Consumer Acceptance of Alternative Proteins and AI in Food Systems: A Comparative Study Between Consumers with Food Safety Literacy and General Consumers

Abstract

Consumer reluctance is still a major impediment to market acceptance as alternative proteins and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are viewed as key to the world’s food security. The food industry has traditionally used the Information Deficit Model which presupposes that the problem of sustainability and food technology scientific education will naturally lead to consumer acceptance. This paper opposes such a paradigm by carrying out a comparative analysis of the alternative proteins’ acceptance in Food Safety Personnel (n=61) and General Consumers (n=75). The study assessed the effects of objective food safety knowledge, microbial risk perception, and technological trust on the purchasing intent using an Independent Samples T-test and Pearson correlation matrix.