Food Neophobia and its Influence on the Lack of Diversification in Seafood Consumption

Sammanfattning: This master’s thesis is performed in collaboration with the Research Institute of Sweden. The purpose of the study was to investigate food neophobia, or an aversion to trying new foods, in the Swedish population and see if it correlates with the country's low and undiversified seafood consumption. The topic of the study stems not only from consumers consuming less seafood than is recommended, but also from a lack of variety in the seafood consumed. The study was executed by way of an online voluntary survey aiming to measure a subset of the Swedish population’s food neophobia and their perception towards seven different seafoods, salmon, herring, cod, shrimp, mussels, oysters, and seaweed. Participants were asked to fill in an approach and an avoid new foods scale that measured food neophobia, to select conceptualisations they associated with the seafoods presented in the survey, to select situations they deemed appropriate for the seafoods to be consumed in, and lastly to answer how frequently they consumed the seafoods presented in the survey. Due to a lack of food neophobic survey participants, it was not possible to investigate whether food neophobia correlated with a lack of a diverse seafood diet. The study showed that only 2.4% of the survey participants exhibited traits of high food neophobia with average avoid new foods scores ranging from 4-5 out of 5. The overall average approach new foods score was 3.968 out of 5 while the average avoid new foods score was 1.696 out of 5, indicating that participants were motivated to try new foods rather than avoid them and were therefore not food neophobic. The most consumed seafoods reported by the participants consecutively were salmon, shrimp, cod, herring, mussels, seaweed and lastly oysters. The findings revealed that the frequency of consumption of various seafoods was not correlated to the participants' not being food neophobic, but rather to the seafood's negative and positive sensory attributes, whether they are perceived as healthy, whether they are perceived as traditional, and whether they are perceived as simple to prepare. In comparison to the other seafoods, frequently consumed seafoods, salmon, shrimp, and cod, were associated with similar conceptualisations and selected by the participants to be appropriate for consumption in more and similar consumption situations compared to the other seafoods.