Perceived risks and perceived benefits of different nanotechnology foods and nanotechnology food packaging

Acceptance of nanotechnology applications and satisfaction with food-related life in southern Chile

“…Indeed, a significant portion of the sample (Groups 1 and 3; 56%) preferred the oil with nanotechnology applications in the product and the packaging. This contradicts the findings of Siegrist et al (2008) regarding consumers being able to perceive new technologies applied to food production as riskier than food processed with traditional products. One noteworthy aspect is the complete acceptance of the oil produced with nanoparticles that reduces cholesterol, which is consistent with the acceptance of beef from an animal genetically modified for the same purpose, according to a previous study in Chile .…”

“…Studies conducted in European countries indicate that consumers are still skeptical about buying foods produced using nanotechnology (Reisch et al, 2011;Siegrist et al, 2007Siegrist et al, , 2008Stampfli et al, 2010;Bieberstein et al, 2013;Rollin et al, 2011). The results of these studies show that consumers perceive nanotechnology applications differently, and those that involve the use of nanotechnology in food packaging are more accepted than those that involve the use of nanotechnology in food processing (Siegrist et al, 2007Stampfli et al, 2010;Bieberstein et al, 2013).…”

“…This indicates that the brand helps to reduce the risk of buying foods produced with new technologies, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. Likewise, it has been shown that consumer trust in the food industry plays an important role in the acceptance of these new technologies (Frewer et al, 2011;Siegrist et al, 2008;Stampfli et al, 2010;Bieberstein et al, 2013;Rollin et al, 2011). Price can also be used to reduce the risk associated with the purchase process; however, this behavior was only observed in Group 3 (35.2%), which showed the greatest preference for the highest price.…”

“…According to the conjoint analysis (Table 3), for the entire sample, the attribute of greatest importance during the purchase process was brand, followed by the type of nanotechnology application in the packaging and in the food, and finally, Prior to asking the respondents to put the cards in order, the definition used by Siegrist et al (2008) was read to them: "Nanotechnology is considered one of the key revolutionizing technologies of the 21 st century and refers to a broad range of advanced applications that deal with particles and structures smaller than 100 nm. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter.…”

“…The results of these studies show that consumers perceive nanotechnology applications differently, and those that involve the use of nanotechnology in food packaging are more accepted than those that involve the use of nanotechnology in food processing (Siegrist et al, 2007Stampfli et al, 2010;Bieberstein et al, 2013). Among the factors that affect acceptance of nanotechnology are the perceived risks and benefits (Siegrist et al, 2007Stampfli et al, 2010), knowledge and information regarding nanotechnology (Frewer et al, 2011;Rollin et al, 2011;Roosen et al, 2011), trust in the food industry and government regulations (Frewer et al, 2011;Hosseini et al, 2012;Siegrist et al, 2007Siegrist et al, , 2008Siegrist et al, , 2009Stampfli et al, 2010), and consumer demographics (Siegrist et al, 2007Eurobarometer, 2006).…”