JID: RETAIL

ARTICLE IN PRESS [m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx

www.elsevier.com/locate/jretai

I might try it: Marketing actions to reduce consumer disgust toward

insect-based food ✩
Rumen Pozharliev a,∗, Matteo De Angelis a, Dario Rossi a, Richard Bagozzi b, Cesare Amatulli c
a LUISS Guido Carli University, Viale Romania, 32, 00197, Rome, Italy
b Dwight F. Benton Professor of Behavioral Science in Management, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 701 Tappan Street, Room D7209, Ann
Arbor, MI 48109-1234, United States
c University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Via Duomo, 259, 74123, Taranto, Italy

Available online xxx

Abstract
Despite the potential health- and sustainability-related benefits of insect-based food products, many consumers do not perceive them
as an alternative to conventional foods. This research provides a systematic approach to explain consumer reactions to insect-based food
products conducting a series of multi-method studies involving implicit, self-reported, and actual behavioral responses to real insect-based
food products (provided by a partner company). The authors investigate how product type (i.e., whether the insect-based food is utilitarian
or hedonic in nature) and packaging characteristics (i.e., whether the image of a real or stylized insect is present on the front packaging
or not) interact with consumer-related characteristics (i.e., health consciousness and food neophobia) to affect feelings of disgust, which in
turn influence willingness to try insect-based food products. A distinctive feature of this research is that a partner company used the findings
to change its marketing tactics and observed an improvement in its market performance. Our research has clear implications for marketing
managers trying to overcome consumer resistance to eating insect-based foods, as well as retail managers considering marketing such food
products.
© 2022 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Insect-based food; Perceived disgust; Packaging visuals; Utilitarian vs. hedonic product; Health consciousness; Food neophobia.

Going by the news, people are curious about eating insects:
The Guardian published, “If we want to save the planet, the
future of food is insects” (May 08, 2021). The Standing Com-
mittee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed, which features
representatives from all European Union countries, has even
given a favorable opinion on the draft legal act authorizing
dried yellow mealworm as a novel food (www.ec.europa.eu).
These trends accompany the scientific community’s consen-
sus that edible insects are rich in nutrients (e.g., proteins and
fibers) and more efficient in terms of feed conversion, wa-
ter use, greenhouse gas emissions, and edible mass compared
to most traditional livestock (Gumussoy et al. 2021). How-
ever, while several food products containing edible insects
have recently been launched in both the US and Europe,
most consumers still hold a negative view of edible insects;
✩ Henrik Hagtvedt served as Associate Editor for this paper.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: rpozharliev@luiss.it (R. Pozharliev).
their willingness to try (hereafter, WTT) insect-based food,
either as meat substitutes or in general, is thus relatively low
(Hartmann and Siegrist 2018; Verbeke 2015).
Previous research on the psychological drivers of consumer
responses to insect-based food products indicates that dis-
gust (defined as an automatic reaction of the behavioral im-
mune system that intends to avert interaction with and con-
sumption of potentially noxious substances; Hartmann and
Siegrist 2018) is the most common reason for consumers’
aversion towards these products and for the low WTT them
(Gere et al. 2017; House 2016; Lombardi et al. 2019; Var-
tiainen et al. 2020). Existing literature suggests that the dis-
gust response occurs before the actual tasting of the insect-
based food (La Barbera et al. 2018; Koch et al. 2021a), and
this implies that marketers must find ways to reduce con-
sumers’ perceived disgust already at the visual processing
stage of the consumer decision process (e.g., when consumers
see the product advertised or when they encounter it at the
store shelves). Following this line of reasoning, unlike previ-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2022.12.003
0022-4359/© 2022 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al., I might try it: Marketing actions to reduce consumer disgust toward insect-based
food, Journal of Retailing, https:// doi.org/ 10.1016/ j.jretai.2022.12.003
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
ous studies that have mostly focused on the effects of those
insect-based food characteristics which can be evaluated only
while or after consuming the product, such as its texture
(Sogari et al. 2018) and taste (Hartmann et al. 2015), the
present study focuses on some factors that can reduce pre-
consumption disgust feelings and, consequently, lead to an
increase in consumer WTT insect-based foods.
A first factor we investigate is the product packaging. We
build this investigation on the empirical evidence on grocery
shopping behavior showing that 80% of purchase decisions
are made in the store (Togawa et al. 2019) and 90% of them
are made after the shopper has examined the product package
(White et al. 2016). Thus, packaging design serves as a pow-
erful marketing tool in retail contexts, often converting shop-
pers into buyers (Grewal et al. 2017). More specifically, we
test the effect of removing or changing (e.g., making it more
human-like) the image of the insect appearing on the prod-
uct packaging. A second factor we investigate is the product
type, whereby we test if disgust feelings and WTT change
when the insect-based food is hedonic or utilitarian in na-
ture. We ground this investigation on previous research on
consumers’ processing of packaging visuals showing that the
type of product (utilitarian vs. hedonic) can influence con-
sumer perceptions and behaviors at the point of purchase
(Das, Mukherjee and Smith 2018). Even though there have
been prior studies that have focused on how to overcome the
disgust that prevents consumer adoption of insects as food
(Geipel et al. 2018; Koch et al. 2021b), there is, to the best
of authors’ knowledge, no research on how product packag-
ing elements and product type can affect consumers’ disgust
responses and WTT the insect-based food product in retail
environments.
Moreover, past work on consumer responses to insect-
based food suggests that further research should focus more
on the interaction between marketing actions and consumers’
dispositional traits that can affect perceived disgust and WTT
insect-based food products (Geipel et al. 2018; Hartmann and
Siegrist 2016; Tan et al. 2017). This study answers this call
by investigating the moderating role of two consumer-related
factors such as food neophobia (defined as an individual trait
that involves aversion to unfamiliar or novel food; La Barbera
et al. 2018) and health consciousness (defined as the degree
to which consumers are prone to undertake healthy actions;
Mai and Hoffmann 2012) on the effect of the aforementioned
changes in product packaging and product type on consumers’
disgust and WTT insect-based foods. Overall, through this re-
search we aim to advance the literature on barriers that pre-
vent consumers from adopting sustainable food alternatives
and suggest insect-based food marketers and retailers con-
crete actions they could undertake to fulfill this goal, possi-
bly reducing consumers’ reluctance to try insect-based foods
(Morales and Fitzsimons 2007; Koch et al. 2021a).
Theoretical background
There are many benefits of insect-based foods for both
individuals (in terms of nutrition) and society (e.g., feed con-
2
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
version efficiency, freshwater consumption, and reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions). That said, existing socio-cultural
norms must undergo significant alterations before consumers
decide to replace, at least partially, traditional food prod-
ucts with those containing insects (Gumussoy et al., 2021;
Koch et al. 2021b). “It’s disgusting” seems to be a primary
reason that consumers use to resist trying insect-based food
products (Cicatiello et al. 2016; La Barbera et al. 2018).
There have been several studies addressing the relation be-
tween perceived disgust and consumers’ behavioral inten-
tions toward insect-based foods. For instance, Martins and
Pliner (2006) suggested that disgust is related to the percep-
tion of danger, which leads to lower behavioral intentions.
Moreover, Ruby and Rozin (2019) found that Americans were
more willing to try eating insects than were Indians and that
the willingness to eat insects was best predicted by disgust.
In sum, previous literature on consumer responses to insect-
based food suggests that, compared to traditional food prod-
ucts, insect-based food products are perceived as more dis-
gusting, and this leads to lower WTT it.
Despite the urgent need for concrete actions that can re-
duce consumers’ negative responses toward food contain-
ing edible insects, there is scant research on the strate-
gies that producers and marketers can adopt to affect con-
sumer perceived disgust before consumption of insect-based
food products (Koch et al. 2021b). Importantly, most of the
proposed strategies address self-reported concerns and ex-
pectations by proving factual information (Caparros Megido
et al. 2014; Hartmann et al. 2015; Schösler et al. 2012).
However, Gmuer et al. (2016) have shown that directly ad-
dressing consumers’ self-reported concerns (such as, for in-
stance, edible insects may carry diseases) does not over-
come consumers’ aversion to food containing edible insects.
Other strategies that have been promoted, such as increas-
ing the culinary appeal of insect-based food (Deroy 2015),
have proven to have little effect on consumers’ expectations
(Gumussoy et al. 2021). Recently, Koch et al. (2021b) have
proposed a public exposure therapy consisting in increasing
consumers’ exposure to insect-based food products in the mar-
ketplace and/or continuously showing how others consume
these products, with the aim to change consumers’ inter-
nalized norms regarding sustainable food alternatives. Even
though this approach seems to be promising because it tack-
les the internalized norms issue that may lead to consumers’
aversion to food containing edible insects, it also implies that
this change might take a significant amount time to prove
effective. In the present study, we focus on marketing inter-
ventions related to product packaging and product categories
that might potentially produce immediate results in terms of
encouraging consumers to try insect-based food products they
could encounter in retail contexts upon experiencing a reduc-
tion in their disgust feelings. As reported in Table 1, previous
studies have not examined these factors in particular and this
issue in general.
Disgust has traditionally been considered a basic emotion
that is universal for all humans (Rozin and Fallon 1987).
Although disgust is a universal emotion, factors leading to
JID: RETAIL
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
Table 1
Literature review on individual and product differences affecting consumer responses to insect-based food products.
Paper
Barsics et al. 2017
Cicatiello et al. 2016
de Boer et al. 2013
Gere et al. 2017
Gmuer et al. 2016
Hartmann et al. 2015
Hartmann and Siegrist
2016
Hartmann and Siegrist
2018
House 2016
Jensen and Lieberoth
2019
La Barbera et al. 2018
Lombardi et al. 2019
Caparros Megido
et al. 2014
Caparros Megido
et al. 2016
Menozzi et al. 2017
Piha et al. 2018
Schouteten et al. 2016
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Methods/ Individual and product
Country differences
Lab experiment/ Belgium Gender, Familiarity with
the idea of eating insects
Survey, Italy Gender, Education,
Familiarity with foreign
food
Survey, Netherlands Gender, Education, Age
Online survey/ Hungary Food neophobia
Online survey/
Switzerland
Online survey/ Food neophobia, Cultural
Germany and China differences
Lab experiment/ Food neophobia,
Switzerland previous experience with
insect-based food,
disgust
Lab experiment/
Switzerland
Qualitative/ Netherlands Food neophobia Gender,
Eating practices
Online Survey/ Trait-level disgust,
Denmark Perceived social norms
Lab experiment/ Food neophobia, Disgust
Italy
Lab experiment/ Italy Food neophobia, Beliefs
and attitudes toward
insects
Lab experiment/ Belgium
Lab experiment/ Belgium Gender, Previous
knowledge and
experience with
insect-based food
Survey/ Italy Perceived behavioral
control, Subjective
norms, Gender
Survey/ Northern and
Central Europe
Lab experiment/ Belgium
3
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
Key findings
Appearance, flavor, and overall liking were significantly better
rated for the bread sample labelled as insect-free by participants
who attended the information session on the ecological and
health aspects of eating insects. Gender plays a role in
customers’ evaluation. Men were more prone to being influenced
by the information session, particularly with respect to overall
liking and flavor scores.
Familiarity with foreign food, higher education and gender
(male) positively influenced consumer attitude toward eating
insects. The fear of insects and the idea that the taste might be
disgusting were the main barriers to the willingness to try
insects.
Consumers with strong preferences for meat were less likely to
choose alternative foods.
Food neophobia is a barrier for the consumption of insects.
Insect snacks evoked various negative emotional expectations
that went beyond expectations of disgust.
Low scores for food neophobia, positive taste expectations, and
experiences with eating insects were significant predictors of
consumers’ willingness to eat insects in both countries.
Low scores for food neophobia, positive taste expectations, and
experiences with eating insects in the past were significant
predictors of consumers’ willingness to eat insects.
Insect food product consumers were seen as health-conscious,
eco-friendly, and brave. Insect and vegetarian menus were
evaluated as healthier then the meat menu.
Price, taste, availability, degree of fit with current eating
practices, and household composition are likely to affect repeat
consumption of insect-based foods.
Perceived infectability does not predict insect-disgust or
willingness to eat (hereafter, WTE) insects. Trait-level pathogen
disgust sensitivity does not predict insect-disgust or WTE
insects. Perceived social norms predict insect eating behavior.
Disgust affects WTE insects more than food neophobia. The
implicit attitude toward insects indirectly affects
WTE via disgust.
Providing consumers with different types of information
(benefits for the community vs. benefits for the individual)
affects their willingness to pay for the insect-based food.
The overall acceptability of insects depended only on the
preparation method.
Men seem less neophobic than women, as they were less
influenced by the burger appearance. Previous knowledge and
experiences with edible insects influenced burger evaluation.
Attitude and, to a lesser extent, perceived behavioral control play
a significant role in affecting the intention of performing the
behavior, while the subjective norm is not a significant factor in
forming the behavioral intention toward insect-based food. Males
expressed a stronger intention to eat insect-based food products
than females.
Providing consumers with different types of information
(positive vs. negative attributes) affects their sensory evaluation.
Insect-based burgers generated low expectations and low overall
liking under both the blind and informed (about the non-sensory
benefits associated with the product) conditions. Information that
the burgers were prepared with insects led to higher acceptance
and healthiness perception of insect burger.
(continued on next page)
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS [m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al. Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 1 (continued)

Paper Methods/ Individual and product Key findings

Country differences

Sheppard and Frazer
2015
Sogari et al. 2018
Tan et al. 2016a
Tan et al. 2016b
Tan et al. 2017
Van Thielen et al. 2019
Vartiainen et al. 2020
Verbeke 2015
Verneau et al. 2016
The present study
Online survey/ Age, Gender Compared to male participants, female participants rated
Netherlands themselves as less likely to eat a whole cricket or a cricket bar.
Older participants were less likely to eat a whole cricket or a
cricket bar.
Experiment/ Italy Texture and appearance of the insect are perceived as stronger
barriers than the taste attribute.
Lab experiment/ Food neophobia, Gender WTE was predicted by food appropriateness, and not by
Netherlands experienced sensory liking nor individual traits (food neophobia,
gender).
Survey/ Netherlands Food neophobia, Product acceptance was not increased by combining with
Education, Gender, Age familiar carrier products; however, it was strongly influenced by
the perceived appropriateness of carrier products. The visibility
of the mealworms within the carrier product was perceived to be
highly inappropriate and resulted in low sensory-liking and
consumption intentions.
Taste study/ Netherlands Familiar and liked ingredients do not always increase the
willingness to eat a novel food. There are strong positive
correlations between experienced sensory liking and willingness
to buy.
Telephone Survey/ Potential consumers accepted invisible processed mealworms in
Belgium different ways in several products (energy shakes, energy bars,
burgers, soup, sandwich spreads, and snacks).
Survey/Finland Food neophobia, Women, students, those under 25 years of age, those living in
Attitude, Subjective rural areas and those who had no earlier experience with eating
norm, Perceived insects had less intention to consume insect-based foods. Food
behavioral control, neophobia was negatively correlated with the intention to
Gender consume insect-based foods.
Web-based Survey/ Gender, Previous Males are 2.17 times more likely than females to adopt
Belgium consumption, food insect-based food. The study confirmed that food neophobia and
(technology) neophobia familiarity affect consumer responses to insect-based food.
Consumers who focus on meat taste and hold a belief that meat
is healthy show a lower readiness to adopt insect-based food.
Lab experiment/ Italy Cultural differences, Social benefits vs. individual benefits, and implicit associations
and Denmark Gender, Familiarity affect behavioral intentions. Communication effects on intentions
are stable across nationalities.
Implicit Reaction Perceived disgust, Consumers with relatively high levels of health consciousness
Test/Online Product type, Packaging perceive utilitarian insect-based food product (i.e., protein bar) as
experiment/Lab visuals, Health less disgusting than the hedonic one (i.e., chips), and this results
experiment/ EU, North consciousness, Food in higher WTT utilitarian insect-based food products.
America and India neophobia, Gender Removing the image of the insect from the product package or
making in more human-like decreases the perceived disgust and
increases customers’ WTT the product for less food neophobic
consumers.

disgust responses can differ across individuals and cultures
(Argo et al. 2006; Verneau et al. 2016). Research has
shown that different social groups choose a subset of foods
to reinforce and differentiate their social identity (Hart-
mann et al. 2015). For instance, Westerners view the eat-
ing of insects as a primitive people’s practice and use in-
sect metaphors to ridicule outgroup food habits, which are
seen as “less human” (Hartmann et al. 2015). Past stud-
ies on insect-based food consumption have identified indi-
vidual characteristics that can affect consumers’ responses
toward food products containing edible insects, includ-
ing gender (Barsics et al. 2017; Tan et al. 2016a), age
(Sheppard and Frazer 2015; Tan et al. 2016b), education (Ci-
catiello et al. 2016), cultural differences (Verneau et al. 2016),
familiarity (Caparros Megido et al. 2016; Hartmann and
Siegrist 2016) and food neophobia (Gere et al. 2017; La Bar-
bera et al. 2018) and subjective norms (Menozzi et al. 2017).
However, to the best of authors knowledge, there is no re-
search on how consumers’ dispositional characteristics inter-
act with marketing actions to decrease perceived disgust and
increase WTT insect-based food products (see Table 1).
The present study fills the gaps in extant knowledge by
investigating the joint effect of some product-related factors
(i.e., product type and product package variations) and some
relevant psychological traits (health consciousness and food
neophobia) on consumer disgust responses to insect-based
food products as well as on their subsequent reactions in
terms of WTT and actually trial of these products. Overall,
we shed light on what type of customers might feel lower
disgust for certain types of insect-based food (i.e., utilitarian
insect-based foods) and on what package-related actions com-
panies could undertake to avoid that disgust is elicited in the

4
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
first place (i.e., removing the insect image or presenting an
anthropomorphic insect). Importantly, we partnered with an
award-winning UK insect-based food producer, called Small
Giants (www.eatsmallgiants.com) along different steps of our
research which we illustrate below in our overview of studies.
Our research makes three major contributions to advanc-
ing extant knowledge about consumers’ reaction to insect-
based food products. First, we extend the recent research
stream on the strategies that marketers and retailers can imple-
ment to overcome consumers’ aversion to insect-based food
products (Geipel et al. 2018; Koch et al. 2021a,b). While
the bulk of previous work has focused on a combination of
sensory-affective qualities (e.g., taste and texture) that can
be evaluated only while or after consuming the product as
drivers of consumer aversion to insect-based food products
(Piha et al. 2018; Schouteten et al. 2016; Tan et al. 2017), we
investigate some factors (e.g., modification in the product type
and packaging elements) that can reduce pre-consumption dis-
gust feelings and, consequently, lead to an increase in con-
sumer WTT insect-based foods.
Second, our findings complement and expand previous re-
search on the individual psychological characteristics affect-
ing consumer responses (e.g., disgust) to insect-based food
products (Barsics et al. 2017; House 2016; Tan et al. 2016b;
Vartiainen et al. 2020; Verbeke 2015) (see Table 1). Specif-
ically, we study how a previously unexplored dispositional
trait, namely health consciousness, interacts with insect-based
product type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) to affect consumer dis-
gust responses. Moreover, we investigate how the most fre-
quently studied dispositional characteristic, namely food neo-
phobia, interacts with a packaging-related element (no image
vs. real image vs. stylized image of the insect) to impact
consumers’ reactions to insect-based food products.
Finally, although previous studies have emphasized the role
of automatic and non-conscious psychological and cognitive
processes as the foundation of consumers’ aversion to insect-
based food products, they have empirically tested them only
as deliberate self-reported reactions (Gumussoy et al. 2021).
The present study adds to such investigations by offering ev-
idence about consumers’ implicit responses to insect-based
food products. We believe our research offers clear practi-
cal implications for marketing managers looking for ways
to overcome consumers’ negative reactions to insect-based
foods, as well as to retail managers interested in investing
in such food products. We discuss such implications in depth
in the general discussion section.
Conceptual framework and hypotheses
Consumer responses to utilitarian versus hedonic
insect-based food products
The discrepancy between the benefits of eating insect-
based food products and many consumers’ aversion toward
them suggests a pivotal research question: Is it possible to re-
duce perceived disgust and increase consumers’ WTT insect-
based food products through marketing communication and
5
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
product-related strategies? For instance, while disgust might
be a strong barrier to consumers’ WTT insect-based foods, we
wonder if disgust reactions might vary based on the insect-
based food product type (Das, Mukherjee, and Smith, 2018).
In particular, we look at one dimension along which food
products may vary: whether they are mainly utilitarian or
hedonic (Wang 2017). Indeed, the marketing literature has
long underlined utilitarianism versus hedonism as a useful
way to categorize products (Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000). In
general, the consumption of hedonic goods can be charac-
terized by an affective, multi-sensory experience, including
tastes, sounds, scents, tactile impressions and visual images
(Arnold and Reynolds 2012). By contrast, utilitarian goods
are those that are instrumental in nature and allow consumers
to accomplish a functional task (Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000).
Indeed, “hedonic goods provide more experiential consump-
tion, fun, pleasure, and excitement, whereas utilitarian goods
are primarily instrumental and functional” (Dhar and Werten-
broch 2000, p.60).
This product differentiation also applies to the food sector,
where hedonic food products are primarily characterized by
affective, experiential, and health-unrelated benefits, whereas
utilitarian food products are primarily characterized by cogni-
tive, functional, and health-related benefits (Mai et al. 2016).
Previous research has also shown that individuals draw infer-
ences about the hedonic properties (e.g., taste) of foods from
heuristic cues, such as product name (Irmak et al. 2011) and
packaging color (Mai et al. 2016; Wang 2017). However, to
the best of the authors’ knowledge, no consumer research
study has investigated the association between the type of
food product (utilitarian vs. hedonic) and the most common
barrier of healthy and sustainable food adoption, that is the
feelings of disgust. Rather than making a general hypothesis
about whether utilitarian or hedonic insect-based food prod-
uct categories lead to lower feelings of disgust, we study the
effect of insect-based food product type in tandem with the
effect of a consumer dispositional trait, health consciousness,
as a moderator. This idea stems from evidence that individ-
ual consumer characteristics may shape the effectiveness of
marketing strategies and actions aimed at reducing perceived
disgust toward insect-based food products (Barsics et al. 2017;
Cicatiello et al. 2016).
Previous research suggests that health consciousness, that
is a motivational component that stimulates consumers to
undertake health actions, is an important individual charac-
teristic affecting consumer responses and intention to con-
sume healthy and sustainable food (Mai and Hoffmann 2012).
For example, Naylor et al. (2009) underlined that health-
conscious consumers can be particularly willing to try util-
itarian (vs. hedonic) food in order to gain the health benefits.
Moreover, consuming utilitarian (vs. hedonic) foods would
not require health-conscious consumers to violate their in-
ternalized norms (e.g., to be healthy and in shape) which
in turn reduces the mental effort of deliberating whether to
consume the product or not (Villatoro et al. 2015). Impor-
tantly, Koch et al. (2021a) suggest that if a food product does
not share significant features with normal foods, consumers
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
perceive it to violate their internalized norms and thus un-
consciously avoid it as the thought of consuming such foods
elicits disgust. However, if a food product shares some sig-
nificant characteristics with other foods normal to them, con-
sumers perceive the food to be consistent with their internal-
ized norms and are therefore less likely to reject it.
Thus, we expect that more health-conscious consumers will
show lower perceived disgust toward utilitarian insect-based
foods that share some significant characteristics with regular
(i.e., not insect-based) foods that fit with their internalized
norms (i.e., “regular” utilitarian foods) than toward other reg-
ular foods that violate those internalized norms (i.e., “regu-
lar” hedonic foods). More specifically, what utilitarian insect-
based foods have in common with foods typically consumed
by more health-conscious individuals is the nutritional value
(which includes aspects such as protein content, sugar, etc.)
and, in line with the logic proposed by Koch et al. (2021a),
such a similarity will reduce consumers’ disgust feelings. On
the other hand, less health-conscious consumers are less likely
to consider food in terms of its nutrition value, so similar-
ity would be less salient to them. Both types of consumers
would consider hedonic food more in terms of how pleas-
ant or tempting it seems, and in this case, neither of them
would perceive salient similarities between hedonic insect-
based food and their typical eating habits. Overall, therefore,
we hypothesize that individual consumers’ health conscious-
ness regulates the potential reduction of disgust feelings, pri-
marily in relation to the food products they are disposition-
ally more or less prone to consuming: utilitarian (vs. hedonic)
products for consumers with higher levels of health conscious-
ness. Formally:
H1: Consumers with relatively high levels of health con-
sciousness will perceive utilitarian insect-based food products
as less disgusting than hedonic ones, and this will result in
higher WTT utilitarian insect-based food products.
I’ll try the one without the image of the insect
Proctor and Gamble’s now famous “First Moment of
Truth” (i.e., FMOT) refers to the key importance of the first
three to six seconds consumers look at product on a store
shelf before its selection, underscoring the paramount role of
product visual characteristics in shaping consumer inferences,
responses, and brand choice (Wongkitrungrueng, Valen-
zuela and Sen 2018). Visual elements (e.g., image and brand
name) of packaging design serve as a powerful, cost-efficient
tool for manufacturers and retailers alike to communicate sen-
sory features of the product to consumers and influence their
consumption behaviors (Togawa et al. 2019; White et al.,
2016).
Past empirical evidence suggests that disgust responses
to insect-based food products are unlikely to be suppressed
by rational arguments and educational activities such as in-
forming consumers about the nutritional and environmental
benefits of insect food consumption (Gumussoy et al. 2021;
Hartmann and Siegrist 2016; Verbeke 2015). Indeed,
Schouteten et al. (2016) found that providing information on
6
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
the individual and social benefits of eating insects does not
affect consumers’ emotional responses and behavioral inten-
tions toward insect-based food products. In fact, consumers
who have no previous experience with such products draw in-
ferences about their sensory characteristics from their visual
appearance (Tan et al. 2017). Therefore, consumers whose
insect aversion is driven by the expected feelings of disgust
resulting from the visual cues might be less willing to try
insect-based food products.
Recent research has suggested different strategies to re-
duce consumers’ negative responses to insect-based food, in-
cluding: (1) flavoring insects with familiar spices like pa-
prika (Caparros Megido et al. 2014), (2) incorporating in-
sects into familiar dishes such as salads (Schösler et al. 2012),
and (3) presenting insects in a processed form so that their
origin is no longer visible (Hartmann et al. 2015). The lat-
ter suggests that marketers should avoid the visibility of in-
sect ingredients to overcome consumers’ disgust and safety
concerns (Tan et al. 2017). However, there is a lack of
empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these approaches
(Gumussoy et al. 2021). Importantly, all the aforementioned
strategies are aimed at reducing the perceived disgust during
product consumption and thus likely imply that consumers
have already tried the insect-based food product or at least
are willing to try it. No previous research, to the best of
authors’ knowledge, has studied how marketing actions can
reduce consumers’ perceived disgust and increase their WTT
the insect-based food product for the first time.
We fill this gap by investigating the role of visual pack-
aging elements in shaping disgust feelings and WTT insect-
based food products. In particular, we examine whether the
presence or absence of an image of the insect on the product
packaging influences consumers’ disgust responses to—and
consequently, their WTT—insect-based food products. Based
on the abovementioned theoretical evidence we propose the
following hypothesis:
H2A: The product packaging without the insect image
leads to a reduction in perceived disgust and an increase in
WTT compared to the product packaging with the insect im-
age.
Concurrently with this, we also investigate how an-
other consumer characteristic—food neophobia (La Barbera
et al. 2018)—shapes disgust and WTT. We ground this inves-
tigation on the idea that insect-based products are an unfa-
miliar food source for most consumers (especially Western-
ers); food products that deviate from common cultural prac-
tices can attract more adventurous consumers while poten-
tially repelling others who are less attracted by new and un-
usual foods. The latter behavioral response, known as food
neophobia, reflects consumers’ negative attitude toward novel
foods (Hartmann and Siegrist 2016). The underlying moti-
vations for this aversion include negative taste expectations
(Sogari et al. 2018), perceived dangerousness (Martins and
Pliner 2006) and low levels of expected enjoyment (Bar-
sics et al. 2017; Gmuer et al. 2016). While disgust and food
neophobia may be related, they are not identical constructs, as
not all novel food products elicit disgust while some familiar
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
food products may give rise to feelings of disgust (La Bar-
bera et al. 2018). Furthermore, neophobic consumers are more
likely to be disgusted by insect-based products and thus less
willing to try them for the first time (Hartmann and Siegrist
2016; Vartiainen et al. 2020). Because of food neophobic con-
sumers’ strong aversion to insect-based food products, remov-
ing the image of the insect from the product packaging might
not affect their perceived disgust and WTT (Gere et al. 2017;
Lombardi et al. 2019; Verbeke 2015). In other words, we
reason those consumers with relatively high levels of food
neophobia would require a stronger adjustment than merely
removing the image; they are too aware of and sensitive to
the disgust signal to be appeased by that and thus merely
removing the image does not get the insect content out of
their minds. On the other hand, consumers with lower lev-
els of food neophobia are less reluctant to try novel foods,
and thus, while being also disgusted when the insect con-
tent is made salient, their level of disgust diminishes when
the disgust signal becomes less salient. Overall, therefore, we
predict that removing the image of the insect from the prod-
uct packaging might reduce disgust and enhance WTT the
insect-based food product only for consumers scoring low on
food neophobia. Formally:
H2B: Consumers’ score on food neophobia moderates the
effects of product packaging visual cues (insect image ab-
sent vs. present) on perceived disgust. In particular, for con-
sumers with relatively low levels of food neophobia, the prod-
uct packaging without the insect image leads to a reduction
in perceived disgust and an increase in WTT compared to the
product packaging with the insect image.
Overview of studies
First, the partner company provided us with initial insights
on its marketing communication objectives and some elements
that are common among players in this space in terms of po-
sitioning insect-based foods in consumers’ minds. A result,
we used IAT tests—a technique that measures unconscious
physiological reality unedited by the conscious mind (Green-
wald et al. 2009) —to investigate the associative links be-
tween traditional versus insect-based food products and the in-
tended associations that typically appear in insect-based food
product communication, namely “taste”, “health benefits” and
“sustainability” (data available as supplemental material “Pre-
liminary IAT”). Overall, the results of the three preliminary
IAT studies (Table SM2) indicate consumer attitude/emotional
response toward insect-based foods (vs. traditional foods) is
more strongly associated to disgust, unhealth, and unsustain-
ability. Next, we did a pilot study to test whether insect-based
(vs. traditional) food products are perceived as more disgust-
ing, and whether disgust feelings, in turn, lead to a decreased
WTT the product. The results of the pilot study demonstrate
that perceived disgust mediates consumers’ reluctance to try
insect-based food products, thus validating previous findings
(including those of our three preliminary IAT studies) on the
role of perceived disgust as a driver of consumers’ aversion
toward insect-based food (data available as supplemental ma-
7
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
terial “Pilot Study: It’s Disgusting”). In Study 1 and Study 2,
we investigated the effect of product and packaging modifica-
tions on disgust feelings and WTT insect-based food products.
In Study 1 we manipulated the insect-based food product type
(utilitarian vs. hedonic insect-based food product) and exam-
ined the moderating role of consumers’ health consciousness,
testing how the effect of utilitarian or hedonic insect-based
food products on disgust and WTT is affected by how high
consumers score on health consciousness. In Study 2, we in-
vestigated the effect of removing the image of the insect from
the product package on perceived disgust and WTT, and, par-
ticularly, in study 2a we tested the mediating effect of disgust
and in study 2b how this effect is moderated by consumers’
food neophobia scores. Next, we partnered again with Small
Giants to run three IAT studies (data available as supplemen-
tal material “Small Giants IAT”). Overall, the results of these
three IAT studies show more positive consumer implicit re-
sponses toward the packaging that de-emphasizes (vs. empha-
sizes) real insects, demonstrating a significant improvement in
consumers’ reactions after the company modified its product
packaging. Finally, we conducted a realistic laboratory ex-
periment with actual product trial as the dependent variable
(Study 3a) and an online experiment with the perceived level
of anthropomorphism of the insect image as a mediator af-
fecting perceived disgust (Study 3b). The stimuli used in our
studies are reported in Fig. 2, while Table 2 provides a sum-
mary of descriptive statistics.
Study 1: changing the type of insect-based food product
Study 1 aimed to test H1 by investigating if consumers’
feelings of disgust and WTT change as a function of whether
the insect-based food product is utilitarian or hedonic and if
this effect is moderated by consumers’ level of health con-
sciousness.
Methods
Stimuli validation
We conducted a stimuli validation test on the hedonic and
utilitarian insect-based food products that we planned to use
in our main study. We conducted an online survey with a sam-
ple of 108 participants (Mage = 24.42, SD = 9.03, 22.2% fe-
male), recruited through the Prolific platform in exchange for
a nominal payment; 82% responded from Europe, 10% from
North America and 8% from the rest of the world. We first
informed the participants about what we mean by hedonic
food (“a food that provides more experiential consumption,
pleasure and excitement”) and utilitarian food (“a food pri-
marily instrumental and/or functional to some intent”). Next,
we asked them to use a 7-point semantic scale (1 = “Hedo-
nic”; 7 = “Utilitarian”) to rate how they perceived a series
of 10 food categories (see Supplementary Materials, Figure
SM3).
We conducted a repeated measures ANOVA with food
categories as a factor with 10 levels. The results showed
a significant effect of food categories on utilitarian scores
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
Fig. 1. Full conceptual framework showing studies’ contribution in relation to our hypotheses.
(F(9, 963), = 50.47, p < .001, η2 = 0.32). From the Dun-
can’s post-hoc analysis, we selected the protein bar (con-
sidered as one of the more utilitarian food categories) and
chips (considered as one of the more hedonic food categories)
(Mprotein bar = 4.42 ± 0.17, Mchips = 2.54 ± 0.17, p < .001)
as the food categories for our main study.
Main study participants and procedure
We used an online survey with a sample of 296 participants
(Mage = 35.83, SD = 11.52, 43.2% female), recruited through
the Mturk platform in exchange for a nominal payment; 11%
responded from Europe, 70% from North America, 15% from
India, and 4% from the rest of the world. The study was
presented as an assessment of consumers’ responses regarding
food preferences.
Each participant has been assigned to one of the two exper-
imental conditions. We used an ad-hoc insect-based version
of the food categories (having a cricket on the package) se-
lected from the pre-test: Based on their assigned condition,
participants randomly saw pictures of an insect-based bag of
chips as a hedonic product type or an insect-based protein bar
as a utilitarian product type (see Fig. 2).
We measured participants’ health consciousness level on
an 11-item, 7-points Likert scale (1 = “Strongly disagree”,
4 = “Neutral”, 7 = “Strongly agree”; Chen 2011; Cronbach’s
alpha = 0.80; see Supplementary Materials for scale items),
8
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
participants’ perceived disgust with the same single-item, 7-
point Likert scale used in the pilot study and their WTT the
food in the picture with the same single-item, 7-point Likert
scale used in the pilot study. At the end of the survey, to
control for previous use, we asked participants if they had
ever tried insect-based food in their life (25% declared they
had).
Results and discussion
To test H1, we employed a moderated mediation model
implemented in the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 7;
Hayes 2017), with food type (coded as −1 = hedonic,
1 = utilitarian) as the independent variable, perceived dis-
gust as the mediator, mean centered health consciousness as
the moderator and WTT as the dependent variable. More-
over, we used previous use and gender as covariates in the
regression analysis. The regression analysis used 10,000 boot-
strap samples to estimate bootstrap confidence intervals. Ta-
ble SM4 in Supplementary Materials presents the results of
this regression analysis. The results for perceived disgust
showed no significant main effect of food type (b = −0.07,
t = −0.74, p = .46) and no significant main effect of health
consciousness (b = −0.03; t = −0.24; p = .81). More im-
portantly, the effect of the interaction between food type and
health consciousness was significant (b = −0.26, t = −2.20
p = .03), with the Johnson-Neyman analysis highlighting that
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
Fig. 2. Overview of the stimuli used in the studies.
for health consciousness mean centered scores higher than
0.66 respondents expressed lower disgust for the utilitarian
than for the hedonic food (all p-values < 0.05). No significant
differences between utilitarian and hedonic food emerged for
health consciousness mean centered scores lower than 0.66
(see Fig. 3A).
The results showed no significant direct effect of food
type on WTT (b = 0.05, t = 0.52, p = .60), while we
found a statistically significant negative main effect of
perceived disgust on WTT (b = −0.48, t = −7.99, p <
.001), indicating that WTT decreases as perceived disgust
increases. Importantly, although the results didn’t show
9
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
any significant direct effect of the food type on WTT
(p = .60), we found a statistically significant index of
moderated mediation (b = 0.12, LCI = 0.01, UCI = 0.25),
which indicates the presence of a conditional indirect effect
of food type on WTT via disgust, moderated by health
consciousness.
As for covariates, male participants (vs. female partici-
pants) reported lower disgust (bdisgust = −0.28; t = −2.97;
p = .003), while no significant difference in WTT emerged
(bWTT = 0.06; t = 065; p = .51). Concerning previous
use, participants who had already tried insect-based food
(vs. participants who never tried) reported lower disgust
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
Fig. 3. A) Interaction effect between product type and health consciousness (HC) on perceived disgust in Study 1; B) Interaction effect between the presence
or absence of insect image and food neophobia (FN) on disgust in Study 2b. Low and high values of the moderators are defined as the 16th percentile and
84th percentile, respectively, reported from the PROCESS analysis.
(bdisgust = −0.51; t = −4.64; p < .001) and higher WTT
(bWTT = 0.68; t = 5.88; p < .001).
The results of Study 1 provide empirical support for H1,
showing that more health-conscious individuals experienced
reduced disgust toward utilitarian (vs. hedonic) insect-based
products and that disgust fully mediates the effect of food type
on WTT for such individuals. Moreover, the results suggest
that gender had no interaction effects in any study beyond
the pilot study and that is why it’s being reported only as a
covariate in all subsequent studies.
Study 2: I’ll try the one without the image of the insect
Study 2 aimed to test H2A and H2B. We manipulated a
visual communication element of the insect-based food pack-
aging: namely, the presence or absence of the insect image on
the product packaging. The main objective of Study 2a was
to test whether the absence of an insect on the product pack-
aging can reduce the perceived disgust toward insect-based
food compared to the presence of it, with a subsequent effect
on WTT. In addition, in Study 2b we studied whether and
how participants’ food neophobia moderates the effect of the
type of packaging on perceived disgust and, in turn, on WTT.
Study 2a methods
Participants and procedure
We used an online survey with a sample of 200 partici-
pants (Mage = 29.23; SD = 9.56; 52.5% female), recruited
through the Prolific platform in exchange for a nominal pay-
ment; 66% responded from Europe, 6% from North America
and 28% from the rest of the world. The study was pre-
sented as an assessment of consumers’ response regarding
food preferences. We assigned each participant to one of the
two experimental conditions (i.e., insect image absent vs. in-
sect image present) and asked them to look at a package
of chips containing cricket flour (see Fig. 2). We then mea-
sured participants’ perceived disgust and WTT with the same
10
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
single-item, 7-points Likert scales used in the previous exper-
iments. At the end of the survey, to control for previous use,
we asked participants if they had ever tried insect-based food
(19% declared they had).
Study 2a results and discussion
The results of the independent sample t-test showed that
participants perceived the package with the insect image ab-
sent as less disgusting (Mimage absent = 3.99, SD = 1.76 vs.
Mimage present = 5.31, SD = 1.69; t(198) = −5.93, p <
.001) and expressed higher WTT (Mimage absent = 4.11,
SD = 1.89 vs. Mimage present = 2.77, SD = 1.98; t(198) = 4.89,
p < .001) compared to those who saw the package with the
insect image present.
To test H2A, we run a mediation analysis using PROCESS
Model 4 (Model 4; Hayes 2017), with package type as the
independent variable (coded as −1 = insect image absent,
1 = insect image present), perceived disgust as the mediator
and WTT as the dependent variable. Moreover, we employed
previous use and gender as covariates in the regression anal-
ysis.
The regression analysis used 10,000 bootstrap samples to
estimate bootstrap confidence intervals. The results for per-
ceived disgust showed a significant, positive effect of package
type (b = 0.70, t = 5.94, p < .001), indicating a decrease of
perceived disgust for the package without the image of the
insect. The results for WTT showed a statistically significant
negative direct effect of package type on WTT (b = −0.35,
t = −2.91, p = .004) and a statistically significant negative
effect of perceived disgust on WTT (b = −0.52, t = −7.61,
p < .001). Importantly, we found a statistically significant
indirect effect of the package type on WTT through disgust
(b = −0.36, LCI = −0.55, UCI = −0.21).
As for covariates, male participants (vs. female partici-
pants) reported significantly lower disgust (bdisgust = −0.24;
t = −2.00; p = .047), while no significant difference in WTT
emerged (bWTT = 0.12; t = 1.07; p = .29). Concerning previ-
ous use, participants who already tried insect-based food (vs.
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS [m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al. Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx

participants who never tried) reported a significant decrease

M = 3.46; SD = 0.99
M = 3.63; SD = 1.12
in disgust (bdisgust = −0.57; t = −3.80; p < .001) and a
significant increase in WTT (bWTT = 0.56; t = 3.75; p <

Food Neophobia
.001).
In line with H2A, the results of Study 2a showed that re-
moving the image of the insect from the product package re-
duces the perceived disgust toward the insect-based food, thus
–
–
–
–

–
–
–
–
increasing WTT with disgust mediating the effect of package
M = 4.45; SD = 0.82
M = 4.51; SD = 0.79
Health Consciousness

type on WTT.

Study 2b methods

Participants and procedure

–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
We used an online survey with a sample of 332 participants
(Mage = 35.45; SD = 11.42; 44.6% female), recruited through
Willingness to eat (WTE)

M = 3.89; SD = 1.64
M = 4.02; SD = 1.49

the Mturk platform in exchange for a nominal payment; 12%

responded from Europe, 65% from North America, 18% from
India, and 5% from the rest of the world. The study was
presented as an assessment of consumers’ responses regarding
food preferences.
We assigned each participant to one of the two experi-
–
–
–
–
–
–

–
–

mental conditions (i.e., insect image absent vs. insect image

2.03
1.98
1.89
1.98
1.91
1.97

= 3.65; SD = 1.92
= 4.00; SD = 1.85

present) and asked them to look at a package of chips contain-

ing cricket flour (see Fig. 2). We measured participants’ food
=
=
=
=
=
=

neophobia on a 10-item, 7-points Likert scale (1 = “Very un-

SD
SD
SD
SD
SD
SD

true of me”, 4 = “Neutral”, 7 = “Very true of me”; Pliner and

3.27;
3.27;
4.11;
2.77;
3.58;
3.35;

Hobden 1992; Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85, see Supplementary

WTT
=
=
=
=
=
=

Materials for scale items), perceived disgust and WTT the

M
M
M
M
M
M

M
M
–
–

food presented in the picture with the same single-item, 7-

1.75
1.64
1.76
1.69
1.61
1.60
1.61
1.74
1.84
1.66

point Likert scales used in the previous experiments. At the

end of the survey, to control for previous use, we asked partic-
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=

ipants if they had ever tried insect-based food (22.6% declared

SD
SD
SD
SD
SD
SD
SD
SD
SD
SD

they had).
5.05;
5.01;
3.99;
5.31;
4.91;
5.04;
3.71;
2.93;
4.09;
3.71;
Disgust
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=

Study 2b results and discussion

M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M

To test H2b, we employed a moderated mediation model

M = 2.20; SD = 1.37
M = 4.33; SD = 1.59

implemented in the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 7;

Antropomorphism

Hayes 2017), with package type as the independent vari-

able (coded as −1 = insect image absent, 1 = insect image
Variables used in the studies and relative descriptive statistics.

present), perceived disgust as the mediator, mean centered

food neophobia as the moderator and WTT as the dependent
variable. Moreover, we employed previous use and gender as
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–

covariates in the regression analysis.

Anthropomorphized cartoon insect

Anthropomorphized cartoon insect

The regression analysis used 10,000 bootstrap samples to

Utilitarian Insect-Based Food

estimate bootstrap confidence intervals. Table SM5 in Supple-

Hedonic Insect-Based Food

mentary Materials presents the results of this regression anal-

ysis. The results for perceived disgust showed no significant
Insect Image Present

Insect Image Present

Insect Image Absent

Insect Image Absent

main effect of package type (b = 0.03, t = 0.40, p = .68), but

Real insect image

Real insect image

a significant positive main effect of food neophobia (b = 0.25,

Manipulation

t = 3.07, p = .002), indicating a decrease of perceived disgust

for participants scoring low on food neophobia. Moreover, the
effect of the interaction between package type and food neo-
phobia was also significant (b = −0.16, t = −2.00, p = .046),
Study 2b

Study 3b
Study 2a

Study 3a

with the Johnson-Neyman analysis highlighting that for food

Study 1
Table 2

neophobia mean centered scores lower than −1.91 partici-

pants expressed lower disgust for the package with no insect

11
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
image (all p-values < 0.05), while we did not find any dif-
ference between the two package types for values of food
neophobia higher than −1.91 (see Fig. 3B).
The results for WTT showed no significant direct effect of
package type on WTT (b = −0.07, t = −0.68, p = .49;
Mimage absent = 3.58, SD = 1.91 vs. Mimage present = 3.35,
SD = 1.97; t(330) = −0.68, p = .49), while we found a
statistically significant negative effect of perceived disgust on
WTT (b = −0.34, t = −5.44, p < .001). Thus, unlike Study
2a, we did not find a significant effect of our manipulated in-
dependent variable (package type) on WTT. Such a difference
might stem from the fact that respondents of Study 2b, unlike
respondents of Study 2a, answered the food neophobia scale
before being exposed to the manipulation. Answering food
neophobia scale questions might have had the effect to have
respondents scoring higher along with those scoring lower on
this scale in each of the two experimental conditions, possibly
nullifying the main effect of the package type manipulation.
However, and more important for our hypothesis testing, we
found a statistically significant index of moderated mediation
(b = 0.06, LCI = 0.0001, UCI = 0.1193), which indicates the
presence of a conditional indirect effect of package type on
WTT via disgust, moderated by food neophobia. In line with
H2B, the results of Study 2b show that removing the image
of the insect from the product package reduces the perceived
disgust toward the insect-based food and leads to an increase
in WTT for consumers with lower levels of food neophobia.
Disgust, moreover, fully mediates the joint effect of package
type and food neophobia on WTT.
As for covariates, male participants (vs. female partici-
pants) reported no significant difference on disgust and on
WTT (bdisgust = −0.15; t = −1.78; p = .08; bWTT = −0.05;
t = −0.53; p = .60). Concerning previous use, participants
who already tried insect-based food (vs. participants who
never tried) reported a significant decrease of disgust and a
significant increase of WTT (bdisgust = −0.37; t = −3.59; p
< .001; bWTT = 0.64; t = 5.38; p < .001).
Study 3: packaging emphasizing real insects versus
packaging de-emphasizing real insects, perceived level of
anthropomorphism and actual product trial
Following the insights generated in studies 1 and 2, our
partnering company was inspired to improve the product
packaging (see Fig. 2). Thus, it created new product pack-
aging that deemphasizes real insects and allowed us to test
consumers’ reaction to it. Specifically, the company imple-
mented the following packaging modifications: i) the brand
name of the product was changed from “Crické” to “Small
Giants”; ii) the image of the insect was changed from clear
cricket image to a stylized, less realistic, more human-like in-
sect (e.g., an insect wearing shoes); iii) less focus was placed
on the nutritional and sustainable qualities of the product by
significantly reducing the number of logic-based arguments.
Since the new packaging is a manipulation of both the image
of the insect and the brand name, both of which were changed
to move away from emphasizing the real insect, we decide to
12
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
refer to it as packaging that deemphasizes real insects and to
the old packaging as one that emphasizes real insects. First,
we tested the impact of these modifications on consumers’
implicit disgust responses in an IAT experiment. Overall, the
results of this IAT study indicated that consumers associate
disgust more strongly with the old (i.e., insect emphasis) than
with the new (i.e., insect de-emphasis) product packaging
(results available in Supplementary Materials “Small Giants
IAT”). Next, we conducted a realistic laboratory experiment
(Study 3a) in which we compared consumers’ responses to
the insect emphasis (vs. insect de-emphasis) product packag-
ing by employing both self-reported measures (i.e., disgust
feelings) and behavioral responses (i.e., actual product trial).
Specifically, we asked our partnering company to send us
samples of both the insect emphasis and insect de-emphasis
packaging to test them in a real choice experiment. It is im-
portant to mention that the insect de-emphasis product pack-
aging was introduced in the market in the months following
the completion of the experiment. Therefore, this study of-
fers real-world evidence about the effect of the actions that
the company undertook based on our experiments. Guided by
the results of this study, we explored more deeply the percep-
tion of the insect de-emphasis product packaging in an online
study (Study 3b) where we investigated whether and how the
perceived level of anthropomorphism of the real (vs. cartoon)
image of the insect and the Crické (vs. Small Giants) prod-
uct brand name (results available in Supplementary Materials
“Study 3c: The new brand name”) could mediate consumers’
perceived disgust and hence their WTT the insect-based food
product.
Study 3a methods
Participants and procedure
We conducted a realistic laboratory experiment on
a sample of 101 European English-speaking participants
(Mage = 22.76, SD = 1.37, 64.4% female) to test consumers’
behavioral responses to the same two packages (insect em-
phasis vs. insect de-emphasis) tested in the three IAT studies
(results available in Supplementary Materials “Small Giants
IAT”). Like before, this study was presented as an assessment
of consumers’ responses regarding food preferences. We in-
structed participants to imagine that they intended to buy a
snack: 53 participants interacted with the insect emphasis,
while 48 interacted with the insect de-emphasis one. We pre-
sented the package for 15 s, instructing participants to only
look at it and avoid touching it. Then we asked them to hold
and explore the package as if they were in a supermarket.
In this phase, they were free to rotate the package and read
all the information on it. Afterward, we asked participants
to rate their perceived disgust in relation to the snack they
just saw with the same scale used for the previous studies,
as well as their willingness to eat (hereafter, WTE) the snack
with a single-item, 7-point Likert scale (1 = “Extremely un-
willing”, 4 = “Neutral”, 7 = “Extremely willing”). We used
WTE instead of the previously used WTT (Studies 1, 2a and
2b) because 3a is the only study that allows for actual in-
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
teraction with and consumption of a real insect-based food
product. Finally, we asked if they actually wanted to taste the
snack food they just saw and 78% of participants tried the
snack food during the experiment. We used this dichotomous
variable (codified as: tried No = 0; Yes = 1) as the depen-
dent variable in our analysis. At the end of the experiment,
to control for previous use, we asked participants if they had
ever tried insect-based food before (23.8% declared they had).
Study 3a results and discussion
To test the effect of the insect de-emphasis (vs. insect
emphasis) package on consumer self-reported (i.e., disgust
feelings, WTE) and behavioral responses (i.e., actual product
trial), we employed a serial mediation model implemented
in the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 6; Hayes 2017).
We treated package type (coded as −1 = insect emphasis,
1 = insect de-emphasis) as the independent variable, per-
ceived disgust as the first mediator, WTE as the second serial
mediator and the actual trial as the dependent (dichotomous)
variable. Moreover, we employed previous use and gender as
covariates in the regression analysis.
The regression analysis used 10,000 bootstrap samples to
estimate bootstrap confidence intervals. Table SM6 in Supple-
mental Materials presents the results of this regression anal-
ysis. The results for perceived disgust showed a significant,
negative main effect of package type (b = −0.38, t = −2.23,
p = .03), indicating a decrease of perceived disgust for the
insect de-emphasis package. The results for the second me-
diator, WTE, highlighted a significant, negative effect of per-
ceived disgust (i.e., WTE increased as perceived disgust de-
creased) (b = −0.40, t = −4.81, p < .001), while we did
not find any significant effect of package type (b = −0.10,
t = −0.72, p = .47). Next, the results of the logistic regres-
sion for the dichotomous dependent variable, showed no sig-
nificant effect of package type (b = 0.50, z = 1.09, p = .28)
and no significant effect of perceived disgust on the depen-
dent variable (b = −0.62, z = −1.78, p = .08), but we found
a significant positive effect of WTE on the dependent variable
(b = 1.23, z = 2.85, p = .004), indicating an increase in the
actual product trial rate of the snack as the WTE increases.
Notably, there was no significant direct effect of package
type on the actual product trial (p = .28), while our mediation
analysis showed a statistically significant and complete serial
indirect effect of package type on actual product trial through
disgust and WTE (b = 0.19, LCI = 0.01, UCI = 1.63).
Importantly, the results of Study 3a confirm that the insect
de-emphasis package triggered lower levels of perceived dis-
gust, and this in turn led to an increase in participants’ WTE
the insect-based food product and in their tendency to try the
snack, with disgust and WTE fully mediating the effect of
product type on actual trial. It is important mentioning that the
new (insect de-emphasis) packaging reduces the disgust but
does not increase actual likelihood to sample. It seems that,
while reducing disgust, the new packaging does something
else that makes people less likely to try the insect-based food
product. Such “indirect-only” mediation suggests that there
may be an unmeasured suppressor effect (Zhao et al. 2010).
13
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
As for the covariates, gender had no significant effect on
disgust and on WTT (bdisgust = −0.12; t = −0.70; p = .48;
bWTT = 0.16; t = 1.11; p = .27), while we found a sig-
nificant increase in actual product trial for male (vs. female)
respondents (bactual trial = 1.78; z = 2.33; p = .02). Concern-
ing previous use, we did not find a significant difference be-
tween participants who already tried insect-based food and
those who never tried it reported no significant difference for
disgust and WTT (bdisgust = −0.11; t = −0.55; p = .58;
bWTT = 0.29; t = 1.75; p = .08), while we found a signif-
icant different in actual product trial, with those who tried
insect-based food scoring higher (bactual trial = 1.47; z = 2.10;
p = .03).
Study 3b methods
Participants and procedure
We used an online survey with a sample of 529 partici-
pants (Mage = 30.05; SD = 9.31; 50.9% female), recruited
through the Prolific platform in exchange for a nominal pay-
ment: 66% responded from Europe, 1% from North America,
and 33% from the rest of the world. This study was con-
ducted to better understand to what extent the modified im-
age of the insect (i.e., less insect-like) on the product packag-
ing and the new brand name (i.e., less associated to insects)
have affected consumers’ responses to the same two pack-
ages (insect de-emphasis vs. insect emphasis) tested in study
3a. Similar to the previous online studies, this study was pre-
sented as an assessment of consumers’ responses regarding
food preferences. Each participant has been assigned to one
of the two experimental conditions (insect de-emphasis vs. in-
sect emphasis) and asked to explore the product package (see
Fig. 2).
Participants’ perceived disgust and WTT the food pre-
sented in the picture were measured with the same single-
item, 7-point Likert scales used in the previous experiments.
Moreover, participants’ responses to the insect de-emphasis
(vs. insect emphasis) product brand name were measured with
a single-item, 7-points Likert scale asking them to rate how
much the name of the brand suggested an insect-based food
(anchored with 1 = “Not at all”, 7 = “Very much”). Partic-
ipants’ assessment of the level of anthropomorphism of the
insects depicted on the packages was measured with a single-
item, 7-point semantic scale (anchored with 1 = “insect-like
image”, 7 = “human-like image”). At the end of the sur-
vey, to control for previous use, we asked participants if
they had ever tried insect-based food (16% declared they
had).
Study 3b results and discussion
The understand how the different elements of the pack-
ages (i.e., the level of anthropomorphism of the insect im-
age on the package and the product brand name) were
perceived by the participants, we performed an indepen-
dent sample t-test and the results showed that the im-
age of the insect on the insect de-emphasis package (see
Fig. 2) was perceived as more human-like than the one on
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
the insect emphasis package (Minsect emphasis = 1.97 ± 1.07,
Minsect de-emphasis = 4.39 ± 1.58, p < .001). Moreover,
the product brand name on the insect emphasis package
(“Crické”) was more strongly associated with insect-based
food than the insect de-emphasis one (“Small Giants”)
(Minsect emphasis = 4.01 ± 1.82, Minsect de-emphasis = 3.00 ± 1.80,
p = .001).
To test the effect of package type on perceived level of
anthropomorphism of the image of the insect and its impact
on consumers’ perceived disgust and WTT the product, we
employed a serial mediation model implemented in the PRO-
CESS macro for SPSS (Model 6; Hayes 2017). We treated
package type (coded as −1 = insect emphasis, 1 = insect
de-emphasis) as the independent variable, perceived anthro-
pomorphism as the first mediator, perceived disgust as the
second serial mediator and WTT as the dependent variable.
Moreover, we treated previous use and gender as covariates
in the regression analysis. The same serial mediation model
analysis has been conducted with the product brand name
(instead of perceived level of anthropomorphism) as first me-
diator (results available as supplemental material “Study 3c:
The insect de-emphasis brand name”).
The regression analysis used 10,000 bootstrap samples to
estimate bootstrap confidence intervals. Table SM7 in Supple-
mental Materials presents the results of this regression analy-
sis. The results for perceived anthropomorphism showed a sig-
nificant, positive effect of package type (b = 1.07, t = 16.53,
p < .001), indicating that the image of the insect on the in-
sect de-emphasis package was perceived as less insect-like.
The results for the second mediator, that is perceived disgust,
highlighted a significant negative effect of perceived anthro-
pomorphism (b = −0.18, t = −3.68, p < .001), indicating an
increase of disgust as the image of the insect was perceived
as more insect-like, while we did not find any significant ef-
fect of the package type (b = 0.01, t = 0.08, p = .94). Next,
the results for WTT showed no significant direct effect of
package type (b = −0.03, t = −0.31, p = .76), a marginally
significant positive effect of perceived anthropomorphism on
WTT (b = 0.09, t = 1.92, p = .055) and a significant nega-
tive effect of perceived disgust (b = −0.57, t = −14.50, p <
.001), indicating an increase in WTT as the perceived disgust
decreases.
Importantly, our mediation analysis showed a statistically
significant serial indirect effect through anthropomorphism
and disgust (b = 0.11, LCI = 0.05, UCI = 0.18), thus con-
firming that the insect de-emphasis package triggers lower
levels of perceived disgust, leading to an increase in partici-
pants’ WTT and this effect is mediated by the perceived level
of anthropomorphism of the image of the insect on the prod-
uct package.
As for the covariates, gender had no effect on perceived
anthropomorphism and on WTT (banthropomorphism = 0.06;
t = 0.98; p = .3; bdisgust = −0.08; t = −1.15; p = .25;
bWTT = 0.10; t = 1.52; p = .13). Concerning previous use,
participants who already tried insect-based food (vs. partic-
ipants who never tried it) experienced a significant increase
14
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
in disgust and a significant decrease of WTT compared to
those who did not try it (bdisgust = −0.43; t = −4.26; p
< .001; bWTT = 0.34; t = 3.78; p < .001), while no sig-
nificant difference emerged for perceived anthropomorphism
(banthropomorphism = 0.08; t = 0.94; p = .35).
In conclusion, while showing the existence of an indirect
effect of package type on consumers’ actual (WTE) and self-
reported (WTT) responses, results of Study 3a and 3b show
that package type does not have a direct effect on those out-
come variables. While there is the possibility that our outcome
measures might not have been able to capture all the impacts
of our manipulations, our results seem to suggest that when
thinking of eating an insect-base snack consumers are not (di-
rectly) affected by how the insect is pictured in the front pack.
Overall, an interesting finding that seems to emerge from all
our experiments: if we consider that in both Study 3a and
3b consumers could see that an insect was portrayed on the
snack packaging and confront Study 3a’s and 3b’s findings
with those of Study 2a (the only one in which we found
a significant direct effect of our manipulation on WTT), we
could learn that it is the presence versus absence of the insect
image and not how the insect is portrayed on the front pack
to make the difference in terms of inducing consumers to try
the insect-based food.
General discussion
In this series of multi-method studies, we examined how
specific marketing interventions related to product packag-
ing (i.e., removing the image of the insects or making it
less realistic) and product categories (i.e., utilitarian vs. hedo-
nic) might potentially reduce disgust feelings associated with
insect-based foods they could encounter in retail contexts and,
as a consequence of this, encourage consumers to try them.
Moreover, we offer evidence that product- and packaging-
related actions work alongside with consumers’ dispositional
characteristics (i.e., food neophobia and health consciousness)
to reduce disgust and, thereby, increase the willingness to
both try and eat the insect-based food products. Interestingly,
real marketing actions the company undertook based on our
experiments seem to have been beneficial for its market per-
formance. Specifically, the company experienced a significant
261% increase in sales for the first quarter of 2021 com-
pared to the same period of the previous year, despite the
national lockdowns that caused heavy delays in the company
production activities. Looking at the revenues registered in
the six months before the launch of the new packaging that
deemphasizes real insects with the following six, Small Giants
have seen a 95.6% increase in sales. After the packaging and
the brand restyling, the company signed a new distribution
deal securing its first national listing in the UK (70 stores).
Moreover, the company has experienced strong online sales
growth after the launch of the packaging that deemphasizes
real insects. According to Francesco Majno, CMO and co-
founder of Small Giants, “changing the product packaging
along with the brand name, both of which were modified to
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
move away from emphasizing the real insects, have played a
central role in achieving a wider audience of supporters and
clients”. Finally, the modified product packaging and brand
name won many awards including the Branding Project of
The Year Award in the UK Packaging Awards, ’FABulous’
and Gold in the FAB Awards - Packaging Design Awards,
Silver Cube in the 100th ADC Awards - Packaging Design
Awards, 1st Place in the Dieline Awards 2021 - Packaging
Design Awards. While it is worth underlining that it is not
possible to establish a cause-effect relationship between com-
pany’s action and its performance, this evidence is certainly
encouraging and relevant.
Marketing implications
Previous literature suggests that rational and logic-based
arguments—such as those highlighting the nutritional and en-
vironmental benefits of eating insect-based products—are in-
effective at increasing consumers’ intentions to try these prod-
ucts, especially when consumers do not expect said foods to
taste good (Barsics et al. 2017; Gmuer et al. 2016; Hart-
mann et al. 2015). Our findings suggest specific marketing
interventions that can reduce consumers’ perceived disgust
and, thereby, increase willingness to try such products. As
such, the present research offers some actionable insights for
marketers of insect-based food products, which we will detail
below.
The first managerial implication is for product packaging
actions. Product-based strategies for improving consumers’ re-
sponses to insect-based foods usually emphasize the use of
familiar and liked flavors (Caparros Megido et al. 2016; Ci-
catiello et al. 2016). However, using liked flavors does not al-
ways increase consumers’ WTT novel foods (Tan et al. 2017).
Improving the sensory experience of insect-based food prod-
ucts is crucially important for their inclusion in consumers’
regular eating habits (Piha et al. 2018). Specifically, previous
research suggests that the visual appearance of the insect,
the perceived mouth feeling, and aversive textural properties
are the most important sensory drivers of food being rejected
based on disgust (Martins and Pliner 2006). We found that the
visual appearance of the real insect on the product packaging
can also trigger a disgust-based food rejection. Our results
align with past studies that found an increased WTE prod-
ucts where the insect ingredient was less visible compared
to products that contain unprocessed (and thus more visible)
insect ingredients (Hartmann et al. 2015; Tan et al. 2017).
Thus, in practical terms, our results suggest that marketers
should either entirely remove the image of the insect from
their product package or at least make it less realistic (e.g.,
more human-like). Even though our findings suggest that re-
moving the image of the insect from the product packaging
can have an immediate beneficial effect on perceived disgust,
removing any references to insects can be perceived as decep-
tive strategy and therefore lead to negative consumer reactions
(Kim 2006). Moreover, hiding any mention of insects may re-
duce disgust in the short run, but may actually amplify it in
15
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
the long run since it perpetuates the notion that insects are
not normal food (Koch et al. 2021b). Therefore, using stylized
(e.g., less realistic, more human-like) image of an insect could
reduce disgust in short term and at the same time increase
public exposure to insect-based food thus making consumers
perceive them as less novel and less deviant from society’s
food norms in the Western world (Koch et al. 2021a).
The second practical implication of our work is for market
segmentation. Our results show that the effect of removing
the image effect is moderated by consumers’ level of food
neophobia. Specifically, we found that consumers with differ-
ent levels of food neophobia have different disgust reactions
when exposed to a packaging with an insect image versus one
without it. Operationally, marketers could adopt food neopho-
bia measures as an additional consumer segmentation crite-
rion. That is, they could use the scores on this variable to
reach different consumer groups with different insect-based
food product versions (Kumar and Smith 2018); specifically,
marketers could offer packages with no insect image to lowly
neophobic consumers. Moreover, our findings suggest that in-
dividuals’ health consciousness may help predict consumers’
specific response to utilitarian (vs. hedonic) insect-based food
products. Marketers might therefore include health conscious-
ness measures among their segmentation criteria and use the
results on this variable to better allocate resources and tailor
marketing activities (Kumar and Smith 2018). For instance,
financial reward programs — which aim to induce consumers
to try the products — could seek to motivate more health-
conscious consumers to consider utilitarian insect-based prod-
ucts (Kivetz and Zheng 2017). Moreover, insect-based food
producers could initially allocate more marketing resources to
design, launch and promote utilitarian (vs. hedonic) products
to more health-conscious first-time users.
The third practical implication of our work is for com-
munication of product benefits. Marketers have to be careful
when attempting to promote product healthiness and sustain-
ability with the help of rational, utilitarian and logic-based in-
formation, especially through product packaging. Our results
show that removing the focus on health- and sustainability-
related benefits from the product packaging improves con-
sumers’ implicit, self-reported, intentional and behavioral re-
sponses to insect-based food products for first-time users.
Consequently, it seems unlikely that simply informing peo-
ple about the high nutritional value of insects or the pos-
itive environmental consequences of consuming insect-based
food products will result in a widespread acceptance of insect-
based foods (Tan et al. 2017). Therefore, explicit references to
health benefits should be used with caution, especially when
addressing more health-conscious consumers, who seem to
be one of the primary targets for utilitarian insect-based food
products (Mai et al. 2016).
Theoretical implications
This research offers some relevant theoretical contribu-
tions on consumer responses to and acceptances of sustain-
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
able and healthy food choices (Cadario and Chandon 2020;
Geipel et al. 2018), and particularly to the literature focused
on insect-based food acceptance. First, we contribute to the
stream of research on the marketing actions that traditional
and online retailers can implement to mitigate consumers’
pre-consumption disgust responses to insect-based food prod-
ucts (Geipel et al. 2018; Koch et al. 2021a,b). Moreover,
unlike previous studies that have mostly focused on mar-
keting actions that manipulate insect-based food character-
istics which can be evaluated only while or after consum-
ing the product, such as its texture (Sogari et al. 2018) and
taste (Hartmann et al. 2015), the present study focused on
some factors that can reduce pre-consumption disgust feel-
ings and, consequently, lead to an increase in consumer WTT
insect-based foods. Specifically, we examined the effect of
modification in the product type and packaging elements on
consumer emotional and behavioral responses to insect-based
food products. Second, our findings complement and expand
previous research on the individual dispositional traits affect-
ing consumer responses to insect-based food products (Bar-
sics et al. 2017; Tan et al. 2016b; Vartiainen et al. 2020).
Specifically, our results show that whether hedonic or util-
itarian insect-based food products reduce perceived disgust
depends on consumers’ health consciousness level. Moreover,
we found that less food neophobic consumers respond more
positively to the product packaging without the insect im-
age on it. Given this result, one could argue that less food
neophobic consumers might respond more positively to the
new (insect de-emphasis) packaging, while those high on
food neophobia will not show reduced disgust to the an-
thropomorphized insect just as they were not affected by
removing the image of the insect. Unfortunately, we can
only speculate about this possibility since we did not test
it empirically. Third, to the best of our knowledge, the
present study is the first that examines the impact of real-
life marketing actions on actual responses to insect-based
food products. Moreover, we complement the self-reported
results by offering evidence about consumers’ implicit re-
sponses to insect-based food products, which gave additional
validation to the observed effects. Thus, the present study
provides the first real-life validation of the effectiveness of
marketing innervations aimed at reducing consumers’ per-
ceived disgust and increasing their WTT the insect-based food
product.
Limitations and further research
While our research uncovered novel results that advance
extant knowledge on how to make insect-based food less dis-
gusting to consumers, it nonetheless features some limitations
that might represent fruitful avenues for future studies. First,
we only considered product- and package-related character-
istics that can influence consumer responses to insect-based
food in traditional retail shopping environment (e.g., super-
market or online store). However, previous research suggests
that consumer responses may vary depending on the retail
settings (Wong 2021) and the social context in which the
16
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
food products are experienced (Koch et al. 2021). It might
be that the effectiveness of marketing actions aiming at re-
ducing consumers’ perceived disgust toward utilitarian (vs.
hedonic) insect-based food varies across different consump-
tion settings such as hedonic (e.g., restaurants) compared to
utilitarian (e.g., supermarket shelf) ones (Wong 2021). Our
results show that more health consciousness people express
lower disgust for the utilitarian than for the hedonic pack-
aged food while no significant differences between the two
types of food emerged for less health consciousness con-
sumers. Packaged food is usually associated with utilitar-
ian (e.g., supermarket shelf) settings which might explain
the reduced disgust of more utilitarian oriented (e.g., health
conscious) consumers toward utilitarian (vs. hedonic) insect-
based food (Irmak et al. 2011). Conversely, differences in
consumer responses to marketing actions (e.g., name of the
food dish in the menu) aiming at reducing disgust for peo-
ple (e.g., less health conscious) whose consumption habits
are mainly driven by the affective and experiential (e.g., fun,
pleasure, excitement), but not by the health-related qualities of
the food might emerge only in hedonic settings (e.g., restau-
rants) (Alba and Williams 2013). Therefore, future studies
could investigate how the congruency on hedonic (vs. utili-
tarian) level between consumption settings, product type and
consumer individual differences moderate the effectiveness of
marketing actions aiming at reducing perceived disgust to-
ward insect-based food (Wakefield and Inman 2003). Sec-
ond, we only compared the package with the image versus
without the image of the insect and the package with the
insect de-emphasis versus insect emphasis. Perhaps future re-
search could test the two packages with insect image (real
insect and human-like insect) against a third package with
no insect shown at all. It might be that the two packages
with the insect image do not differ one from the other in
terms of encouraging WTT, but that both are less effective in
encouraging WTT than a package with no insect image on
it. Third, although previous studies underlined the potential
differences among nationalities and cultures in terms of dis-
gust towards insect-based food, we employed cross-cultural
samples of respondents, but did not empirically test for sig-
nificant differences between Western and Eastern consumers
(Ruby and Rozin 2019). Future studies could thus see how our
results break down across cultural schemas. Fourth, our stud-
ies used a single-item scale for measuring perceived disgust
(Siegrist et al. 2018). Future work could test if our effects
still hold when employing different and multi-item disgust
measures (Hartmann and Siegrist 2018). Moreover, our find-
ings are only limited to insect-based food products. Future
research could investigate if our findings operate similarly
for other foods that evoke disgust such as plant-based and
lab-grown meat. Finally, our partner company changed mul-
tiple aspects of its packaging (e.g., brand name, image of the
insect, package type) which leaves open the question of what
other changes might actually affect consumers’ disgust per-
ceptions, willingness to trial, and actual trial. Thus, future re-
search should address this question by empirically testing how
different visual elements of the product packaging individu-
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
ally and in combination affect actual product trial in real retail
settings.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from fund-
ing agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sec-
tors.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Data statement
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the
current study are available from the corresponding au-
thor on reasonable request.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2022.12.
003.
Executive summary
Our manuscript tackles the novel and timely topic of con-
sumer responses to insect-based food products. To illustrate,
on May 3rd, 2021, the European Union authorized dried yel-
low mealworm as a novel food that could be sold on the mar-
ket (www.ec.europa.eu). This action offers institutional certi-
fication to the opinion—which has recently taken hold in the
international media—that eating insect-based foods can bring
nutritional benefits to consumers and environmental and social
benefits to the planet. However, despite the potential benefits
of insect-based food products, many consumers are reluctant
to eat them as a source of alternative protein.
The scientific literature has analyzed the reasons behind
consumers’ aversion to insect-based food products—one of
the most predominant being the feeling of disgust associated
with eating these foods. Our research contributes to this de-
bate by investigating the marketing actions that producers of
these insect-based food products could employ to overcome
consumers’ reluctance. More specifically, we explore how
package- and product-related actions interact with consumers’
dispositional traits to affect consumers’ disgust and conse-
quently their willingness to try insectbased food products.
A peculiar strength of our study is that we partnered with
a UK producer of insect-based food products, named Small
Giants, along the entire journey of our research; this collabo-
ration produced tangible effects on the company’s market per-
formance including a significant 261% increase in sales for
the first quarter compared to the same period of the previ-
ous year and a new distribution deal with one of the biggest
supermarket chains in UK. First, through three preliminary
Implicit Association Tests, we assessed consumers’ implicit
17
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
responses to the intended associations (i.e., tasty, sustainable,
and healthy) with the product category that the company (and
its competitors) used in its communication strategy. Interest-
ingly, we discovered that compared to the traditional food, the
insect-based one was more strongly associated with disgust,
unhealthy, and unsustainable than traditional foods (supple-
mental materials). Then, we conducted three online experi-
ments: first, we demonstrated that insect-based food products
elicit greater feelings of disgust than traditional food products,
which lowers the willingness to try (Pilot Study); second, we
examined some key package... and product-related changes
and consumer characteristics that can reduce disgust, thereby
increasing willingness to try. In particular, Study 1 manipu-
lated the insect-based food product category and demonstrated
that consumers with relatively high levels of health conscious-
ness perceive utilitarian insect-based food products as less
disgusting than hedonic ones. In Study 2, we studied the ef-
fect of removing the image of the insect from the product
packaging. We found that for consumers with relatively low
levels of food neophobia (i.e., consumers’ aversion to trying
novel foods), the product packaging without the insect image
leads to a reduction in perceived disgust and an increase in
the willingness to try compared to the product packaging with
the insect image.
We then shared our experimental results with our partner-
ing company, which used them to make some key product
modifications, such as changing the product naming, the im-
age of the insect was changed from clear cricket image to
a stylized, less realistic, more human-like insect (e.g., an in-
sect wearing shoes), and making less prominent the product’s
nutritional qualities on the product packaging. Afterward, we
took the final steps of investigating consumers’ reactions—in
terms of implicit associations (supplemental materials), feel-
ings of disgust and the willingness to try the product (Study
3a/b)—to the old vis-à-vis new product versions. We con-
ducted these final tests using images and physical samples
of the company’s products. Compared to the old packaging
with the real insect, the modified package with the cartoon
insect triggered more positive emotion/attitude responses (in
terms of health, taste and sustainability) and a lower perceived
disgust (mediated by the perceived anthropomorphism of the
insect image on the package), which, in turn, led to a higher
willingness to try the insect-based food product. Overall, we
provide empirical evidence that the changes undertaken by the
insect-based food producer in light of our experimental data
led to a significant improvement in consumers’ acceptance of
insect-based food products.
In sum, we carried out six preliminary IAT, qualitative
studies and six experiments that utilized not only self-reported
emotional and behavioral intention measures, but also a real
behavioral measure of consumers’ willingness to try insect-
based food products.
Overall, we believe our research brings relevant contribu-
tions to the scientific debate around insectbased food prod-
ucts. We reveal the conditions that can reduce consumers’
perceived disgust toward such products and increase their
willingness to try. By partnering with a real producer of in-
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
sectbased foods, our study makes tangible recommendations
to marketers of insect-based food products who are looking to
strategically improve consumers’ attitude toward these novel
products.
References
Alba, Joseph W. & Williams Elanor F. (2013), “Pleasure Principles: A Review
of Research on Hedonic Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Psychology,
23 (1), 2–18.
Argo, Jennifer J., Dahl Darren W. & Morales Andrea C. (2006), “Consumer
Contamination: How Consumers React to Products Touched by Others,”
Journal of Marketing, 70 (2), 81–94.
Arnold, Mark J. & Reynolds Kristy E. (2012), “Approach and Avoidance Mo-
tivation: Investigating Hedonic Consumption in a Retail Setting,” Journal
of Retailing, 88 (3), 399–411.
Barsics, Fanny, Megido Rudy Caparros, Brostaux Yves, Barsics Catherine,
Blecker Christophe, Haubruge Eric & Francis Frédéric (2017), “Could
New Information Influence Attitudes to Foods Supplemented with Edible
Insects?,” British Food Journal, 119 (9), 2027–39.
Cadario, Romain & Chandon Pierre (2020), “Which Healthy Eating Nudges
Work Best? A Meta-Analysis of Field Experiments,” Marketing Science,
39 (3), 465–86.
Caparros Megido, Rudy, Sablon Ludovic, Geuens Mélodie, Brostaux Yves,
Alabi Taofic, Blecker Christophe, Drugmand Didier, Haubruge Éric &
Francis Frédéric (2014), “Edible Insects Acceptance by Belgian Con-
sumers: Promising Attitude for Entomophagy Development,” Journal of
Sensory Studies, 29 (1), 14–20.
—— Caparros Megido, Rudy, Gierts Chloé, Blecker Christophe,
Brostaux Yves, Haubruge Éric, Alabi Taofic & Francis Frédéric (2016),
“Consumer Acceptance of Insect-Based Alternative Meat Products in
Western Countries,” Food Quality and Preference, 52, 237–43.
Chen, Mei-Fang (2011), “The Joint Moderating Effect of Health Conscious-
ness and Healthy Lifestyle on Consumers’ Willingness to Use Functional
Foods in Taiwan,” Appetite, 57 (1), 253–62.
Cicatiello, Clara, Rosa Beatrice De, Franco Silvio & Lacetera Nicola (2016),
“Consumer Approach to Insects as Food: Barriers and Potential for Con-
sumption in Italy,” British Food Journal, 118 (9), 2271–86.
de Boer, Joop, Schösler Hanna & Boersema Jan J. (2013), “Motivational
Differences in Food Orientation and the Choice of Snacks Made from
Lentils, Locusts, Seaweed or “Hybrid” Meat,” Food Quality and Prefer-
ence, 28 (1), 32–5.
Das, Gopal, Mukherjee Amaradri & Smith Ronn J. (2018), “The Perfect Fit:
The Moderating Role of Selling Cues on Hedonic and Utilitarian Product
Types,” Journal of Retailing, 94 (2), 203–16.
Deroy, Ophelia, Reade Ben & Spence Charles (2015), “The Insectivore’s
Dilemma, and How to Take the West Out of it,” Food Quality and Pref-
erence, 44, 44–55.
Dhar, Ravi & Wertenbroch Klaus (2000), “Consumer Choice Between He-
donic and Utilitarian Goods,” Journal of Marketing Research, 37 (1),
60–71.
Geipel, Janet, Hadjichristidis Constantinos & Klesse Anne-Kathrin (2018),
“Barriers to Sustainable Consumption Attenuated by Foreign Language
Use,” Nature Sustainability, 1 (1), 31–3.
Gere, Attila, Székely Géza, Kovács Sándor, Kókai Zoltán & Sipos László
(2017), “Readiness to Adopt Insects in Hungary: A Case Study,” Food
Quality and Preference, 59, 81–6.
Gmuer, Angelina, Guth Jeannette Nuessli, Hartmann Christina &
Siegrist Michael (2016), “Effects of the Degree of Processing of Insect
Ingredients in Snacks on Expected Emotional Experiences and Willing-
ness to Eat,” Food quality and Preference, 54, 117–27.
Greenwald, Anthony G., Poehlman Andrew T., Uhlmann Eric Luis & Ba-
naji Mahzarin R. (2009), “Understanding and Using the Implicit Associa-
tion Test: III. Meta-Analysis of Predictive Validity,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 97 (1), 17.
Grewal, Dhruv, Roggeveen Anne L. & Nordfält Jens (2017), “The Future of
Retailing,” Journal of Retailing, 93 (1), 1–6.
18
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
Gumussoy, Maya, Macmillan Chloe, Bryant Stephanie, Hunt David F. &
Rogers Peter J. (2021), “Desire to Eat and Intake of ‘Insect’ Containing
food is Increased by a Written Passage: The Potential Role of Familiarity
in the Amelioration of Novel Food Disgust,” Appetite, 161, 105088.
Hartmann, Christina, Shi Jing, Giusto Alice & Siegrist Michael (2015), “The
Psychology of Eating Insects: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between
Germany and China,” Food Quality and Preference, 44, 148–56.
Hartmann, Christina, Shi Jing, Giusto Alice & Siegrist Michael (2016), “Be-
coming an Insectivore: Results of an Experiment,” Food Quality and Pref-
erence, 51, 118–22.
Hartmann, Christina, Shi Jing, Giusto Alice & Siegrist Michael (2018), “De-
velopment and Validation of the Food Disgust Scale,” Food Quality and
Preference, 63, 38–50.
Hayes, Andrew F. (2017). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Con-
ditional Process analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. Guilford publi-
cations.
House, Jonas (2016), “Consumer Acceptance of Insect-Based Foods in the
Netherlands: Academic and Commercial Implications,” Appetite, 107,
47–58.
Irmak, Caglar, Vallen Beth & Robinson Stefanie Rosen (2011), “The Im-
pact of Product Name on Dieters’ and Nondieters’ Food Evaluations and
Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research, 38 (2), 390–405.
Jensen, Niels Holm & Lieberoth Andreas (2019), “We will Eat Disgust-
ing Foods Together–Evidence of the Normative Basis of Western Ento-
mophagy-Disgust from an Insect Tasting,” Food Quality and Preference,
72, 109–15.
Kim, Hyeong (2006), “Consumers’ Responses to Price Presentation Formats
in Rebate Advertisements,” Journal of Retailing, 82 (4), 309–17.
Kivetz, Ran & Zheng Yuhuang (2017), “The Effects of Promotions on He-
donic Versus Utilitarian Purchases,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27
(1), 59–68.
Koch, Jan Andre., Bolderdijk Jan Willem & Ittersum Koert van (2021a), “No
Way, That’s Gross! How Public Exposure Therapy can Overcome Disgust
Preventing Consumer Adoption of Sustainable Food Alternatives,” Foods,
10 (6), 1380.
Koch, Jan Andre., Bolderdijk Jan Willem & Ittersum Koert van (2021b),
“Disgusting? No, Just Deviating from Internalized Norms. Understanding
Consumer Skepticism Toward Sustainable Food Alternatives,” Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 76, 101645.
Kumar, Archana & Smith Sylvia (2018), “Understanding Local Food Con-
sumers: Theory of Planned Behavior and Segmentation Approach,” Jour-
nal of Food Products Marketing, 24 (2), 196–215.
La Barbera, Francesco, Verneau Fabio, Amato Mario & Grunert Klaus
(2018), “Understanding Westerners’ Disgust for the Eating of Insects:
The Role of Food Neophobia and Implicit Associations,” Food Quality
and Preference, 64, 120–5.
Lombardi, Alessia, Vecchio Riccardo, Borrello Massimiliano, Caracci-
olo Francesco & Cembalo Luigi (2019), “Willingness to Pay for Insec-
t-Based Food: The Role of Information and Carrier,” Food Quality and
Preference, 72, 177–87.
Mai, Robert & Hoffmann Stefan (2012), “Taste Lovers Versus Nutrition Fact
Seekers: How Health Consciousness and Self-Efficacy Determine the Way
Consumers Choose Food Products,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 11
(4), 316–28.
—— Mai, Robert, Symmank Claudia & Seeberg-Elverfeldt Berenike (2016),
“Light and Pale Colors in Food Packaging: When does this Package Cue
Signal Superior Healthiness or Inferior Tastiness?,” Journal of Retailing,
92 (4), 426–44.
Martins, Yolanda & Pliner Patricia (2006), “Ugh! That’s Disgusting!”: Iden-
tification of the Characteristics of Foods Underlying Rejections Based on
Disgust,” Appetite, 46 (1), 75–85.
Menozzi, Davide, Sogari Giovanni, Veneziani Mario, Simoni Erica &
Mora Cristina (2017), “Eating Novel Foods: An Application of the The-
ory of Planned Behaviour to Predict the Consumption of an Insect-Based
Product,” Food Quality and Preference, 59, 27–34.
Morales, Andrea C. & Fitzsimons Gavan J. (2007), “Product Contagion:
Changing Consumer Evaluations Through Physical Contact with “Dis-
gusting” Product,” Journal of Marketing Research, 44 (2), 272–83.
JID: RETAIL
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Pozharliev, M. De Angelis, D. Rossi et al.
Naylor, Rebecca Walker, Droms Courtney M. & Haws Kelly L. (2009),
“Eating with a Purpose: Consumer Response to Functional Food Health
Claims in Conflicting Versus Complementary Information Environments,”
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 28 (2), 221–33.
Piha, Samuel, Pohjanheimo Terhi, Lähteenmäki-Uutela Anu,
Křečková Zuzana & Otterbring Tobias (2018), “The Effects of Consumer
Knowledge on the Willingness to Buy Insect Food: An Exploratory
Cross-Regional Study in Northern and Central Europe,” Food Quality
and Preference, 70, 1–10.
Pliner, Patricia & Hobden Karen (1992), “Development of a Scale to Measure
the Trait of Food Neophobia in Humans,” Appetite, 19 (2), 105–20.
Rozin, Paul & Fallon April E. (1987), “A Perspective on Disgust,” Psycho-
logical Review, 94 (1), 23.
Ruby, Matthew B. & Rozin Paul (2019), “Disgust, Sushi Consumption, and
Other Predictors of Acceptance of Insects as Food by Americans and
Indians,” Food Quality and Preference, 74, 155–62.
Schösler, Hanna, De Boer Joop & Boersema Jan J. (2012), “Can We Cut
Out the Meat of the Dish? Constructing Consumer-Oriented Pathways
Towards Meat Substitution,” Appetite, 58 (1), 39–47.
Schouteten, Joachim J., Steur Hans De, Pelsmaeker Sara De, Lagast Sofie,
Juvinal Joel G., Bourdeaudhuij Ilse De, Verbeke Wim & Gel-
lynck Xavier (2016), “Emotional and Sensory Profiling of Insect-, Plan-
t-and Meat-Based Burgers Under Blind, Expected and Informed Condi-
tions,” Food Quality and Preference, 52, 27–31.
Sheppard, Barry & Frazer Patricia (2015), “Comparing Social and Intellec-
tual Appeals to Reduce Disgust of Eating Crickets,” Studies in Arts and
Humanities, 1 (2), 4–23.
Siegrist, Michael, Sütterlin Bernadette & Hartmann Christina (2018), “Per-
ceived Naturalness and Evoked Disgust Influence Acceptance of Cultured
Meat,” Meat Science, 139, 213–19.
Sogari, Giovanni, Menozzi Davide & Mora Cristina (2018), “Sensory-Liking
Expectations and Perceptions of Processed and Unprocessed Insect Prod-
ucts,” International Journal on Food System Dynamics, 9 (4), 314–20.
Tan, Hui Shan Grace, Trijp Hans C.M.van & Stieger Markus (2016a), “Tasty
but Nasty? Exploring the Role of Sensory-Liking and Food Appropriate-
ness in the Willingness to Eat Unusual Novel Foods Like Insects,” Food
Quality and Preference, 48, 293–302.
—— Tan, Hui Shan Grace, van den Berg Eva & Stieger Markus (2016b),
“The Influence of Product Preparation, Familiarity and Individual Traits
on the Consumer Acceptance of Insects as Food,” Food Quality and Pref-
erence, 52, 222–31.
—— Tan, Hui Shan Grace, Yoeri Timothy Verbaan & Stieger Markus (2017),
“How will Better Products Improve the Sensory-Liking and Willingness
to Buy Insect-Based Foods?,” Food Research International, 92, 95–105.
19
[m5+;January 9, 2023;10:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
Togawa, Taku, Park Jaewoo, Ishii Hiroaki & Deng Xiaoyan (2019), “A Pack-
aging Visual-Gustatory Correspondence Effect: Using Visual Packaging
Design to Influence Flavor Perception and Healthy Eating Decisions,”
Journal of Retailing, 95 (4), 204–18.
Van Thielen, Leen, Vermuyten Sabine, Storms Bérénice, Rumpold Birgit &
Campenhout Leen Van (2019), “Consumer Acceptance of Foods Contain-
ing Edible Insects in Belgium Two Years After their Introduction to the
Market,” Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, 5 (1), 35–44.
Vartiainen, Outi, Elorinne Anna-Liisa, Niva Mari & Väisänen Pertti (2020),
“Finnish Consumers’ Intentions to Consume Insect-Based Foods,” Journal
of Insects as Food and Feed, 6 (3), 261–72.
Verbeke, Wim (2015), “Profiling Consumers Who are Ready to Adopt Insects
as a Meat Substitute in a Western society,” Food Quality and Preference,
39, 147–55.
Verneau, Fabio, Barbera Francesco La, Kolle Susanne, Amato Mario, Giu-
dice Teresa Del & Grunert Klaus (2016), “The Effect of Communication
and Implicit Associations on Consuming Insects: An Experiment in Den-
mark and Italy,” Appetite, 106, 30–6.
Villatoro, Daniel, Andrighetto Giulia, Conte Rosaria & Sabater-Mir Jordi
(2015), “Self-Policing Through Norm Internalization: A Cognitive Solu-
tion to the Tragedy of the Digital Commons in Social Networks,” JASSS,
18 (2).
Wakefield, Kirk L. & Inman J.Jeffrey (2003), “Situational Price Sensitivity:
The Role of Consumption Occasion, Social Context and Income,” Journal
of Retailing, 79 (4), 199–212.
Wang, Edward Shih-Tse (2017), “Different Effects of Utilitarian and Hedo-
nic Benefits of Retail Food Packaging on Perceived Product Quality and
Purchase Intention,” Journal of Food Products Marketing, 23 (3), 239–50.
White, Katherine, Lin Lily, Dahl Darren W. & Ritchie Robin J. (2016),
“When do Consumers Avoid Imperfections? Superficial Packaging Dam-
age as a Contamination Cue,” Journal of Marketing Research, 53 (1),
110–23.
Wong, Amy (2021), “Consumer Perceptions of Service Convenience in He-
donic and Utilitarian Retail Settings in China,” Journal of International
Consumer Marketing, 33 (4), 452–70.
Wongkitrungrueng, Apiradee, Valenzuela Ana & Sen Sankar (2018), “The
Cake Looks Yummy on the Shelf up There: The Interactive Effect of Re-
tail Shelf Position and Consumers’ Personal Sense of Power on Indulgent
Choice,” Journal of Retailing, 94 (3), 280–95.
Zhao, Xinshu, Jr John G.Lynch & Chen Qimei (2010), “Reconsidering Baron
and Kenny: Myths and Truths About Mediation Analysis,” Journal of
Consumer Research, 37 (2), 197–206.