Korean and Chinese consumers’ preferences for sous-vide cooked Jabchae according to sauce mixing proportion

This study aimed to investigate preferences for sous-vide cooked jabchae between Korean and Chinese consumers according to sauce mixing proportion. To commercialize sous-vide cooked jabchae and localize it for overseas circumstances in the Korean and Chinese markets, consumers’ subjective preferences for sous-vide cooked jabchae were investigated especially in 119 Korean consumers (55 males and 64 females) and 136 Chinese consumers (70 males and 66 females). For jabchae samples, this study set up three different mixture rates of soy sauce and sugar, 8% (LSS), 13% (MSS), and 18% (HSS), and three different salad oil rates, 0% (LO), 12% (MO), and 24% (HO), to propose nine kinds of samples. As a result of consumer preferences, for Koreans, MSS and HSS regardless of oil content were significantly high in overall, appearance, saltiness, sweetness preferences, and purchase intention (P<0.001). In addition, for oiliness preference, LSS, MSS, LO, and MO were significantly high (P<0.001). For Chinese, HSS, MO, and HO were significantly high in overall, flavor preference, and purchase intention (P<0.001). For saltiness and sweetness preference, regardless of oil content, saltiness preference was significantly high in HSS and sweetness in MSS and HSS (P<0.001). For oiliness preference, regardless of content of soy sauce and sugar mixture, LO and MO were significantly higher, and for appearance preference, there was no significant difference among all samples (P<0.01). In general, both Korean and Chinese tended to prefer MS and HO, irrespective of oil content. Especially for Koreans, LSS was the least favorite sample in almost all preference questionnaires. For Chinese, preference scores for LSS and HSS were higher than for Koreans. On the other hand, oil content did not have much effect on consumer preference as compared with contents of soy sauce and sugar mixture.