Redalyc.Procedural Priorities of the Pork Loin Supply Chain
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Journal of Technology Management & Innovation E-ISSN: 0718-2724 [email protected] Universidad Alberto Hurtado Chile Dhein Dill, Matheus; Palma Revillion, Jean Philippe; Jardim Barcellos, Júlio Otávio; Antunes Dias, Eduardo; Zara Mércio, Thomaz; Esteves de Oliveira, Tamara Procedural Priorities of the Pork Loin Supply Chain Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, vol. 9, núm. 1, 2014, pp. 84-92 Universidad Alberto Hurtado Santiago, Chile Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=84731017007 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Received Sept. 20, 2013 / Accepted April 18, 2014 J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2014, Volume 9, Issue 1 Procedural Priorities of the Pork Loin Supply Chain Matheus Dhein Dill¹, Jean Philippe Palma Revillion², Júlio Otávio Jardim Barcellos³, Eduardo Antunes Dias4, Thomaz Zara Mércio5, Tamara Esteves de Oliveira6 Abstract The pork meat production industry is facing new challenges as a consequence of consumers’ expectations regarding the quality and safety of food products. For the present study, experts and consumers in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil were interviewed to identify the attributes of pork loin that need to be improved. Consumers have particular concerns about the juiciness, fibrousness, and portion size of the meat, the diversity of cuts and safety and animal welfare. The supply chain was also analyzed in order to verify the procedural priorities that need to be improved in order to meet the demands of consumers. Experts were interviewed using the quality function deployment methodology. The findings of the study indicate that, improvements must be made in the production sector in terms of animal handling and transportation. In the processing sector, improvements are required regarding slaughter control of PSE and DFD, the development of new packaging, and product fractionation. The requirements in the distribution sector relate to information campaigns for consumers to diffuse the nutritional characteristics of pork loin and in the product safety through sanitary inspection. Keywords: meat; product development; QFD; quality; technological priority; consumers; supply chain; pork. 1,2,3,4,5,6Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas em Agronegócios (CEPAN). Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Av. Bento Gon- çalves, 7.712, 91.540-000, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Phone: +55 51 3308-6586. e-mail: [email protected] ISSN: 0718-2724. (http://www.jotmi.org) Journal of Technology Management & Innovation © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios. 84 J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2014, Volume 9, Issue 1 Introduction To understand the attributes that are considered relevant to consumers of pork loin, and also to analyze possible strate- Consumers analyze the quality of a product by detecting and gies for improving this chain, the present study has defined ranking its quality indicators. In food, those indicators are the attributes most valued by consumers through interviews represented by intrinsic and extrinsic attributes that are of- with experts and market research. Based on this informa- ten quite difficult to measure (Poulsen, 1996; Grunert, 2002). tion, using the methodological basis of QFD and expert Moreover, these attributes are interdependent and diverge interviews, possible procedural adaptations with which to according to the meat’s morphological structure, chemical meet the demands were analyzed. composition, microbial contamination, sensorial properties, procedure’s hygiene, nutritional value (Pardi et al., 2001), Material and Method convenience for cooking, and the properties of its process- ing (Canever, 2006). In the first step of the research, through a literature review and the contributions of nine experts, the attributes of pork Negative perceptions related to sanitary concerns affect the loin that consumers considered relevant were identified. consumption of pork due to the lack of origin information With this information a questionnaire was elaborated and and cultural issues (Faria et al., 2006; Bezerra et al., 2007; validated through conducting a pre-test with 10 consumers. Farias et al., 2012). Pork consumption is also affected by The questionnaire was sent by email and data was collected new requirements related to certification, traceability, ani- using the Sphinx Léxica version 5.0 software program. The mal welfare, sustainability of production systems (Verbeke sample was composed of 392 residents of the Brazilian state et al., 2010; Barcellos et al., 2011a), the practicality and con- of Rio Grande do Sul, selected randomly, as indicated by venience of the product (Barcellos et al., 2011b), and health- Cheng et al. (1995). related consuming habits (Grunert, 2006). For the sample characterization and identification of con- In this context, the importance of analyzing the attributes sumption habits (age, family size, gender, educational level, that consumers consider to have high priority has been frequency of consumption, presentations of the cuts, cook- highlighted because the supply chain will only be able to im- ing preference, and place of purchase), closed questions were prove product quality when consumer requirements (both used and the qualitative variables were described based on intrinsic and extrinsic) are considered together during the their absolute and relative frequency. development process of the product (Dekker and Linne- mann, 1998; Sijtsema et al., 2002). In the same way, tools that The sensorial aspects, nutritional and food safety, certifica- allow the analysis of important attributes while identifying tion and origin, practicality and convenience were analyzed improvement actions, such as the quality function deploy- using closed questions according to a 1–5 Likert scale, with ment (QFD) method (Akao, 1972; Miguel et al., 2007; Jaiswal, rates ranging from 0 to 100. To analyze all groups of ques- 2012), are important for effective supply chain management tions, analysis of variance and a randomized block design (Zarei et al., 2011). was used, complemented by the Tukey test at a significance level of 5 percent. The QFD methodological method approach is driven by and directed towards consumers; it captures the costumers’ In the second step, the quality matrix of the QFD was used needs, expectations and preferences, translating them to dif- to analyze the relationship between consumer needs (iden- ferent production processes in order to detect problems tified at the first step) and the processes to be improved in and possible solutions to ensure the quality of the product. the supply chain. Therefore, the sectors of the supply chain Few studies have analyzed the intrinsic and extrinsic attrib- were added to the matrix (production, transportation, pro- utes that consumers consider relevant to a specific cut in cessing, and distribution) as suggested by Canever (2006). pork. Thus, the pork loin, which represents approximately This enabled us to measure the responses of consumer ex- 10 percent of the live weight of the animal, was chosen as pectations in the technical and procedural characteristics of the object of study to be considered as a traditional cut this supply chain and use them to determine the key factors with high commercial value. It is also appropriate to re- interfering product quality (Cheng et al., 1995). strict the search to consumers in the state of Rio Grande do Sul because, according to Schlindwein and Kassouf The main characteristics of pork loin were selected on the (2006), the consumption of pork in Brazil is concentrated above basis and, from the literature review, the improvement in the south, although most of this demand is in the form of processes in the supply chain were discerned, which was sausage and ham. used to elaborate the QFD matrix. Four experts from dif- ferent fields were interviewed to identify critical points. The experts identified the relationship between attribute and ISSN: 0718-2724. (http://www.jotmi.org) Journal of Technology Management & Innovation © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios. 85 J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2014, Volume 9, Issue 1 process by allocating points based on the following scale: Results and discussion strong = 9 points, average = 3, poor = 1. First step – attributes of pork loin relevant to consumers The sum of the scores given by the experts was then insert- The sample consisted of 392 pork consumers living in Rio ed in the matrix. The procedures that achieved more than 22 Grande do Sul State, 50.8 percent of whom were male and points were considered as critical procedures. The priority 49.2 percent were aged between 21 and 30 years. Most of technique was also calculated as the sum of all scores in the the consumers were university graduates and post-grad- line in order to infer the capability of one attribute to be uates. The largest portion of respondents shares a house improved from intervention procedures. This dimension was with one other person, followed by those who live alone chosen as an indicator to explain the factors that should be (Table 1). improved in order to meet consumers’ demand, based on suggestions of the experts and literature review. The majority of respondents preferred rib cut, followed by pork loin. Most consumers choose chilled pork loin, and prefer to purchase it at supermarkets and hypermarkets (Figure 1); this supports the research conducted by Barcel- los et al., (2011b). Number of people in Age (years) No. % Education No. % No. % the household 21–30 193 49.2 Post-graduate 192 49 2 126 32.1 41–50 70 17.9 Graduate 139 35.4 1 108 27.6 31–40 65 16.6 High school 32 8.2 3 74 18.9 51–60 39 9.9 Technician 20 5.1 4 47 12 < 20 11 2.8 Elementary school 4 1 5 19 4.8 > 60 11 2.8 None 0 0 > 5 5 1.3 Not answered 3 0.8 Not answered 5 1.3 Not answered 13 3.3 Total 392 100 Total 392 100 Total 392 100 Table 1.