The influence of information and beliefs about technology on the acceptance of novel food technologies: A conjoint study of farmed prawn concepts

Consumers appear to be cautious about accepting novel technologies applied to foods because of perceived risks and lack of benefits. Text descriptions of novel technologies were tested at four locations around Australia on 453 prawn consumers. Half of the participants (Information treatment group) received additional information about the technologies. A conjoint study was undertaken with additional responses to questions on perceived risks, benefits, need, unnaturalness and safety of the technologies (beliefs). Recognition of the additional information was tested by an open question at the end of the task. Information treatment did not influence responses. Participants were segmented by the sum of their beliefs. Those (mostly male), classified with strong positive beliefs (15%), placed on average, less importance upon technology but an equal amount on cost and size of the product concepts. For those (mostly female), classified with strong negative beliefs (17%), technology was of greater average importance, with a greater range of (dis)utilities across the technologies. All participants favoured regular prawns to those treated with novel technologies although one technology (Triploidy) did receive relatively positive utilities possibly related to information that triploidy is sometimes "found in nature" and results in larger prawns. Generally, addressing "information deficit" did not overcome aversion to novel technologies applied to food concepts. Crown Copyright (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.