Influence of familiarity with goat meat on liking and preference for capretto and chevon Monica Borgogno ⁎, Mirco Corazzin, Elena Saccà, Stefano Bovolenta, Edi Piasentier Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio, 2/A, 33100 Udine, Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 4 December 2014 Received in revised form 1 April 2015 Accepted 2 April 2015 Available online 10 April 2015 Key words: Goat meat Fatty acids Sensory profile Internal preference map Familiarity The research aimed at assessing liking and preference for capretto and chevon as a function of consumer famil- iarity with goat meat. Five meats were produced: traditional milk capretto (MC), heavy summer capretto (HSC), summering (SCh), fall (FCh) and late fall chevon (LFCh). HSC was the most tender meat, having less cooking losses than both MC and redder chevon types. The instrumental profile corresponded with the appearance and texture attributes perceived by panellists. With aging of kids, meat lost its milk aroma (MC) and sweet taste (HSC) and acquired an increasing intensity of goat flavour and livery notes, partially related to feeding regime and fatty acid profile. A niche market preferred chevon over capretto, while the cluster of consumers who were unfamiliar with chevon showed a decrease in pleasantness when tasting chevon, the familiar group reduced their ratings only for meat from the oldest kids. © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Goat husbandry in Italy is aimed at milk and cheese production. In 2010 year, goat meat production was 2103 tonnes in Italy. In particular, 86.7% of slaughtered goats were young animals that weighed less than 10 kg (ISTAT, 2010). The “capretto”, i.e. four to seven-week old kid fed on milk (Piasentier, Mills, Sepulcri, & Valusso, 2000; Piasentier, Volpelli, Sepulcri, Maggioni, & Corti, 2005), is the traditional and, still, the main meat product (Boyazoglu & Morand-Fehr, 2001) in this class. It is a major component of farm income during the Easter (regular kidding) and Christmas (early, de-seasoned kidding) times. However, not all the young kids are available during these holydays periods, because of late births that occur randomly or are programmed to extend the dairy season. Moreover, the concentration of demand during these peak periods also concentrates imports at these times, with an increased availability of capretto that forces prices down (Rubino & Claps, 1995). As a consequence, there is producer interest to diversify fresh goat meat offerings, to provide heavier carcasses and chevon meat beside traditional capretto outside the peak demand periods. Animal age, changes in feeding regime, birth, rearing and slaughter season modify the intrinsic characteristics of goat meat (Bas, Dahbi, El Aich, Morand-Fehr, & Araba, 2005; Casey & Webb, 2010; D'Alessandro et al., 2013), including its perceived appearance, texture, taste and flavour (Madruga & Bressan, 2011). Sensory diversity is an important factor in consumer attitudes towards meats (Sañudo et al., 2007), but chevon may not be well appreciated and valued in the market. Indeed, in Italy, while capretto meat is considered a delicacy, like in France and Latin America (Naude & Hofmeyr, 1981), fresh meat from later matured goats has no real market, except in some southern regions of Italy, such as Puglia and Calabria for 3–4 month old animals sold during summer, and a few traditional areas for does and bucks. Most of this meat is used for processed products (Rubino & Claps, 1995). A limited or a complete lack of prior experience with a food (Verbeke & Vackier, 2004) or with its flavour principles (Prescott, Young, Zhang, & Cummings, 2004) may result in poor consumer acceptability for it. On the other hand, familiarity for products with similar sensory profiles, i.e. familiar flavours, can provide a context for newly developed foods, signalling their palatability and safety, thus increasing their liking and purchase (Prescott et al., 2004). Deliza and MacFie (1996) and Tuorila et al. (2008) demonstrated that familiarity is one of the most important drivers of preference for food products, because it reduces product uncertainty and leads to a more likely match between expectations and product characteristics. The purposes of the research were: i) evaluating the most important properties of representative types of goat meat, comprising traditional capretto and chevon from older animals unsold at Easter or born too late to be finished for the Easter period, paying particular attention to the sensory aspects directly perceivable by consumers; and ii) investi- gating the variability and structure of liking for goat meat by consumers who differ in their familiarity with the product. Meat Science 106 (2015) 69–77 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Udine, Via Sondrio, 2/A, 33100 Udine, Italy. Tel.: +39 0432 558187. E-mail address: monica.borgogno@uniud.it (M. Borgogno). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2015.04.001 0309-1740/© 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Meat Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/meatsci