Nudging the acceptance of insects-fed farmed fish among mature consumers

Abstract

The increased demand for aquaculture products is raising concerns over the impact it has on the environment. Fish-based feed contributes to the unsustainability of aquaculture, as it puts pressure on the current stock of wild fish. Insect-based feed is widely considered a viable replacement for fish-based feed, due to its positive impact on fish nutrition, and its ability to make the system more circular. However, consumer acceptance might be limited, particularly mature consumers, who are typically more reluctant to accept novel foods. Using a Structural Equation Model, this article investigates how information and priming influence the acceptability of insect-farmed fish among Italian consumers aged 55 and over. We show that informing or priming consumers with images of the environment and nature can change consumers’ beliefs about alternative feeds, favoring in turn their attitude toward insect-farmed fish and their consumption intentions. Our findings indicate that behavioral interventions can facilitate the acceptance of novel foods, therefore supporting the development of a more sustainable aquaculture system.

Keywords:

• Aquaculture
• information
• insect-based feed
• mature consumers
• nudges
• structural equation modelling

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Editor (Dr. Asche), and the anonymous referee for the valuable comments. We would also like to thank the participants of the XIV Conference of the International Society of Ecological Economics (2022), and the participants of the LVIII Conference of the Società Italiana di Economia Agraria (2022).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A search on the CORDIS database (https://cordis.europa.eu) using the terms “insects” AND “aquaculture” AND “feed” retrieved 20 projects, 6 of which focusing specifically on insect feed: AQUAEXCEL3.0 (value: EUR 9.9M); AquaIMPACT (EUR 6.7M); ENTOMICSBLUEGROWTH (EUR 71,429); Hexafly (EUR 71,429); IFASA (EUR 71,429); IFASA 2 (EUR 2.5M). All these projects include industrial partners. Insect feeds are also being produced by Innovafeed (https://innovafeed.com), and Protix (https://protix.eu/). More research has funded research on insect feeds for farming, targeting a wider range of animals.

2 https://www.unige.ch/cisa/research/materials-and-online-research/research-material/

3 In the database, these can be identified with the codes P105 and P97.

4 This method estimates factor score coefficients that have mean 0 and variance equal to the squared multiple correlation between the estimated factor scores and the true factor values.

5 We report three different tables, one for each dependent variable, since a unique estimation of the SEM model failed to reach convergence.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Global Food Security programme (BBSCR/NERC/ESRC/Scottish government) [BB/S014195/1].