Consumer acceptance of novel food technologies

Abstract

Novel food technologies are important for food security, safety and sustainability. Consumers, however, are often hesitant to accept them. In this narrative Review, we organize the research describing how heuristics and individual differences among consumers influence the acceptance of agri-food technologies. Associations evoked by a food technology, its perceived naturalness and trust in the industry using it influence consumer acceptance. Food neophobia, disgust sensitivity and cultural values are crucial personality factors for explaining individual differences. Using gene technology, nanotechnology, cultured meat and food irradiation as cases, we explore factors that may explain consumers' acceptance or lack of acceptance. Climate change, food supply shocks caused by crises such as pandemics and population growth are imminent threats to the food system. Therefore, disruptive food technologies will be needed to progress towards a more resilient food system. Taking into account the factors influencing consumers' perceptions of novel food technologies during the early stage of development and introduction will hopefully result in a higher acceptance of such technologies.

European Consumers’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Non-Thermally Processed Fruit and Vegetable Products

“…To meet consumers' demand for safe F&V products of high quality, a wide variety of non-thermal processing technologies are under development [3,4]. In this study, focus groups were used to explore factors that influenced consumers' perceptions of non-thermally processed F&V products, comparing across six European countries: Denmark, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Spain, and the Netherlands.…”

“…Lack of knowledge among the participants was one of the major impediments to their acceptance. Participants were found to largely rely on affect heuristic and trust heuristic when building their perceptions towards NTP [3]. When asked to evaluate the risks or benefits of NTP, participants associated with unknown food processing technologies with various food hazards, which evoked feelings of dread and influenced their benefit perceptions or risk judgments.…”

“…One way that participants coped with their lack of knowledge is to rely on their trust in familiar brands or certified labels to reduce the complexity of making choices [18]. Regarding the individual-factors, disgust sensitivity and food culture and safety values were found to further influence the acceptance of NTP and explained the individual differences among participants [3]. Furthermore, consumers are grocery shopping with an ever-expanding perspective on overall health and well-being [19,25].…”

“…Food processing technologies are improved on a continuous basis. Currently, a wide variety of non-thermal processing technologies (NTP) are under development [3,4]. During the processing Table 1.…”

Challenges and Prospects of New Plant Breeding Techniques for GABA Improvement in Crops: Tomato as an Example

“…The emergence of genome editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas has generated great expectations among scientists, breeding companies and the food industry regarding the possibility of changing consumer perceptions of food biotechnology. However, even though the societal acceptance of NPBTs is higher than that of the first GMO crops, currently, “food technology neophobia” still affects many consumers and not only high-income countries ( Farid et al., 2020 ; Siegrist and Hartmann, 2020 ). Often, this confusion is promoted by the same lawmakers that legislatively, as in the case of the European Court of Justice, equate genome-edited crops with the first generation of GMOs, negatively influencing the public perceptions of NPBT products ( Callaway, 2018 ; Zaidi et al., 2019 ).…”