The population in the world is continuously increasing and expecting to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 (UN, 2018), which is bringing several different challenges to the humankind in terms of sustainability and maintaining the current lifestyle for the years to come. The rapid growth in human population will have an impact on the human food consumption and food safety (Gahukar,2011; Dossey,2013; Oonincx et.al 2010). Countless news articles have been written on global issues in the past years with the ambition of informing and altering behavior of people to make a positive impact. Among the suggestions for ensuring a sustainable future of food, entomophagy – the eating of insects have received increased attention from academical research and media coverage.1 Entomophagy, the description of harvest, preparation and consuming of insects are considered normal and an important part of the daily consumed nutritional content for over 3000 ethnic groups (Ramos-Elorduy, 2009). While the eating of algae and lab produced meat are further suggestions for solving the food crisis in the future, entomophagy has already been introduced several thousand years, and the practice is still common in Asia, Africa and Latin America. (CISR, 2018; Laaninen, 2016; Hartmann et al., 2015).2 The practice of eating insects is a phenomenon approaching western culture both through being a novelty food, but also through being an alternative source of proteins. The EU’s approach in this context has been to partly allow insect-based food in its markets through a legislation starting from the beginning of 2018. Insect-based food has a wide range in terms of products and includes cricket flour bread, mealworm
1 The United Nations have identified food security to be of similar importance as climate-change issues, and poverty as the most significant global issues (UN,2017).
2 The consumption of algae reached new heights, mainly through the evidence of health benefits through algae-derived food products (Wells et. al, 2016). With a direct presence in training related edibles and a nourishment for farmed fish, arguments for an increased use of algae in human nutrition revolve around health benefits and a positive sustainable harvest and up-scaling (Norambuena et al., 2015). Cultured meat on the other hand have yet to be commercialized as it has not yet reached the public market although 30 independent labs are working on it (Flynn,2012).
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protein bars and locust burger patty. The benefits of insect-based food have already been identified and contributes to the idea of introducing entomophagy to European customers. Reasons for advocating entomophagy and insect-based food can be supported through two aspects. In the worldwide agriculture sector, 70% of land use is related to livestock production which claims more than 70% of the available freshwater in the world (FAO, 2006; Pimentel et al, 2014; WWAP,2018).
Rearing of insects requires lower resources in terms of water and land use than traditional beef and cattle farming, proposing the environmental benefits with regards to a worsening environmental situation in the world. Secondly, the nutrition values in insects are found to be high, especially with regards to protein and vitamins (Belluco et al., 2013; van Huis, 2012; Kouřimská &
Adámková, 2016). This lays the foundation for the beneficial health aspects of introducing insect-based food. As the idea of cutting down an unsustainable consumption of meat is a noble idea in theory, it will, in turn be the consumers who decide to what degree entomophagy can be introduced in the European market and how much of the traditional food sources it will compliment.
Different European countries operated with different regulations towards insect food. For example, bug burgers served in the Netherlands have been banned in Italy since 2003. Through the new legislation, the EU now has a common regulation for entomophagy, creating a new market with standardized rules. The European market is also characterized as a wealthy market, with a population exceeding 500 million people which could offer benefits in terms of scalability and customers with stable financial conditions for products linked to entomophagy (EC, 2018).
Although the consumption of insect-based food in Europe is likely to be a small contributor towards the world food security, trends originating from European markets can potentially be a driver of global change at a later stage. An example of such a cultural driver already occurring can be seen in the introduction of sushi to western markets, where demand from traveling Japanese
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businessmen motivated businesses to serve this in Western countries (Bestor, 2000). With time and information-communication being crucial for the conversion of customer skepticism and eventual success, sushi is now a dish offered in high-class restaurants and daily grocery stores both in the American and European market.
This paper will examine what motivational factors European consumers weigh in a purchasing process on insect-based food. The discovery and analysis of motivations can also can also be ground for marketing advices for the communication and information process of the product to European customers in terms of segmentation. Existing research on entomophagy is limited as insect food or insect-based food have had limited access on the European market, however consumer acceptance and profiling have been the main focus points. With an increased interest on entomophagy from governmental institutions, foundations, and businesses operating in the food sector, multiple forces are endeavoring on the question of whether entomophagy has a future in the European market. This paper seeks to contribute on this question by broadening the research on insect-based food and complementing it with marketing theory and analysis of the motivational factors needed to be considered.
By conducting explorative interviews with potential customers and summarizing the individual factors of importance to purchase insect-based food, the most frequent mentioned and highest weighted factors can be deducted and measured through the quantitative analysis. While the motivations for purchasing are central in the interviews, initial associations, thoughts and perceptions can contribute to a holistic understanding of the interview objects opinion on insect-based food. Based on the findings from the initial qualitative research, a survey was developed for an investigative examination of the motivational factors. Attitude towards insect-based food is divided into two categories based on the qualitative results, hedonic and utilitarian. The attitudes
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are a construct of several motivations, whereas four of them have been found in the qualitative research and used to identify and segment future potential consumers of insect-based food in Europe. Based on attitudinal segmentation, the potential market can be examined, and marketing communication correctly advertised.
The next section will discuss the potential of entomophagy in Europe as an outcome of the change in legislation. Classification of insects and insect-based food is carried out together with defining the scope of this study in terms of insect as feed. Chapter three will give an overview of the current literature on the topic of entomophagy and summarize the conclusive findings. Chapter four proposes a research question to be answered and explains the research design and methodical approach of the study. Chapter five presents the findings in both the qualitative and quantitative research. Chapter six summarizes the key findings and discusses marketing implications based on the findings. Chapter concludes the research and reviews how the thesis answers the research questions.
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