APPLICATION OF THE FREE SORTING METHOD TO EVALUATE THE CONSUMER'S PERCEPTION OF FRESH PORK LOIN SAUSAGE

In Brazil, fresh pork sausage is among the most accepted and marketed pork meat products. However, due to growing concerns about health and food nutrition, the fatty acid profile of meat has gained prominence. In pigs, diet directly influences the fatty acid composition of the carcass. The objective of the study was to investigate consumers' perception of sausage samples using the Free Sorting methodology, which consists of organizing the samples into categories to obtain information about similarities and differences between the treatments. Sausages were produced from the meat of pigs fed with 3% soybean oil, canola oil, or fish oil, in addition to a control treatment using commercial meat. The four samples were coded with three random digits and served simultaneously to consumers, who were instructed to taste each sample and group them according to their similarities. In the sociodemographic profile, it was found that 58% of participants were female and 42% male, aged between 20 and 30 years, with incomplete higher education (32%) and consumption of the product 1 to 3 times a week (14%), every 15 days (40%), and once a month (46%). Data collection was carried out using tablets (Samsung Tab E/SM-T560/9.6″) and the Compusense Cloud software, totaling 96 consumers. The words attributed by participants to each group were processed through lemmatization and grouped according to similarity, generating a contingency table (words × samples) and analyzed using Correspondence Analysis (CA). The CA explained 88.05% of the total variability in the first two dimensions (Dim-1 = 72.29%; Dim-2 = 15.76%). In the sensory map, the control treatment was mainly associated with texture attributes such as "dry," "crumbly," and "tasty." The canola treatment was characterized by the attributes "salty," "distinctive flavor," and "well-seasoned," while the fish treatment was described as "aromatic," "tender," "greasy," and "juicy." The soybean treatment was defined by attributes such as "doesn’t taste the same," "seasoned," "smoked flavor," "tasty," and "slightly acidic." These results indicate that the control treatment stood out particularly for its texture characteristics, while the soybean and fish treatments were distinguished by taste and aroma attributes. Overall, the Free Sorting method showed agreement among consumers in their perception of fresh sausage, allowing for quick grouping of the samples according to their similarities and providing relevant information for the development of processed meat products.