Although recent literature has shown that switching to an insect-based diet could provide several relevant advantages—from a nutritional, environmental, economic and ecological point of view—the potential growth of insects as everyday food is still unclear. Despite a growing literature on consumer acceptance and product preference for insect-based food, a segmentation of this future and possible market has never been proposed. Therefore, in the present paper, a market segmentation based on the Food Related Lifestyle Scale (FRLS), was performed in order to predict consumers’ willingness to eat (WTE) edible insects. Moreover, the role of perceived behavioural control is taken into account. Results shows that the novelty and benefits of insect consumption have generated much interest in edible insects amongst consumers belonging to the Rational cluster, who showed the highest intention to introduce insects in their diet, thus confirming the presence of a niche of “early adopters”. In addition, perceived behavioural control was the major driver of intention. Implications for attempts to encourage people to incorporate insect-based foods into their diet are discussed, with special reference to the role of marketing campaigns.

中文翻译：

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评估与食物有关的生活方式在预测食用昆虫意图中的作用

尽管最近的文献表明，从营养，环境，经济和生态的角度来看，改为以昆虫为基础的饮食可以提供一些相关的优势，但仍不清楚昆虫作为日常食物的潜在生长。尽管有越来越多的文献报道消费者对昆虫类食品的接受程度和产品偏爱，但从未提出过对这种未来和可能的市场进行细分的建议。因此，在本文中，进行了基于食物相关生活方式量表（FRLS）的市场细分，以预测消费者食用（WTE）食用昆虫的意愿。此外，考虑到了行为控制的作用。结果表明，昆虫消费的新颖性和益处引起了Rational集群消费者对食用昆虫的极大兴趣，这些消费者表现出了在饮食中引入昆虫的最高意图，从而证实了“早期采用者”的存在。此外，感知的行为控制是意图的主要驱动力。讨论了试图鼓励人们将基于昆虫的食物纳入饮食的尝试，并特别提及了营销活动的作用。