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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main factors that may affect Italian consumers’ willingness to eat insects. Italy is a fairly special case among Western countries: in many Italian regions, there is old traditional food with insects.

Data come from a sample of 456 consumers living in four Italian regions. The empirical investigation involves several steps: modification of class distributions to obtain a balanced sample; model estimation using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator; model evaluation using out-of-sample classification performance measures; and estimation of the “effect” of each explanatory variable via average predictive comparisons. The uncertainty associated with the whole procedure is evaluated using the bootstrap.

The interviewed consumers are generally unwilling to eat insect-based food. However, factors such as previous experience, taste expectations and attitude towards both new food experiences and sustainable food play an important role in shaping individual inclination towards eating insects.

The sample analysed in this study is not representative of the whole national population, as it happens in most papers dealing with entomophagy.

The paper revisits the issue using a relatively large sample and sophisticated statistical methods. The likely average effect of each explanatory variable is estimated and discussed in detail. The results provide interesting insights on how to approach a hypothetical Italian consumer in view of the possible development of a new market for edible insects.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current literature on consumer acceptance of cultured meat and to investigate the main factors that might affect it.

Data were collected from a sample of 490 consumers in Italy, using a web-based survey. The empirical analysis follows an exploratory approach based on the training and checking of a random forest model.

An important finding of this study concerns the overall positive perception of cultured meat on the part of the interviewees in a country that is the fifth-largest meat producer at the European level. Age, environmental and ethical issues, and scepticism about new food technologies are the most important factors that guide consumer acceptance of cultured meat. The results suggest that in order to increase cultured meat acceptance it would be important to inform and educate consumers towards new food and new food production methods.

The sample analysed in this study is not representative of the whole national population, as it happens in most papers dealing with new food.

Although the conclusions of this exploratory study cannot be over-generalized, the results provide interesting insights on how to increase cultured meat acceptance in view of the possible development of a new market for cultured meat.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the market potential of food obtained from olive by-products. The marketing of such by-products (e.g. olive leaves and pulp) is a challenging opportunity for the sustainable development of the sector. Yet, consumer demand is still poorly understood. The paper contributes to filling the knowledge gap with an empirical survey of a sample of Italian consumers.

The authors provide an assessment of consumers’ willingness to accept (WTA) food from olive by-products. The authors collected structured questionnaire from a sample of 289 Italian consumers. The authors asked to consumers their willingness to try a variety of food products containing olive by-products, as a proxy for their WTA the products. In order to investigate the drivers of the average WTA, the authors used the information in the questionnaire to build four constructs of interest: technophobia, neophobia, perception of benefits and awareness about sustainable consumption. The choice of the constructs and the variables was driven by the existing literature.

The paper shows how the WTA food with olive by-products is a general attitude of the consumer, rather than product-specific choice. The results suggest that consumers perceive the use of olive by-products as a new technology for preparing well-known food products. The authors did not find statistical evidence of the wariness of olive by-products as new food products. Technophobia is the most important factor hampering the marketing of olive by-products.

The paper is a first attempt of exploring the topic of WTA food with olive by-products.

This study is in line with the debate concerning the compatibility between the qualitative and quantitative food production objectives. The purpose of this paper is to identify the causal relationship that may exist between public food safety regulations (specifically, the maximum authorised levels of chemical or microbiological contaminants), and the expected price in the spot markets (wholesale markets, for example).

The authors propose a theoretical industrial economic model that identifies the causal link which may exist between public food safety regulations (e.g. the maximum authorised levels of chemical or microbiological contaminants), the expected price in domestic markets, and the rate of exclusion of local producers. This general model allows one to characterize the price formation process in markets subject to maximum residue level constraints by focusing on the role of the official inspection systems established by public authorities.

The authors show how strengthening official controls does not systematically impact negatively on producers’ participation and does not always decrease supply. Moreover, the authors show that reinforcing the maximum permitted contamination thresholds is not always sufficient for ensuring consumer health.

The originality of the model is that it shows how all variables (economic and sanitary variables) interact in the formation of agricultural prices and determine the final size of the productive system (number of active producers). The characterisation of the market price as a function of producers’ investment efforts and of the level of official control reliability allows one to determine both the total supply and the proportion of this supply that is contaminated (i.e. does not comply with the maximum threshold of contamination).