Willingness to pay for meat from animals fed insect feed in Taiwan
Journal
Journal of Insects as Food and Feed
ISSN
2352-4588
Date Issued
2026-03-25
Author(s)
Abstract
As many humans feel disgust towards insects as food, using insects as feed ingredients for livestock animals is seen as more commercially promising. While insect-based feed can reduce the environmental footprint of meat, insect protein is presently more expensive than conventional feed proteins like soymeal or fishmeal. Whether consumers accept insect-fed animal products, and at what price, is thus important to determine. Previous research in Europe and Africa found that consumers feel positively towards insect-fed animal products, and are willing to pay more for them. This study surveyed urban consumers at a farmers’ market in Taiwan, measuring their acceptance of insects as food or feed and comparing their willingness to pay for products from insect-fed or conventional diet-fed animals. While a minority were willing to eat insects themselves, a majority of respondents were willing to eat meat from animals fed insects. However, and in contrast to data from other nations, these same consumers wanted to pay less for insect-fed animal products, not more. Paradoxically, respondents provided with positive information about insects as animal feed showed a lower willingness to pay for insect-fed animal products than those provided no information. The results may be due to cultural differences between Taiwan residents and the sample populations of prior studies, but could also reflect information bias: consumers may not want to know whether their meat came from an animal fed insects. Labelling it as such would for this population likely lead to lower acceptance of the product without an associated price reduction. © Y.-N. Fu et al., 2026. Published with license by Koninklijke Brill BV
Subjects
consumers
edible insects
feed ingredients
Taiwan
WTP
Publisher
Brill Wageningen Academic
Type
journal article