In what context do you want to eat edible insects?

In Europe, edible insects are unusual in food habits. Food neophobia and disgust are considered as major barriers to western entomophagy development. Strategies to im-prove the consumer acceptance are discussed in the literature but are mainly related to product and individual factors. However, other factors are involved and need attention as contextual factors. Defining the most appropriate context for insect consumption is a milestone in the insect-based food development and the context encompasses a set of parameters: “for which audience”, “at which time”, “in which place”, “in which social envi-ronment”, etc.
A preliminary study was conducted to record the first trends related to this topic by fo-cusing on the timing of insect consumption (i.e. breakfast, lunch, dinner and between meals) and the style of insect preparation (i.e. main dish, trimming and snack) as well as challenging the questionnaire for further large scale studies. The survey was carried out at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech – University of Liège (Gembloux, Belgium) with 475 re-spondents (mean age: 27.62 ± 11.45 years old).
Only one respondent did not know that insect could be used as food and many respond-ents would be willing to eat insects. Insect consumption was already experimented by most respondents but in an uncommon way (i.e. yearly or less frequent) and mainly lim-ited to tasting during special events (e.g., conference). Concerning the context of insect consumption, the breakfast was considered as the less appropriate time to consume insects. Presenting edible insects as snacks seemed the most appropriate followed by insects as trimming.