Imperial College London
Alternate

Dr Yiannis Kountouris

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9316i.kountouris

 
 
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Location

 

106Weeks BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Collins:2019:aesa/saz015,
author = {Collins, C and Vaskou, P and Kountouris, I},
doi = {aesa/saz015},
journal = {Annals of the Entomological Society of America},
pages = {518--528},
title = {Insect food products in the Western world: assessing the potential of a new ‘green’ market},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aesa/saz015},
volume = {112},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Although two billion people already eat insects in the world and the benefits of edible insects are well known, these ‘green’ sources of protein are neither treated as conventional food products nor widely incorporatedinto Western diets. Using a school-based investigation surveying 161 children, aged 6–15, and 114 of theirparents in London, and an online consumer survey with mainly British and French consumers (N = 1,020), this research provides insights into the potential of the insect market in the West. This work supports the idea that incorporating insect food into our diets makes not only environmental but also business sense.A nonnegligible segment of the population surveyed is willing to pay for mealworm minced meat and young children and pre-teens could represent a substantial market segment, as yet unexplored. This analysis points to multiple marketing strategies, such as early exposure, education, reducing the visibility of insect parts, celebrity endorsement, or peer-to-peer marketing, all of which could facilitate the adoption of insect food in the ‘mainstream’ arena, according to the consumer segment being targeted. Generalizations from these results are restricted to an educated and youthful subset of the potential consumer pool and further work remains to understand the patterns of Western consumer acceptance for the range of insect foods.
AU  - Collins,C
AU  - Vaskou,P
AU  - Kountouris,I
DO  - aesa/saz015
EP  - 528
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 0013-8746
SP  - 518
TI  - Insect food products in the Western world: assessing the potential of a new ‘green’ market
T2  - Annals of the Entomological Society of America
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aesa/saz015
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/70201
VL  - 112
ER  -
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