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Intentions to consume foods from edible insects and the prospects for transforming the ubiquitous biomass into food

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Abstract

Edible insects are a potentially less burdensome source of proteins on the environment than livestock for a majority of rural consumers. Hence, edible insects are a timely idea to address the challenges of the supply side to sustainably meet an increasing demand for food. The objective of this paper is twofold. The first is to identify and compare rural-households’ intentions to consume insect-based foods among households drawn from two regions in Kenya—one where consumption of insects is common and the other where the practice is uncommon. The second is to explore consumers’ trust in sources of information regarding quality and appropriateness of food items. The study employed an extended theory of planned behaviour and involved 432 participants. Results indicate that rural households have positive intentions to consume insect-based foods and those intentions are higher for individuals who are more familiar with the practice. Results also show that information sources from industry are more trusted than those from the media. Further, the study revealed that control variables such as perceived availability of insect-based foods and their level of fit with the culinary practices have a higher influence on consumption intentions than general attitudes. In addition, age of the respondent, gender, household size and level of formal education, significantly influence the consumption intentions. The study discusses the implications of these findings in the development of sustainable agri-food systems.

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Fig. 1

Ajzen (1991)

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Notes

  1. The practice of consuming edible insects.

  2. Halloran et al. (2018) define sustainable food system as a system that “…delivers food security and nutrition for all in the way that economic, social and environmental sustainability is not compromised for future generations”.

  3. The study is part of ‘GREEiNSECT’ project, which aims to improve production and consumption of protein and mineral-rich edible insects, particularly crickets, by the households that suffers from low protein uptake in Thailand and Kenya.

  4. Ethical guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki were adhered to while conducting the current study, and all procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Kenyatta National Hospital/University of Nairobi—Ethical Review Committee (reference KNH-ERC/A/493; Protocol reference P609/09/2015).

  5. The buns were baked by professionally trained technical assistants at the Food Processing Workshop Unit of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, in Kenya. They were prepared by replacing 10% wheat-flour with cricket-powder and baked in a standard manner using a recipe adopted from Alemu et al. (2017b). The details are described in Pambo et al. (2017, 2018).

  6. The empirical effect of information-sources (and other social referents) are discussed elsewhere in this paper as subjective norms (SN).

  7. Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method was applied as the standard algorithm for parameter estimation following the suggestion of Byrne (2010). Both the χ2, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) showed acceptable fit for the model i.e., χ2 (df) = 392.76 (85); p < 0.001; GFI = 0.919; CFI = 0.907; RMSEA = 0.082. The indication is that the extended TPB employed in this study is suitable for explaining the intentions to consume FFEI.

Abbreviations

FFEI:

Foods from edible insects

PBC:

Perceived behavioural control

SI_F:

Interacting self identity and familiarity

SN:

Subjective norms

TPB:

Theory of planned behaviour

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Prof. Carl Johan Lagerkvist and the International Potato Center (CIP) for the research design used in this study. We also thank the data collection team and respondents who participated in the research leading to this paper. Further, we are indebted to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments that have greatly improved this paper. This study was funded through the ‘GREEiNSECT’ Project with funds from Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Grant Number, 13-06KU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O. Box 62000-00200, Nairobi, Kenya

    Kennedy O. Pambo & Robert M. Mbeche

  2. International Potato Center, Uganda Liaison Office, P.O. Box 22274, Kampala, Uganda

    Julius J. Okello

  3. Department of Social Sciences, Kisii University, P.O. Box 24749-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    George N. Mose

  4. Department of Food Science and Technology, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O. Box 62000-00200, Nairobi, Kenya

    John N. Kinyuru

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  1. Kennedy O. Pambo
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  2. Robert M. Mbeche
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  3. Julius J. Okello
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  4. George N. Mose
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  5. John N. Kinyuru
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Correspondence to Kennedy O. Pambo.

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Pambo, K.O., Mbeche, R.M., Okello, J.J. et al. Intentions to consume foods from edible insects and the prospects for transforming the ubiquitous biomass into food. Agric Hum Values 35, 885–898 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-018-9881-5

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