## 2 Materials and Methods
### Consumer Testing
#### 2.6.1 Participants  
Consumer testing was conducted in the first week of February 2022 at the sensory suite in the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork, with a group of 105 consumers. Participants were recruited using a convenience sampling method from a UCC database. Consumers received a EUR 20 voucher incentive as a thank you for their participation in the study.  
The study group (Table 3) was dominated by females (64.8%) under the age of 24. Almost half (51.4%) of the participants held a third-level degree or higher, while 43.8% were undergraduate students. The distribution between genders was not equal, but similar to that reported by [PERSON] [16]. However, women generally outperform men in sensory abilities related to food perception [29; 30].  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Feature \({}^{\star}\)**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Group**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Participants**} \\ \cline{3-4}  & & **Number (\(n\))** & **Percentage (\%)** \\ \hline Total & & 105 & 100.0 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Gender} & women & 68 & 64.8 \\  & men & 37 & 31.2 \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Age} & 19–24 years & 76 & 72.4 \\  & 25–44 years & 26 & 24.8 \\  & 45–65 years & 2 & 1.9 \\  & 65 years and over & 1 & 0.9 \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Education} & upper secondary & 5 & 4.8 \\  & third-level non-degree & 46 & 43.8 \\  & third-level degree and higher & 54 & 51.4 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Dwelling place} & city & 67 & 63.8 \\  & urban town & 21 & 20.0 \\  & rural area & 17 & 16.2 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Financial situation in own opinion} & healthy & 59 & 56.2 \\  & okay & 40 & 38.1 \\  & tight & 6 & 5.7 \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Burger consumption frequency} & never & 3 & 2.8 \\  & once or twice a month & 59 & 56.2 \\  & three-four times a month & 24 & 22.9 \\  & once a week & 15 & 14.3 \\  & two or three times a week & 4 & 3.8 \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Burger consumption venue} & at my home or at friend’s house & 53 & 50.5 \\  & fast food outlet & 35 & 33.3 \\ \cline{1-1}  & gourmet burger outlet & 12 & 11.4 \\ \cline{1-1}  & street food vendors & 3 & 2.9 \\ \cline{1-1}  & other food service venue or place & 2 & 1.9 \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Type of used burgers} & hand-made (prepared from scratch) & 43 & 40.9 \\ \cline{1-1}  & refrigerated beef patties & 47 & 44.8 \\ \cline{1-1}  & frozen beef patties & 15 & 14.3 \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Level of habitual dietary salt intake} & average salt intake & 56 & 53.3 \\ \cline{1-1}  & higher salt intake & 49 & 46.7 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \({}^{\star}\)Stratification of socio-demographical features according to Central Statistics Office in Ireland.  
\end{table}
Table 3: Characteristics of participants (n = 105).  
The majority of participants (63.8%) lived in a big city, while a fifth person lived in an urban town (20.0%) or a rural area (16.2%). Most of the participants declared that their financial situation was healthy (56.4%) or okay (38.1%). More than half of the participants (56.2%) consume burgers once or twice a month, while almost every fourth (22.9%) of the subjects consume burgers 3-4 times a month. Most consumers eat burgers most often either at home, at a friend's house (50.5%), or at a fast food outlet (33.3%). Hand-made beef patties (40.9%) and refrigerated ones (44.8%) were the most popular in a study group, while only 14.3% of the participants used frozen patties.