Factors Influencing Consumption Intention of Insect-Fed Fish among Italian Respondents.

The rise in the world's demand for fish is increasingly met by aquaculture. However, this sector still shows various criticalities in terms of sustainability of practices, first and foremost, that of feed availability. Nowadays, the use of insect meal represents one of the potential sustainable solutions, but consumption intention of fish fed with insect meal and the factors affecting it have not yet been adequately understood. This study investigates 318 Italian consumers' intentions to buy fish fed with insect meal using an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior, including consumers' moral attitude and sustainability consciousness as additional constructs. The results of structural equation models show that consumers' high sustainability consciousness (6.16 on a scale from 1 to 7) does not influence their consumption intention of this product. Also, the two moderating variables involved in the model, i.e., the country of origin and price sensitivity, do not significantly affect consumers' intentions. Since the analysis demonstrates that, for consumers, insect meal-fed fish conforms to their moral principles and a significant positive attitude toward this practice it could be argued that fish fed with insect meal can match the demand from consumers who feel responsible for their consumer behavior. Although the limited area of investigations and the high education of interviewed do not allow for generalizing of the results, this paper provides pivotal food for thought for companies, policymakers, and academics responding to previous research calls on understanding the role of some constructs of consumption intention and highlighting the levers on which to act to foster the consumption intention of insect-fed fish.

Seafood Choice and Consumption Behavior: Assessing the Willingness to Pay for an Edible Sea Urchin.

Consumers' behavior towards sea urchin and preferences towards their origin certification and place of consumption may condition their market. In this context, the aim of this research was to elicit the preferences and perceptions of Italian sea urchin dishes using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) approach. A field survey of 453 respondents in Apulia (southern Italy) was conducted for this purpose. The DCE revealed that the origin certification of sea urchin provided Apulia's consumers a high utility with a great pleasurable service in restaurants in which this species was served as a principal dish or seasoned with pasta or pizza. The DCE also showed that the consumption utility of sea urchin was related to a greater influence by place of purchase, place of consumption, technique of conservation, appearance, quality label, fishing zone, low price, male buyer, and, finally, medium and high incomes. Furthermore, Apulian consumers were willing to pay EUR 10.53/dish as an overall average for safe and certified sea urchin consumption. Given this, this research may promote the creation of a local sea urchin brand through the adoption of a market policy and a particular regulation related to the certification of origin, enhancing the competitiveness of this marine heritage species.

Data for the analysis of willingness to pay for Italian beaches.

The data presented herein relates to the article entitled "Willingness to pay for management and preservation of natural, semi-urban and urban beaches in Italy" [1]. Data of several Italian beaches are collected considering shape, anthropogenic characteristics, use, activity and urbanization levels. Descriptive statistics of beach characteristics and beach users are presented, on the basis of about 5000 interviews.