to the greater adaptability of sheep and lower need for inputs. In addition, sheep products have greater turnover since the animal production cycle is shorter [3]. On the other hand, in farms in the midwestern region, the combination of beef and sheep farming is a common practice, usually aimed at own consumption and sale of surplus for cultural reasons and because the predominant activity in the region is cattle raising [4]. The lack of structure in the sheep-farming production chain in Brazil is also a limiting factor for growth, but this scenario has changed mainly in the southern and northeastern regions, with collective Foods 2021, 10, 1713. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10081713 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods