Consumer Acceptance of Novel Foods

The success of novel foods depends to a considerable extent on whether consumers accept those innovations. This chapter provides an overview of current knowledge relevant to consumer acceptance of innovations in food. A broad range of theories and approaches to assess consumer response to innovations have been developed in the past. Many of these approaches have in common that information about the innovative product and/or its attributes lead to perceptions or attitudes toward the innovative product. Positive attitudes in turn lead to positive responses and subsequently to more consumers buying the product. Modern insights of consumer behavior show that the picture is not as straightforward. Implicit, often unconscious, gut feelings and the influence of the environment are also influencing consumer choice even without the awareness of the consumers themselves. Finally, alternative insights of theoretical approaches based on automatic behavior and implicit associations are presented, whereas mainstream and alternative methodologies to measure consumer response are denoted.