Team:SCU-China/Questionnaire

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Background

In view of our design based on the genetic modification of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we urgently need to be in the following two aspects of public awareness, one is the people to understand the degree of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and demand, the second is investigation learned that people know about genetically engineered products, thus to judge whether our products both at the same time in the practical business development prospects, and to improve our project. Therefore, we designed the questionnaire based on the preliminary assumption of the subject -- using yeast to produce abscisic acid to solve the problem of late spring cold.
https://www.wenjuan.com/s/z6FbEr7/

Results

First of all, the use of yeast in people's daily life was investigated. By knowing how often people eat pasta, we can know whether they will make fermented pasta at home.

According to the survey results, when we verify whether age is significantly related to the frequency of eating pasta each week and people's acceptance of pasta, the correlation coefficient shows that there is a significant correlation between age and pasta liking. With the increase of age, people's preference for pasta presents an increasing trend. In contrast, the young people did not show a fanatical love to pasta. With the development of diversified diet, young people have a variety of choices in their daily diet. People's choice of food and drink is no longer limited to pasta and rice. In order to further understand the current situation of Chinese people eating pasta and making fermented pasta, we also analyzed the results from other perspectives.

According to the statistics of the frequency of people eating pasta, the majority of people eat pasta 2-4 times a week. Some people eat pasta 4-6 times. It is not difficult to conclude that pasta is still one of the important choices in people's daily diet. China, as one of the first countries to grow wheat, has bred unique pasta culture in various provinces for thousands of years. When it comes to Tianjin, people will think of Goubuli steamed stuffed bun. Just like Sichuan Chongqing area where we live, everyone who comes here will taste "Chongqing small noodles" and "Yibin burning noodles". Pasta culture has long been an important part of Chinese food culture.

Secondly, when it comes to the cooking of fermented pasta, cooking is an indispensable activity in people's daily life. If we want to understand the universality of yeast use, a good way is to investigate the frequency of people making fermented pasta at home. Through the questionnaire survey, we know that the mode of people's pasta making frequency is once in a while, which proves that yeast is still Chinese Indispensable items in the process of food production.

Through the analysis of the above survey results, Chinese people try to make and eat fermented pasta products in their daily life. Therefore, the yeast-based products designed in this project are practical in life. However, in the survey, we also found that some areas did not know enough about yeast. Therefore, we designed the follow-up human practice. We produced a simple and easy to understand popular science video to let more people understand yeast and understand our topic.
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The most important step to transform products into commodities is to investigate people's acceptance of it. In recent years, various popular science articles on "genetically modified food" have emerged one after another, and people's attitude towards genetically modified food has also changed. In order to better grasp the social views on genetically modified food, we have designed relevant issues for investigation.

From this questionnaire survey, we can know that the public has a high acceptance of genetically modified food. Among the survey results, about 62% of the respondents accept GM food, while only about 20% of the people say they don't accept GM food. At the same time, we also noticed that the proportion of only 35% of people choose to buy genetically modified food. On the one hand, although the popularization of genetically modified food is gradually increasing, it is a few people who really understand the principle of genetically modified food after all. The general public will pay more attention to the "health" of food. Because the fear of genetically modified food has not been completely eliminated. People will question its safety. On the other hand, transgenic technology is definitely developed in recent years, and its application in the field of food is not long. Therefore, it will take some time for the public to fully accept genetically modified food.

After that, we also made a certain survey on people's specific needs for yeast. Through the questionnaire results, we can be sure that the public have certain requirements for more versatile yeasts. In the process of product improvement in the later stage, we considered the modification in the design, including adding the PA pathway to make it have a wide range of functions, and the meets the needs of the group. In order to better understand the characteristics of yeast used by people in their daily life, our team also went to Angel Yeast Company to exchange experience, which makes us have a deeper understanding of the characteristics of this yeast which is widely used in the market.
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At the same time, considering that the price of our products may be higher than that of ordinary yeast, we conducted a survey on people's acceptance of yeast prices. People don’t show too much resistance to a certain range of price increases. Therefore, the market can accept yeast products with special functions and slightly higher prices. However, the main customer group we are facing is the ordinary people. If there are certain requirements on cost to improve the functionality, the price improving should be well controlled and the price can't exceed the ordinary product too much.

Finally, in view of the fact that the questionnaire can't target our target customers, the farmers who are easy to be affected by the late spring cold, directly, we conducted an in-depth interview on farmhouse entertainment.
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Analysis

The questionnaire on public acceptance of genetically modified yeast was made and released on the platform of "Wen Juan Wang". A total of 440 questionnaires were recovered, including 440 valid ones.

1. Relationship between regions of China and yeast knowledge

We determine the public's understanding of yeast by their answer about the question "Do you need live yeast in your life experience?"

Fig 1. The pubilc's undersanding of yeast of different regions.

Figure 1 shows the understanding of yeast in each region of China. It is not difficult to find that the Chinese people as a whole have a high degree of understanding of yeast, and the proportion of people who understand yeast in some regions is even as high as 75%, while the understanding of some regions such as northeast and northwest is relatively low at about 40%. The data analysis shows that the potential market of yeast engineering in China is relatively broad, which provides support for the market feasibility of our products. However, attention should be paid to the influence of the education level in different regions on the popularity of yeast. Therefore, we made the popular science video.

2. Relationship between age and yeast knowledge

Fig 2. The percentage of understanding of live yeast in hair by age group in China

Figure 2 shows the percentage of understanding of live yeast in hair by age group in China. The data analysis showed that yeast was well understood in all age groups. However, from the data that do not understand yeast at all, the proportion of young people under 23 years old who do not understand is relatively high, which we will discuss in detail in the later analysis.

3. Public's acceptance of genetically modification

In order to further understand our target group, we excluded people who did not know much about yeast and conducted statistics on the acceptance degree of gene modification.

Fig 3. The acceptability of GM foods among the Chinese population

Figure 3 shows the acceptability of GM foods among the Chinese population. About 62% of them accept GM foods, while only about 20% of them do not accept GM foods. However, only 35% of those who said they accept GM foods would definitely buy it, and nearly 18% of the overall samples remained neutral. These two groups of people are likely to buy, and the percentage they occupy are high. Therefore, improving product’s quality (functionality, taste, etc.) and reducing costs (thus to decrease market prices) is important, at the meantime, an effective advertise plays a crucial role for these groups and determines the overall sales volume of our product.

4. Public demand for genetically modified yeast

Fig 4. The main concerns of the respondents about the new yeast.

Figure 4 shows the main concerns of the respondents about the new yeast. Although high expectations were shown for both nutritional value and fermentation efficiency, product shelf-life, etc., it can be found that people were more concerned about nutritional value. Therefore, based on this result, we designed the synthesis pathway of PA.

5. Statistics on the reasons of respondents' willingness to buy our products

Fig 5. The main concerns of the respondents about the new yeast.

Figure 5 shows the statistics of whether the respondents are willing to buy our products or not. From the statistical results, we conclude that the product itself is green and harmless is the basic demand of people, at the same time, as the previous data provide, genetic modification is not the main reason for not buying, so we can say that the potential purchasing power of our product is still high, the main problem is how to improve the competitiveness of our product against ordinary yeast (i.e. cost performance). In addition, many people with unclear purchasing attitude are very concerned about the social reputation of the product, therefore, increasing publicity and improving customer service quality are also important to increase sales. After describing the product's features (safe, genetically modified, has special useful features, higher price), 64% of people chose that they would buy it, which is not a high percentage for us. Despite the promises for all the other aspects except the price had been made, nearly 26% still chose to be unsure. Comparing the previous statistics and conclusions, the result proves once again that the price of our product is a crucial factor in purchasing power. We can assume if the product can be further improved to enhance the previously mentioned issues, a likelihood of purchase that is about 80% to 90% would means a good prospect of markets.

6. Discussion and analysis of problems

As for the problems found in 2, we further analyzed and found a more interesting phenomenon, that is, age and cooked wheaten food (or pasta) fitness have a significant correlation, and young people are relatively less enthusiastic about pasta. We reasonably analyzed, that is, because young people don't do, then most of the young people of the frequency in a range, another elderly sample led to the lack of the popularity of the age and a strong correlation, is not a universal specification, however, if the number of conformity Angle consideration, most of those surveyed have cooked wheaten food, and accept genetically modified yeast, linear analysis for this kind of data clustering is too strong and the data is not good to distinguish applicability is poor; The degree of linear fitting is not very good when regression function is used. Another common method, the matrix method, is not very good (see the results below). To sum up, mode analysis may be more applicable in the data analysis of this survey.

Fig 6-8. Questionnaire Mode Analysis.

Q3 How often do you eat fermented cooked wheaten food? (such as steamed stuffed buns, steamed bread, etc.)

Fig 9. Q3 Analysis.1:Everyday ;2:Always (4-6 times a week);3:Sometimes (2-4 times a week);4:Seldom (Less than once a week);5:Never

According to the specific statistics of the frequency of people eating pasta, it can be seen from the mode that the frequency of the vast majority of people eating pasta is 2 ~ 4 times a week, while the frequency of non-ordinary people using pasta reaches 4 ~ 6 times a week. It is not difficult to draw the conclusion that pasta still occupies a large proportion in the dietary choices of Chinese people. As one of the earliest wheat-growing countries in China, for thousands of years, various provinces and regions have bred a unique style of pasta culture. Take Sichuan and Chongqing regions where we live as an example, every tourist here will try "Chongqing small noodles", "Yibin burning noodles"... Pasta culture has long been an important piece of the Chinese food culture puzzle.

Q4 Do you make fermented pasta by yourself?

Fig 10. Q4 Analysis.4 Everyday;5 Always;6 Sometimes;7 Selsom;8 Never;

Cooking is also an indispensable part of people's daily life. If we want to understand the universality of yeast use, a good way is to investigate the frequency of people making fermented pasta at home. Through questionnaire survey, we know that the frequency of people making pasta is “Sometimes”, which proves that yeast is still indispensable in the process of Chinese food production goods.

Summary and outlook

In general, given the fermentation pasta on the "Chinese table" still has a pivotal position, as the basis of product is our team to yeast has its rationality, to a certain extent, so that our products have good prospects for development, at the same time, it is important to note that although people has other more features for yeast gave high expectations, but overall for GM products purchasing desire is not very strong, this is the prompt we should considering we can design more genetically engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae if people have good acceptance, However, this problem is also a common dilemma faced by the development of genetically modified food at present. In order to fundamentally solve this problem, it is necessary for the society to carry out scientific popularization of genetically modified food.

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  • College of Life Science in Sichuan University,
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