Percepção dos consumidores em relação ao desenvolvimento de produtos cárneos funcionais

Abstract

Currently, the search for a healthier lifestyle has been growing more and more over the years and is intrinsically associated with the desire to obtain a healthy body combined with a good diet. This scenario has stimulated the demand and consumption of functional foods, which are those that besides presenting the essential nutrients, present beneficial properties to the consumers. However some areas present enormous potential in the development and commercialization of functional foods that aren’t yet exploited by the market. The meats and derivatives area is one of these, presenting a small number of functional products but would allow the substitution and/or inclusion of ingredients in the formulation with the intention of incorporating substances with functional properties. In this context, the objective of this work is trace a relationship between the socio demographic profile of the consumer of functional meat products and the level of knowledge that the product has in relation to its benefits, empirical and scientific knowledge. Through the application on site of a structured questionnaire for 342 people belonging to the student body, lecturer and administrative technician of Campuses Medianeira, duly approved by the Ethics and Research Committee of UTFPR (University Technological Federal of Paraná). The data obtained were submitted to statistic analysis, showing a unique profile of the population surveyed due to the context of application concentrated in a young public with access to information and an increasing concern with health and healthy life habits.