Consumer acceptance of fermented sausages made from boars is not distracted by respective information

•Acceptability of two fermented sausages was investigated among 478 consumers.•No impact of label information on acceptability•Increasing androstenone levels slightly lowered average liking.•Average acceptability was good for both salamis.•Comment analysis revealed a low number of boar taint-related remarks.

This study investigated the impact of two information conditions and two androstenone concentrations on the acceptability of fermented sausages made from boar meat. Two batches of salamis were produced by mixing bellies and lean meat resulting in average androstenone levels of 0.408 μg/g vs. 1.585 μg/g melted fat, respectively. Skatole levels were kept below 0.05 μg/g melted fat in the final products. The consumers were provided with either the information that the products consisted of 100% pork or 100% boar meat. In total, 478 visitors of an animal husbandry fair, assumed to be familiar with the consequences of not castrating male piglets, evaluated the salami following a monadic between-subject design. The information did not significantly affect the hedonic scores. The percentage of dislikes was very low, i.e. 3 vs. 6% (p = 0.24) for salami LOW and HIGH, respectively. The batch with lower androstenone content was liked slightly but significantly better (p = 0.03).