Consumption and production of edible insects in an urban circularity context: Opinions and intentions of urban residents

The success of emerging urban agriculture initiatives is partly determined by the acceptance and active involvement of residents. Edible insects can contribute to urban agriculture and to the transition to a circular economy by converting organic side flows into high-value biomass. This explorative online survey (N = 750) assessed the opinions and intentions of residents of Amsterdam city, the Netherlands (18-75 years old) about consumption and production of edible insects for food on household, neighborhood (i.e., centralized facilities for neighbored households), and industrial scales utilizing various side flows. Of the proposed scenarios, industrial insect production was perceived as more attractive (24.9 % of all respondents), than neighborhood (16.3 %) and household (6.7 %) production. Respondents indicated a higher preference for drivers (environmental, economic, expert support, and safety) related to purchasing industrially produced insects (median-5 of 7-point scale) than to participating in neighborhood or household production. Accordingly, most barriers were associated with household production (e.g., inconvenience, economic reasons, lack of knowledge and available information, median-5-6) rather than neighborhood (safety concerns, median-5) and industrial (no defined barriers, median 4) production. Nature (vegetal, animal, or mixed) and source of insect feed were considered important to the respondents, and >80 % of the respondents prefer feed mentioning on the labels of insect-containing food products. The findings suggest that urban initiatives on insect production should consider the current state of acceptance of this idea and the willingness to participate in it, as well as ensure its simplicity, safety, and low monetary cost. Relevant information and expert support should be made available to residents. Moreover, as edible insects are still a novel food concept in Amsterdam, further introduction of insects into the diet might make all proposed scenarios more attractive and meaningful for residents, contributing to the development of circular urban ecosystems in the future.