The Source of Protein or Its Value? Consumer Perception Regarding the Importance of Meat(-like) Product Attributes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present manuscript aimed to analyze the consumers' nutritional choices of meat (-like) products. Thus, the study concluded that the perception of food depends on the information on the label, including nutrition claims. For example, the source of protein (plant vs. animal) seems to influence consumers' perception of the product as more environmentally friendly, natural, and healthy. The study also found that labeling, which includes a "high protein" nutrition label, increases the desire to consume the product and gives the impression that it is more environmentally friendly and of superior quality. The results obtained can help food processors to identify the factors that influence the consumption decision of various food products. The authors selected the most relevant data from the literature and presented them to reflect their importance to the scientific community. The statements and the conclusions of the manuscript are drawn coherently and supported by the listed citations.

 

Comments:

• The title accurately reflects the subject of the papers.
• The abstract is concise and contains sufficient information to highlight the article's content.
• The "Introduction" provides a clear statement of the problem studied in the present manuscript. Nevertheless, the authors are advised to describe the study's hypothesis in the "Materials and Methods" section. It may also be good to introduce the "Introduction" section and "Literature Review" into one section, "Introduction" (remove the confusion that the article is a review).
• The information provided by the authors regarding the working methodology is not enough to allow the repetition of the experimental research.
• The authors must present the working hypotheses and the four labeling variants of the analyzed products. What information is presented to respondents on the product label? Also, how was the questionnaire designed? The presentation in this sense is unclear and incomplete.
• The scientific quality of the manuscript does not rise to the scientific level of the Applied Sciences Journal. The technical quality of the manuscript is not remarkable in terms of how the experimental results are presented and related to the scientific data obtained by other researchers. Research results are difficult to follow, and in the "Discussion" section, there are few reports on others results obtained in the field of the study conducted by the authors. An improvement is recommended in this regard.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your opinion. We tried to make every effort to ensure that our article properly describes the issue of labelling products with health claims and includes relevant literature. We also tried to adequately present the consumer perception as described in the text. Below you can find the description of our corrections according to your comments.

• In line with the standards of applied science, we have combined the sections “Introduction” and “Materials and Methods”. All the hypotheses are described in this section now.
• The methodology section has been improved. In addition, we put there all the graphics that we analyzed in the study. In this way, the information presented to respondents is now more visible. Moreover, the items we used are now described in the Appendix. To add up, we had not considered using the latent variables, due to the fact that the analyzed variables are not complex psychological constructs. As a consequence, the analysis stage did not have to include the assessment of the reliability of the scales and the CFA was not implemented, however, in our opinion, the current version of reporting results is now in line with the APA for ANOVA.

We have improved the quality of the description of our study. We have added some information that is missed in the previous version (statements, graphics). The “Discussion” section has also been improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the Author

This paper investigating consumer perception regarding the importance of meat(-like) product attributes. The subject is interesting. However, there are some problems as follows:

 

- The correspondence mark * should be located in the correct place.

- Line 17-18: “albeit not always” this sentence needs to be more specific.

Line15-16: more details regarding the 4 samples are required.

- Line 29: Give the vitamins between brackets.

- The abstract needs rewriting since general information is not included in the abstract, numerical results should be included.

- It is advised to give the Keywords without abbreviation  “ nutrition claims, NC”

Introduction

• Line 62: in this part, the structure of the article is not the objective of this study!. It is advised to highlight in this part the research problem and the objectives that required to addressed.
• Line 284: Please check this term “It this case”.
• Table 1: Please give the full form for all the abbreviations and symbols.
• Discussion has to be rephrased again, it is just general information and not explicitly written.
• The number of references needs to be limited.

 

 

Author Response

We are very pleased that you found our article interesting. Below, we have compiled the answers to all your comments.

• We have corrected all the minor errors like those relating to the placement of the correspondence mark, the use of “albeit not always” (currently line 19), the usage of brackets (currently line 33-34), keywords, the use of “in this case” (currently line 291) and other minor shortcomings.
• We have added more details to the text about the graphics samples we used (currently lines 16-17). In addition, we have placed those graphics in the “Materials and Methods” section.
• We have improved the abstract – placing there all the most important values you were asking for.
• The objective (currently line 64-67) was improved
• The entire table 1 has been corrected. We have removed/clarified the abbreviations used there.
• The discussion section has been improved
• The number of references has been reduced by 20. However, as requested by Reviewer 1 we have added 10 references to the conclusion and in the appendix. However, there are still 10 references less than in the previous version.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is good, well written and structured article. The abstract is clear and reflect the manuscript theme. Introduction part - good explained the aim of this article. Experimental part is well explained too. The conclusions are clear and in consistent with results. 

This work is useful for improving knowledge about consumers perception  of different source of proteins. 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. We are pleased to read that our article, including its structure, content and conclusions drawn from it, has found your approval.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In this form, the scientific quality of the manuscript rises to the scientific level of the "Applied Sciences" Journal. The technical quality of the manuscript is remarkable in terms of how it was written and how the consumer perception regarding the importance of meat(-like) product attributes is presented.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did a significant improvement which is satisfactory. I do not have any further comments and I am pleased to suggest it for publication in its current form in the Applied Sciences.