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Food fraud refers to deceptive practices conducted for economic gain, and incidents of such fraud are often reported in the media and scientific literature. However, little is known about how European consumers perceive food fraud. To address this gap, a study explored Portuguese consumers' knowledge and perceptions of food fraud using qualitative methods such as free word association and semi-structured interviews. For this research, 340 participants were recruited, providing 911 valid words, classified into categories, major categories, and dimensions. Differences between consumers' previous exposure to food fraud and sociodemographic characteristics were explored. Additionally, other thirty-six participants were selected and interviewed, following a semi-structured guide. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using a thematic analysis procedure. The results suggest that Portuguese consumers view food fraud as a morally reprehensible deception and are aware of its causes and impacts. However, not all consumers know the different forms of food fraud or the types of products vulnerable to fraud. Among the most repeated words were “deception”, “expiration date”, and “falsification”. Despite this food fraud awareness, most consumers believed they were not exposed to food fraud and stated that they do not conduct daily practices to reduce exposure to it. Following the chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests, significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) were identified between participants exposed and not exposed to food fraud. The study also found that consumers with higher education and self-reported exposure to food fraud had a better understanding of the issue. This study provides insights for quantitative research on consumer perceptions and beliefs about food fraud to explore further vulnerable food categories and types of food fraud in real-world scenarios.

There is scarce research on the use of black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) meal in the diets of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) reared in a real farm. Thus, the current study aimed to evaluate the effect of feeding BSFL meal to salmon in terms of fillet quality and sensory analysis at farm level conditions. Fish were fed a total of three diets (pellet size; 4.5 mm and 9 mm); a control diet (Control: 0% BSFL meal) formulated using a standard commercial recipe, containing FM (10%) and plant-based proteins. Two experimental diets were formulated using partially defatted BSFL meal (53% crude protein), in which plant-based proteins at 37% inclusion level from the control diet (4.5 mm pellets) were replaced by BSFL meal at 5% (BSFL 5%) and 10% (BSFL 10%). While for the 9.0 mm pellets, plant-based proteins at 35% were replaced by the BSFL meal at 5% and 10% inclusion level. All the three diets were formulated to be iso-nitrogenous and iso-lipidic diets. Diets were assigned to the sea-cages in triplicate (12 ×12 m; 1900 m3); housing ∼6000 fish per cage from 173 ± 2.7 g to harvest size 3.45 ± 74 kg for a period of 13 months. Feeding salmon with BSFL meal had no negative impact on the general fillet physical, chemical, and nutritional parameters. The fillet sensory evaluation showed that the control samples were associated with the typical attributes such as fresh salmon taste, while BSLF 10% to rancid taste but these attributes were not significantly different among the dietary groups. Overall, the current study showed that diet containing BSFL meal did not affect the general fillet parameters compared to salmon fed a commercial diet and thus validate the inclusion of BSFL meal up to 10% reared for a whole production cycle in sea cages.

Sensory analysis methodologies are performed in sensory booths designed to minimise external stimuli, lacking ecological validity. Immersive environments are used to introduce contextual cues, but there is a lack of studies using mixed reality systems. The main goal of this study was to evaluate an augmented virtuality (AV) system where participants are inserted into a virtual environment and evaluate a real product, being able to interact with both dimensions. A panel of 102 consumers evaluated five samples of commercial peach nectars in three sessions, each in a different environment: public food court, living room (AV environments), and laboratory (traditional sensory booth). Consumers rated overall liking, followed by open comments, and also answered an Engagement (EQ) and a Presence Questionnaire (PQ). The type of environment only affected hedonic discrimination among samples, with the laboratory setting being the only one with sample discrimination. Nonetheless, each sample was not evaluated differently across the different environments. Concerning engagement, the environment only significantly influenced the EQ’s ‘Affective Value’ factor, being higher when using an AV system. The level of presence in the virtual environment was significantly higher in the public food court, being significantly correlated with the EQ factor scores.

Abstract Background Plant- and insect-based foods are promising alternative protein sources. Previous studies have shown that introducing plant-based foods to the diet can reduce meat intake, but no such intervention has explored the effects of insect-based foods. Methods This study aims to integrate alternative proteins to main meals of 80 Danish families through a 6-week two-arm randomized intervention trial to investigate acceptance, consumption, and potential for meat replacement. The primary outcome is the replacement of dietary meat protein with plant- or insect-based protein from the intervention foods assessed through change in daily meat protein intake, proportion of meat protein to total protein intake, and counts of dinner meals with meat and intervention products. Conclusion The results of this study will contribute to research in alternative proteins and explore the effects of long-term exposure of meat replacement. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05156853 . Registered 24 December 2021

It is necessary to develop products with desirable sensory properties in order to increase the acceptance of insect-based products by Western consumers. In this work, the impact of defatting on the sensory properties of cereal bars with yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) larvae, in addition to the impact of different drying methods and different species (T. molitor and house cricket Acheta domesticus) were assessed. A model cereal bar incorporating oats, dried and dehydrated fruits was developed as well as four additional formulations with insect flour: defatted (Soxhlet method with ethanol) mealworm (TM_D), microwave (TM_MW) or oven dried (TM_O) mealworm and oven dried cricket (AD_O). A panel of 99 consumers rated overall liking and willingness to buy (9-point scale), and profiled the bars using a Check-All-That-Apply ballot. The bars with defatted or microwaved mealworm had similar liking and willingness to eat scores in comparison with the control bar. Conversely, bars with oven-dried insects had worse evaluations and were associated with negative attributes related to odor and flavor, which were hampered by defatting or microwave-drying. This study highlights how different processing methods can be applied in order to increase the sensory liking of insect-based products and also provides information on their sensory characterization.

The consumption of edible insects (EI) is traditional in many parts of the world, but not in others. In fact, despite globalization and the multiple advantages pointed out about the consumption of EI, there are still many countries where entomophagy is seen with disgust and aversion. This systematic review aimed to examine the motivations that influence the consumption of EI in diverse cultures and understand if there are differences between Western countries (WC) and insect-eating countries (IEC). It further evaluated whether the degree of acceptability was influenced by the form of consumption of the insects (eating whole insects or foods containing insects). This literature review was conducted in November 2021 within three databases, Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus, according to the Preferred Reporting of Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis and using PRISMA directives. From a total of 245 studies, 31 were selected to be included in this review, based on the inclusion criteria defined: only original research articles, from 2010 or beyond, and written in English. The results indicated that the main motivations that determine the consumption of EI are related to gender, age, sustainability, nutritional value, sensory attributes, tradition/culture, food neophobia, disgust and familiarity/past experiences. Moreover, whereas in IEC, there is a greater focus on factors related to sensory attributes, availability, affordability and preferences, in WC, there is a bigger emphasis on determinants such as nutritional value, sustainability, benefits, familiarity/past experience, tradition/culture, food neophobia and disgust. Finally, it was observed that people in WC are more willing to accept food products containing insects rather than the whole insect, which is one of the most promising points to be addressed in the future. Overall, this review highlights that there are numerous factors influencing the consumption of edible insects, and differences between WC and IEC are clear in what concerns the motivations of consumers. Hence, targeting market segments and consumers’ characteristics has to be present when designing strategies to incentivize the consumption of EI in WC as a part of a global strategy for sustainability of food systems.

Rice and cereal consumption has become a concern for consumers due to usually high glycaemic indexes (GI), which is a critical issue for a balanced and healthy diet. Therefore, the development of new products with low GI is an important target of the industry, particularly in countries with high consumption. This study assesses consumers’ perceptions about “rice” and “rice with low GI” and evaluates the effect of consumers’ rice consumption profiles through the application of a free word association technique in a structured self-administered electronic questionnaire with 256 Portuguese consumers (the European market with the highest per capita consumption of rice by far). The frequency of rice consumption was evaluated, and the consumption profile was determined through a hierarchical cluster analysis, with 9% identified as daily consumers. The response words were categorized by the triangulation technique, and the association between the word categories and dimensions, sociodemographic characteristics, and consumption profile were determined. Respondents most frequently associated “rice” with rice dishes, its sensory attributes, and nutrition, highlighting the satisfaction of nutritional and hedonic needs. Consumers revealed positive expectations in relation to the functionality of “rice with low GI”. The consumers’ rice consumption profiles, sex, age, and educational levels influenced their perception towards “rice“ and “rice with low GI”. This study provides important insights for the industry to develop a consumer-oriented, low GI rice product.