Consumer acceptability of alternative foods: a study of processed cricket-based foods in Vietnam

Abstract

As the population is overgrowing, the pressure on food security is also increasing globally. Many countries worldwide have considered insects as an alternative to traditional food sources. This study used data from 110 Vietnamese consumers and the Continent Valuation Method to assess consumers’ acceptability and willingness to pay for cricket-based food products: cricket protein powders, sausages, and burgers. The survey results showed that 75% of the respondents knew cricket-based food as street foods or regional specialties. However, processed cricket-based are quite new in the Vietnamese market as 68.2%, 63.6%, and 62.7% of the surveyed consumers were unaware of cricket protein powders, sausages, and burgers, respectively. Furthermore, this paper identified that the acceptability of using cricket protein powder, cricket sausage, cricket burger, and cricket mayonnaise was 71%, 65%, 60%, and 58%, respectively. The positive impacts of consumer understanding and attitudes on the acceptability of cricket-based products were confirmed as they were consistently significant in all four logistic regression models in this study. Finally, the calculated willingness to pay for these cricket-based products was 471,999 VND/kg (protein powders), 44,153 VND/250gr (cricket sausages), 44,153 VND/portion (cricket burgers). These results imply that cricket-based foods have the potential to become a practical business, but firms need to invest in promotion and pricing to be successful in the Vietnamese market. Besides, this study’s limitations were that respondents were unfamiliar with the asked cricket products and did not have an adequate basis for articulating their true value.