Consumer acceptance of insect-based meat substitutes

Meat plays an important role in the consumption pattern of most European and North American consumers. Meat production is responsible for a well known environmental pressure due to the inefficient conversion of plant protein to meat protein and alternatives sources, such as insects or algae, will be rapidly required. In a recent theorical study, de Boer et al. (2013) show that consumers prefer to eat a hybrid meat product (i.e. a mix of meat and its substitute) rather than a pure meat substitute [3]. Based on these preliminary results, hedonic tests were realized to assess the acceptability of insect-based burgers in a target population composed of people from 15 to 25 years old, considered as the future insect consumers. Isolated in a tasting booth, each participant was invited to taste four burger samples containing a ratio of 20 gr of protein by 100 gr of burger. The first burger was prepared with 95% of grounded beef (1), the second with 95% of green lentil (2), the third with 45% of green lentil and 50% of mealworms (Tenebrio molitor L.; Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) and the fourth with 45% of grounded beef burger and 50% of mealworms. The last 5% of each burger consists of an aromatization portion containing onions, carrots, tomato paste and garlic. Participants were asked to rate each sample on a 9-point hedonic scale, where extreme sides were noted from “extremely dislike” (left) to “extremely like” (right). Tukey post-hoc comparisons on the appreciation results showed that beef-based products (with or without mealworms) were relatively preferred to lentil-based products (with or without mealworms), probably because hybrid meat burgers seem more familiar to the consumers than vegetable burgers, and that no liking differences were noticed between the two beef-based burgers and between the two insect-based burgers. These results confirm that shape and appearance are key criteria in the acceptation of meat substitute by non-vegetarian consumers and that insects will preferentially be consumed, in the future, if they are presented in an invisible way and associated with familiar flavors.