Exploration of consumer acceptance of insects as food in Poland

In the last decade, increasing attention has been focused on entomophagy in Europe. However, Western societies rarely experience insects as a food source. Depending on the country, the approach to entomophagy is variables. This study was performed to assess the perception of entomophagy in the Polish population and comparison with other European societies. An online survey was conducted with a final sample of 419 participants. Several variables were established, and their influence on the acceptance of insect was analysed by applying the Chi-square test of independence. We found that the respondents had limited knowledge about entomophagy; hence, willingness to eat insects is limited by unawareness and neophobia. The attitude towards insects is a strong predictor of the readiness to eat insects and buy insect-based products. The results have shown that processed insect products can increase consumers' willingness to buy insect-based products. It should be noted that almost 60% of the 15.51% of the respondents who had eaten insects previously rated the insect taste as good and very good. We conclude that higher awareness of entomophagy is required to accept insects as food besides the willingness to try. Moreover, the future of insect consumption depends on the sensory characteristics (appearance, smell, taste) of insect-based products; hence, food industry should focus on processed foods with insect based food ingredients to make them familiar to consumers.