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The purpose of this paper is to explore the readiness of young Italian people to consume insects and the psychosocial determinants associated with edible insect consumption, in order to evaluate whether insect-based food could be an alternative food source.

An explorative study was conducted, using focus group interviews as the technique for data collection. In total, 32 consumers, aged 20-35 years took part in five focus group interviews.

Significant determinants comprised appearance, farming and sustainability. Participants’ willingness to eat insect-based food is dependent on the form in which the products are presented to them. Crustaceans were frequently mentioned as a comparison in terms of distaste. Lack of practice in preparation was a major barrier to consumption. To expand consumption participants suggested an active role for public health institutions. Even though with some uncertainty, there are some people prepared to consume insects.

Due to the restricted size of the sample survey, the findings are considered as exploratory research. Further investigation is required among other young adults in order to delineate promotional strategies.

There is a lack of information regarding the willingness to consume edible insects in Italy. Due to the restricted size of the sample survey, the findings are considered as exploratory research. Further investigation is required among other young adults in order to delineate promotional strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitude of Italian consumers towards insect consumption. The use of insects as alternative protein source is claimed to be a solution to the environmental concerns over the production of animal proteins and to food security issues. Studies conducted in other European countries report that consumers are quite resistant to the introduction of insect-based products in their diet, although those who are more concerned about environmental and health show some interest towards insect consumption.

The authors conducted a survey with a 14-item questionnaire on 201 consumers, selected with a systematic sampling within a shopping mall. The factors influencing respondents’ attitude towards insect consumption were studied by means of a logistic regression.

Results show that 31 per cent of respondents were willing to try insects as food, while 5 per cent had already tried. Familiarity with foreign food, higher education and gender (male) positively influenced consumer attitude to entomophagy. Instead, the fear of insects and the idea that the taste might be disgusting were the main barriers to the willingness to try entomophagy, although these issues were mainly raised by consumers who had no direct experience with insects eating.

The paper is a first attempt of exploring the topic of entomophagy in the Italian context. Most of the results were consistent with previous research carried out in other countries. However, some barriers to insect consumption seem to be stronger in Italy than elsewhere.

Climate change and global population growth are threatening the sustainability of hospitality food systems. Foodservice organizations are seeking an optimal solution for this problem. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization proposed edible insects as a solution, yet the “yuck” factor discourages consumers from actively endorsing this option. Thus, this study aims to find ways to increase consumer acceptance of edible insects.

A 2 (message framing: hedonic vs utilitarian) × 2 (celebrity endorsement: absence vs presence) × 2 (social support: low vs high) between-subjects factorial design experiment was conducted.

The significant three-way interaction effects show that when celebrity endorsement is absent, there is no difference in restaurant advocacy (RA) and experience satisfaction between utilitarian and hedonic message framing, regardless of low (vs high) social support. However, when celebrity endorsement is present and social support is not lacking, a hedonic (vs a utilitarian) message had more significant effects on dependent variables. Conversely, when celebrity-endorsed messages receive high social support, utilitarian (vs hedonic) messages had a more substantial effect on the outcome variables.

This study contributes to alternative protein and associated consumer psychology and hospitality marketing literature by introducing marketing strategies for edible insects. By demonstrating the three-way interaction effects of message framing, celebrity, endorsement and social support on RA and experience satisfaction, this study could demonstrate some boundary conditions to consider when applying celebrity endorsement strategies (e.g. message framing and social support). Also, by addressing the effects of social support, this study builds upon the lack of hospitality literature on online social support.

The current rates of population growth necessitate the need for more sustainable food production. The breeding of insects could be a possibility. Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a clear increase in the interest in breeding insects in Europe. The main products from insect farms are insects and proteins, but insect farms also produce insect frass (insect feces). Due to its high nutritional content, insect frass has a great potential to be upcycled for the production of fertilizers, compost material, soil improvers, or growth enhancers. The use of insect frass as fertilizer can help limit the use of agrochemicals. By reintroducing valuable material into the food production chain, the land application of insect frass is consistent with the circular economy’s principles. Before insect frass can be introduced to the market as a fertilizer, sanitizing treatment is needed in order to eliminate possible microorganisms that are harmful to health. In Europe, no legislation specifically developed for the use of insect frass as fertilizer has been formulated yet. Due to the absence of such European Union (EU) legislation, the possibilities of upcycling frass remain relatively limited. In this case study, focus is on the regulatory barriers of upcycling frass in Denmark.

Broader acceptance of entomophagy (i.e. human consumption of insects) will depend on factors that impact consumers’ perceptions of edible insects. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a broad-based information session would affect consumers’ perceptions and attitudes about an edible insect product.

During a taste testing session, preceded or followed by an information session about entomophagy, participants rated the organoleptic characteristics of two bread samples on nine-point hedonic scales. The two bread samples were identical, though one was faux-labelled as containing an insect product.

Generalised linear model (GLM) analysis showed effects of gender, information session exposure, entomophagy familiarity, and entomophagy experience on participants’ ratings of the samples. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney ranked sum tests showed that appearance, flavour, and overall liking were significantly better rated for the bread sample labelled as insect free by participants who attended the presentation a priori. Potential ways to improve information content and delivery in favour of encouraging dietary shifts are discussed.

This study shows that information about insect-based products could change consumers’ perceptions of such products. The results provide clues regarding how the food industry can adapt communication for target audiences.

Actual edible insect products were not used in this study. Paradoxically, it is the first to show the impact of an information session on the acceptability of edible insect products, by revealing participants’ perceptual expectations.

Edible insects are increasingly recognized as great food resources of the future. Entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, has a predicted market by 2030 of nearly $8 billion. But this market could grow even more with the acceptance of insects as food by Western consumers, as an alternative to conventional protein sources. In this context, the authors aim to collect and analyze information about consumers' perception of insects as food in Brazil, through the word association task.

In total, 751 participants agreed to complete the word association task in relation to entomophagy through an online questionnaire. They had to write down the first five words or terms that came to their minds when they thought of eating insects.

Individual mentions were categorized according to their similarities and/or proximity. Based on this grouping the authors identified six dimensions, with emphasis on “hedonic attitudes and feelings”, “cultural aspects” and “exotic”. The study concludes that Brazilians see insect consumption as belonging to another culture, not Western.

Few studies have explored the association of words in relation to entomophagy, especially in Brazil. This article aims to fill this gap, using this methodology applied to the Brazilian public.

Entomophagy (i.e. human insect consumption) is seen as one promising route to substantially reduce food-related carbon footprints as insects can be produced at a fraction of the carbon emitted by traditional Western meat production (e.g. beef, pork, poultry). In this light, the purpose of this paper is to address how prices may affect preferences for insects as food.

Drawing on consumer research on “positive” functions of prices (e.g. the widely held belief that price and quality are positively correlated), the authors present two behavioural experiments that manipulated price cues to estimate the effect on expectations, eating behaviour and willingness-to-pay as central preference indicators.

Consistent with the predictions, high prices as initial anchors positively affect food preferences. Furthermore, they incur a positive spill-over effect to subsequent consumption of insects that are unprocessed (i.e. truffles in which mealworms are visible in their entity) and for which no price information is available. Additionally, the authors show that the positive effects of high prices on preferences are muted if prices are artificially lowered (e.g. by means of government subsidies, Experiment 2).

Taken together, the authors show that preferences for novel foods such as insects can be promoted by systematically taking into account behavioural economic theories. This suggests that behavioural theory can be used to reap environmental benefits of entomophagy.

This research links behavioural economics with the actual consumption of insects and therefore complements survey research on behavioural intentions.

Edible insects have emerged as a promising inexpensive option to address malnutrition among vulnerable groups in the world. However, it is not clear whether including insects in diets can improve health outcomes. This paper aimed to investigate the impact of edible insect consumption on human health.

A search was conducted in PubMed Central, BioMed Central, Plosone, Cochrane, Google Scholar, Google Search and bibliographies for all human studies on the impact of edible insect consumption on human health published from January 1990 to April 2018.

Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria. Consumption of cereals fortified with edible insects improved iron status and growth in infants and led to the development of life threatening anaphylactic reactions in sensitive people.

Edible insects are nutritious. More rigorous studies are needed to confirm nutrient bioavailability, acceptability and nutritional benefits in humans.

This review shows that the utilization of edible insects as food promotes desirable health outcomes, but caution must be taken to prevent allergic reactions in some cases.

Edible insects might be the meat of the future. However, promoting insects as food, at least in western countries, is not an easy task. Segmenting consumers into various similarly behaving groups and targeting them separately is the first step to more successfully promoting insect cuisine. By taking a cross-cultural perspective on the topic of entomophagy and investigating the impact of different cultural settings, additional insights may be revealed that can be used to develop marketing strategies. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Using survey data from Switzerland (N=542) and Thailand (N=500), a hierarchical cluster analysis yielded four consumer segments in each country.

Interestingly, in both countries, the segments themselves can be named identically and accordingly to Roger’s diffusion of innovation theory: early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. However, the size of the segments and the people within these corresponding segments are quite different sociodemographically and in some of the investigated psychographic scales, such as food neophobia. The authors conclude that consumers in countries with an entomophagy tradition behave quite differently from those without one.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first cross-cultural consumer segmentation study on the topic of entomophagy. Based on these results, initial conclusions can be drawn on how to successfully target the specific segments.

This study aims to examine diners’ behavioral intention to visit an edible insect restaurant, which is known to play an important role in sustainability, by integrating the theory of planned behavior and the norm activation theory.

A total of 439 samples were collected in South Korea. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.

The attitudes were influenced by subjective norms. Intentions were affected by the attitudes, the subjective norms and the perceived behavioral control. In addition, the five dimensions of cognitive triggers, which include environmental awareness, ascribed responsibility, biospheric value, environmental concern and perceived effectiveness, positively affected personal norms, and the personal norms positively influenced behavioral intentions.

It is an important practical implication of this study that tourism practitioners were delivered with the knowledge of establishing marketing strategies based on the destination’s green image of insect restaurants.

This study is expected to contribute to the extant knowledge, which will enable an understanding of the sustainability values of edible insect restaurants, and it will guide tourism practitioners to establish effective sustainable practices for the tourism industry.