Determinants of Consumers' Acceptance and Adoption of Novel Food in View of More Resilient and Sustainable Food Systems in the EU: A Systematic Literature Review.

This review article aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the main determinants of consumers' acceptance of novel foods (new foods and ingredients) in the EU with emphasis on product's intrinsic properties (sensory characteristics) and individual factors (socio-demographics, perceptive, psychological) by adopting a systematic approach following the PRISMA methodology. Case studies on terrestrial (i.e., insects, cultured meat and other animal origin products, plant-based food including mushrooms, plant-based analogues, pulses, and cereals) and aquatic systems (i.e., algae and jellyfish) are included focusing on age-related and cross-national differences in consumer acceptance of novel foods and ingredients. General trends have emerged that are common to all the novel foods analysed, regardless of their aquatic or terrestrial origin. Aspects such as food neophobia, unfamiliarity, and poor knowledge of the product are important barriers to the consumption of novel foods, while healthiness and environmental sustainability perception are drivers of acceptance. Sensory properties are challenging for more familiar ingredients such as plant-based food (e.g., novel food made by pulses, mushrooms, cereals and pseudocereals). Results are discussed in terms of feasibility of introducing these products in the EU food systems highlighting strategies that can encourage the use of new ingredients or novel foods.

Functional Foods Acceptability: A Consumers' Survey on Bread Enriched with Oenological By-Products.

In recent years, consumers have shown considerable attention to functional foods that can provide various benefits. At the same time, the awareness of the problem of waste generation from the agri-food supply chains has increased; thus, scholars and practitioners are devoting great attention to sustainable food waste management. Within the wine processing, the production phase generates by-products such as marc, grape seeds, stems, and wine lees. In most cases, these by-products are treated as waste rather than as a resource, creating environmental, economic, and social impacts related to their disposal. By contrast, the reuse of oenological by-products in food production can have several health benefits, since they are rich in functional molecules such as fibres, polyphenols, and vitamin E, and can also trigger a circular economy model. The aim of this research is to investigate the acceptance of consumers towards bread enriched with oenological by-products through the application of k-means clustering, providing insights on the characterisation of groups of consumers based on their specific features and declared attitudes. The results showed three different consumers' clusters, highlighting that the acceptance of this enriched bread is not influenced by the consumers' socio-economic features, but it is related to consumers' sensitivity. Therefore, target strategies should be put in place to inform consumers about the benefits associated with the consumption of bread enriched with oenological by-products.

Insects as Novel Food: A Consumer Attitude Analysis through the Dominance-Based Rough Set Approach.

In Western societies, the unfamiliarity with insect-based food is a hindrance for consumption and market development. This may depend on neophobia and reactions of disgust, individual characteristics and socio-cultural background, and risk-perceptions for health and production technologies. In addition, in many European countries, the sale of insects for human consumption is still illegal, although European Union (EU) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are developing regulatory frameworks and environmental and quality standards. This research aims to advance the knowledge on entomophagy, providing insights to improve consumer acceptance in Italy. This is done by carrying out the characterization of a sample of consumers according to their willingness to taste several types of insect-based food and taking into account the connections among the consumers' features. Thus, the dominance-based rough set approach is applied using the data collected from 310 Italian consumers. This approach provided 206 certain decision rules characterizing the consumers into five groups, showing the consumers' features determining their specific classification. Although many Italian consumers are willing to accept only insects in the form of feed stuffs or supplements, this choice is a first step towards entomophagy. Conversely, young Italian people are a niche market, but they can play a role in changing trends.