Vitamin E supplementation, cereal feed type and consumer sensory perceptions of poultry meat quality

Lipid oxidation leads to meat spoilage and has been reported to cause adverse changes in the flavour and texture of poultry meat. Vitamin E has been found to be effective in delaying lipid oxidation. The aim of this study was to determine whether the vitamin E supplementation of chicken feed influences the consumers' perception of the quality of chicken meat under normal display and storage conditions. Untrained consumers (n 32) evaluated cooked breast meat from chickens (both corn fed and wheat fed) supplemented with 75 250 or 500 mg/kg vitamin E and after storage at 4° C for 4 and 7 d. Factorial analysis found an interaction between vitamin E treatment and storage day upon the perceived juiciness (P = 0.023) and tenderness (P = 0.041) of the chicken meat. Perceptions of quality relative to vitamin E level were more evident on day 4 than day 7. When the two cereal types were compared, the time-related subgroup effects were observed only in meat from corn-fed chickens supplemented with either 75 or 250 mg/kg, which was perceived to be juicier (P = 0.018) and more tender (P = 0.020) than that supplemented at the 500 mg/kg level. These results imply that the two lower concentrations of vitamin E have some advantages over 500 mg/kg, but for optimal consumer acceptance of corn-fed chicken meat, we suggest that 250 mg/kg vitamin E should be added to corn-fed poultry feed. There was no evidence to suggest any advantages in changing the current amount of vitamin E (75 mg/kg) used to rear wheat-fed birds.

Flesh colour dominates consumer preference for chicken

Existing research investigating interactions between visual and oral sensory cues has tended to use model food systems. In contrast, this study compared product quality assessments of corn-fed and wheat-fed chicken products among persons recruited in Northern Ireland. Three approaches have been adopted to investigate the effect of colour upon consumer choice of chicken: sensory assessment under normal lighting; focus group discussion; and sensory assessment under controlled lighting conditions. Initial consumer sensory assessment indicated that wheat-fed chicken was perceived to be tenderer and to have a more intense flavour than that which was corn-fed. Qualitative enquiry discerned that this was because consumers perceived the yellow colour of corn-fed chicken negatively. Yellow-coloured corn-fed chicken was therefore again compared with wheat-fed chicken in terms of flavour, texture and overall liking with the flesh colour disguised by means of controlled lighting. Quality ratings for corn-fed chicken were more positive when the yellow flesh colour was disguised, with corn-fed chicken judged to be tenderer than wheat-fed chicken and more flavoursome. This study illustrates the importance of using a combination of methods to gain insight into interactions between different sensory modalities in consumer quality judgements and adds to previous research on the importance of colour upon consumer choice of real foods. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Implicit memory and consumer choice: the mediating role of brand familiarity

Two experiments investigated the influence of implicit memory on consumer choice for brands with varying levels of familiarity. Priming was measured using a consideration-choice task, developed by Coates, Butler and Berry (2004). Experiment 1 employed a coupon-rating task at encoding that required participants to meaningfully process individual brand names, to assess whether priming could affect participants' final (preferred) choices for familiar brands. Experiment 2 used this same method to assess the impact of implicit memory on consideration and choice for unknown and leader brands, presented in conjunction with familiar competitors. Significant priming was obtained in both experiments, and was shown to directly influence final choice in the case of familiar and highly familiar leader brands. Moreover, it was shown that a single prior exposure could lead participants to consider buying an unknown, and indeed fictitious, brand. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Design considerations for the multiband OFDM physical layer in consumer electronic products

The creation of Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) offers the Consumer Electronics industry a mechanism to truly unwire consumer products, leading to portability and ease of installation as never seen before. WPAN's can offer data-rates exceeding those that are required to convey high quality broadcast video, thus users can easily connect to high quality video for multimedia presentations in education, libraries, advertising, or have a wireless connection at home. There have been many WPAN proposals, but this paper concentrates on ECMA-368 as this standard has the largest industrial and implementers' forum backing. This paper discusses the technology behind ECMA-368, the required numerical bandwidth, buffer memory requirements and implementation considerations while concentrating on supporting all the offered data-rates'.

Offering 802.11 MAC frame transport over multiband OFDM for consumer devices

A method to map all the variants of the IEEE 802.11 MAC frames into the Multiband OFDM based ECMA-368 Physical standard is proposed, without contravening the standard. The transportation of IEEE 802.11 MAC frames over ECMA-368 allows for the migration current of Wireless LAN applications towards a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) solution. This system benefits the Consumer Electronics Market as the high data-rate WPAN is capable of transporting broadcast-quality video while the same system can also transport existing applications available today, maintaining existing effort, products and backward-compatibility(1).

Design issues toward a cost effective physical layer for multiband OFDM (ECMA-368) in consumer products

The creation of Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) offers the Consumer Electronics industry a mechanism to truly unwire consumer products, leading to portability and ease of installation as never seen before. WPAN's can offer data-rates exceeding those that are required to convey high quality broadcast video, thus users can easily connect to high quality video for multimedia presentations in education, libraries, advertising, or have a wireless connection at home. There have been many WPAN proposals, but this paper concentrates on ECMA-368 as this standard has the largest industrial and implementers' forum backing. With the aim to effective consumer electronic define and create cost equipment this paper discusses the technology behind ECMA-368 physical layer, the design freedom availabilities, the required processing, buffer memory requirements and implementation considerations while concentrating on supporting all the offered data-rates(1).

A parallel convolutional coder including embedded puncturing with application to consumer devices

As consumers demand more functionality) from their electronic devices and manufacturers supply the demand then electrical power and clock requirements tend to increase, however reassessing system architecture can fortunately lead to suitable counter reductions. To maintain low clock rates and therefore reduce electrical power, this paper presents a parallel convolutional coder for the transmit side in many wireless consumer devices. The coder accepts a parallel data input and directly computes punctured convolutional codes without the need for a separate puncturing operation while the coded bits are available at the output of the coder in a parallel fashion. Also as the computation is in parallel then the coder can be clocked at 7 times slower than the conventional shift-register based convolutional coder (using DVB 7/8 rate). The presented coder is directly relevant to the design of modern low-power consumer devices

Numerical precision requirements on the Multiband Ultra-Wideband system for practical consumer electronic devices

This paper discusses the requirements on the numerical precision for a practical Multiband Ultra-Wideband (UWB) consumer electronic solution. To this end we first present the possibilities that UWB has to offer to the consumer electronics market and the possible range of devices. We then show the performance of a model of the UWB baseband system implemented using floating point precision. Then, by simulation we find the minimal numerical precision required to maintain floating-point performance for each of the specific data types and signals present in the UWB baseband. Finally, we present a full description of the numerical requirements for both the transmit and receive components of the UWB baseband. The numerical precision results obtained in this paper can then be used by baseband designers to implement cost effective UWB systems using System-on-Chip (SoC), FPGA and ASIC technology solutions biased toward the competitive consumer electronics market(1).

Local versus organic: a turn in consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay

Demand for local food in the United States has significantly increased over the last decade. In an attempt to understand the drivers of this demand and how they have changed over time, we investigate the literature on organic and local foods over the last few decades. We focus our review on studies that allow comparison of characteristics now associated with both local and organic food. We summarize the major findings of these studies and their implications for understanding drivers of local food demand. Prior to the late 1990s, most studies failed to consider factors now associated with local food, and the few that included these factors found very little support for them. In many cases, the lines between local and organic were blurred. Coincident with the development of federal organic food standards, studies began to find comparatively more support for local food as distinct and separate from organic food. Our review uncovers a distinct turn in the demand for local and organic food. Before the federal organic standards, organic food was linked to small farms, animal welfare, deep sustainability, community support, and many other factors that are not associated with most organic foods today. Based on our review, we argue that demand for local food arose largely in response to corporate cooptation of the organic food market and the arrival of “organic lite.” This important shift in consumer preferences away from organic and toward local food has broad implications for the environment and society. If these patterns of consumer preferences prove to be sustainable, producers, activists, and others should be aware of the implications that these trends have for the food system at large.

Customer experience quality: an exploration in business and consumer contexts using repertory grid technique

This study proposes a conceptual model for customer experience quality and its impact on customer relationship outcomes. Customer experience is conceptualized as the customer’s subjective response to the holistic direct and indirect encounter with the firm, and customer experience quality as its perceived excellence or superiority. Using the repertory grid technique in 40 interviews in B2B and B2C contexts, the authors find that customer experience quality is judged with respect to its contribution to value-in-use, and hence propose that value-in-use mediates between experience quality and relationship outcomes. Experience quality includes evaluations not just of the firm’s products and services but also of peer-to-peer and complementary supplier encounters. In assessing experience quality in B2B contexts, customers place a greater emphasis on firm practices that focus on understanding and delivering value-in-use than is generally the case in B2C contexts. Implications for practitioners’ customer insight processes and future research directions are suggested.

Farm animal welfare, consumer willingness to pay, and trust: results of a cross-national survey

Higher animal welfare standards increase costs along the supply chain of certified animal-friendly products (AFP). Since the market outcome of certified AFP depends on consumer confidence toward supply chain operators complying with these standards, the role of trust in consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for AFP is paramount. Results from a contingent valuation survey administered in five European Union countries show that WTP estimates were sensitive to robust measures of consumer trust for certified AFP. Deriving the WTP effect of a single food category on total food expenditure is difficult for survey respondents; hence, a budget approach was employed to facilitate this process.