Table 4.

Correlation coefficients between quality characteristics scored by the surveyed population

	Preference	Shiny coat	Stool	Food smell	Food appearance	Location of pet food production facilities	Cruelty-free	Comprehensive label	Natural ingredients	Meat main ingredient	Fresh meat	Total protein %	Grain free	Well-known brand	High price
Recyclable	0.302	0.297	0.324	0.256	0.228	0.359	0.428	0.414	0.373	0.209	0.209	0.233	0.430	0.305	0.416
High price	0.103 ns	0.218	0.101 ns	0.372	0.411	0.159	0.205	0.183	0.190	0.260	0.122 ns	0.228	0.447	0.616
Well-known brand	0.168	0.177	0.085 ns	0.328	0.367	0.111 ns	0.139 ns	0.126	0.148	0.227	0.194	0.300	0.365
Grain free	0.256	0.372	0.311	0.379	0.382	0.372	0.414	0.371	0.396	0.373	0.304	0.396
High protein %	0.211	0.205	0.249	0.181	0.247	0.331	0.175	0.326	0.345	0.402	0.511
Fresh meat	0.237	0.184	0.302	0.197	0.233	0.398	0.263	0.390	0.480	0.649
Meat main ingredient	0.205	0.250	0.301	0.271	0.285	0.378	0.310	0.435	0.521
Natural ingredients	0.310	0.284	0.384	0.216	0.219	0.584	0.508	0.670
Comprehensive label	0.341	0.344	0.462	0.241	0.262	0.660	0.643
Cruelty-free	0.361	0.396	0.459	0.339	0.352	0.564
Location of pet food production facilities	0.331	0.377	0.494	0.305	0.338
Food appearance	0.373	0.459	0.338	0.761
Food smell	0.426	0.524	0.403
Stool appearance	0.529	0.579
Shiny coat	0.591

ns: non significant correlation. Bold values are considered to be relevantly correlated (> 0.5)