Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Author(s):
RSD Gupta, B Eswara Rao, E Nagamallika, A Jagadeesh Babu and D Narendra Nath

Abstract:
India has a large number of ethnic groups, diverse traditions, culture and varied food habits. Traditional processing of various meat products with locally available specific ingredients has resulted in the development of products with unique sensory attributes. The demand for ethnic/heritage meat products is ever growing because of rapid changes in consumer preferences. Head meat curry is popular ethnic meat products of India and is famous for their health benefits. The present study on head meat curry was carried out to understand the awareness, preference of meat for preparation of head meat curry, frequency of consumption, preferred place for consumption and reasons for consuming or not consuming head meat curry. Twenty consumers from each district were selected randomly thus making total sample of 260 respondents for the study. The study indicates that 80.77% of people are having awareness on head meat curry out of which 64.76% of people preferred sheep head for preparation of head meat curry. Majority of people consume head meat curry quarterly (60%) and the preference of consumption of head meat curry at home (76.66%). The survey on head meat curry stated that more than fifty percent (54.76%) people are consuming head meat curry for its health benefits. The reasons for not consuming head meat curry regularly is due to less availability (40%) and processing difficulty (40%). The results of current study gives an idea on the future strategies need to be adapted by meat scientists to understand felt needs of consumers in India.