Relationship between Acceptance of Insects as an Alternative to Meat and Willingness to Consume Insect-Based Food-A Study on a Representative Sample of the Polish Population.

Klaudia Modlinska,Dominika Adamczyk,Katarzyna Goncikowska,Dominika Maison,Wojciech Pisula

doi:10.3390/foods10102420

Klaudia Modlinska, Dominika Adamczyk + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10102420

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Abstract

Despite their nutritional and ecological potential, insect-based food is rarely accepted by consumers. There may be a discrepancy between the consumers’ understanding of the need to reduce meat consumption and their personal food preferences. Our goal was to investigate the relationship between the acceptance of insects as a meat substitute, the willingness to buy and consume insect-based food, and the underlying factors. The study was conducted on a representative sample of the Polish population, and as in previous studies, our results showed that men who are more familiar with entomophagy pay more attention to the environmental impact of their food choices, are convenience-orientated and are more willing to accept insects as a meat substitute. However, people with higher levels of food neophobia and disgust sensitivity and lower levels of variety-seeking tendency are less willing to consume insects. Our study showed that the acceptance of insects as an alternative to meat (general perspective) does not translate into a willingness to buy and eat them (individual perspective). Consumers who declare their acceptance of insects as a meat substitute might not be willing to purchase insects for their consumption.

Highlights

Growing evidence suggests that reducing meat consumption is inevitable due to the environmental impact and ethical issues linked to meat production, the consumption of meat substitutes among Western consumers is still low (e.g., [1])
Familiarity with eating insects correlated with the importance of food convenience (r = 0.160, p < 0.001)
In line with findings from previous studies, the highest likelihood of consuming insect-based foods has been observed in persons with a low level of food neophobia and low disgust sensitivity but with a high level of variety-seeking tendency

Summary

Introduction

Growing evidence suggests that reducing meat consumption is inevitable due to the environmental impact and ethical issues linked to meat production, the consumption of meat substitutes among Western consumers is still low (e.g., [1]). Even in several developing countries such as Kenya, where inhabitants are culturally accustomed to consuming certain types of insects, attempts at introducing novel insect-based food often meet with resistance [7]. Persons with high levels of this psychological trait are among those most resistant to the idea of ingesting insects (e.g., [11,12,13]). These findings demonstrate the importance of familiarity with a particular product for its acceptance as food [14,15,16,17]. Prior exposure to the consumption of insects creates an indicator of cultural appropriateness of this kind of food [18,19,20] and translates into greater willingness to ingest it [21]

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