Are Italian parents willing to accept that their children eat insect-based products? A preliminary study

The challenge to ensure access to safe and sustainable animal protein has been deeply shifting food systems from intensification of production toward an economy that is increasingly circular, looking at waste prevention, recovery and valorization. Among the strategies put in place at the EU level, insects, approved as novel food with the Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, have been warmly promoted for human nutrition. However, European consumers are still reluctant to accept entomophagy, perceived as a primordial practice. This barrier could be possibly overcome if insects are introduced into the diet during childhood. In this sense, public canteens in kindergartens or elementary schools could introduce insect-based products to make the consumption of these food familiar starting from young age. Due to these premises, our preliminary study aimed at understanding if parents are prone to accept that the canteen service would offer to their children (3-10 years old) a traditional Italian food, namely bread, containing a percentage of flour made with insect (Tenebrio molitor). This study uses data collected from an online survey on 206 Italian parents. The questionnaire included a contingent valuation with a Double bounded dichotomous choice format. The respondents had to elicit if they are willing to accept the insect-based bread for their pupils in exchange of a given discount on the school lunch fee (10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% discount, allocated randomly to each participant). Additional questions collected information about the children’s favorite food offered by the canteens, children’s food fussiness, family eating habits, the respondents’ degree of neophobia and their health concerns. Results showed that parents, mostly neophobic, are not willing to approve the introduction of insects in children's school lunch, even in exchange for a discount. On the contrary, excessive discounts seem to have been perceived as indicating poor quality of the bread containing insect flour. This rejection seems to be rooted in the fear of giving their children food they are unfamiliar with and about whose safety they have very little information. In fact, only 36.2% are sure that insects have no negative consequences on human health.