Browsing by Subject "kotisirkka"

There is growing concern about the world population growth and the sufficiency of protein resources. Edible insects could be an alternative protein source for human beings. The aim of this master thesis was to examine the sensory characteristics of a new home cricket (Acheta Domesticus) product and understand the attitudes of consumers towards edible insects. The aim was to investigate the impact of consumer familiarity with edible insect food products on purchase intention and expected liking. The roles of media trust and purchase activism were expected to affect the behavior of consumers. Besides these four indicators also two more were added. These were food neophobia scale and innovativeness. The data on consumer attitudes and perception towards insect food was collected by using an electronic form that was sent to different mailing lists. Total of 167 respondents were gathered, 141 women and 63 men. 53 participants attended the sensory analysis tests on the beginning of the year 2020, ages 18 – 62. The analysis of the data was done with SPSS Statistics version 25. The findings of this study indicate that consumer familiarity contributes to purchase activism, purchase intention and expected liking. In this study the media trust did not contribute. Food neophobia scores correlated negatively to the intention to buy, expected liking and willingness to recommend the product. Innovativeness correlated positively to intention to buy and expected liking, and as expected, innovativeness correlated negatively to food neophobia scores. As people learn more about the ecological and nutritional benefits of edible insects, their attitudes towards insect food become more positive and they are more willing to try and taste insect products. The new home cricket product, PANNU Sirkka by GRiiDY, turned out to be quite suitable for Finnish consumers taste. On the just-about-right scale (1–4) the average score was 3,3 – 3,8 of all the assessed attributes. Many of the open responses mentioned the product to be ‘tasty, delicious, surprisingly good and crispy’, for instance. To overcome the preconceptions of western consumers, there should be more occasions to try and taste insect food. Marketing efforts are best targeted to consumers who are neophilic and innovative and encourage them to be the early adopters of insect food.

Edible insects, such as house crickets (Acheta domesticus) are environmentally friendly, nutritious and safe alternative to meat, when special details such as allergenic potential and antinutrients are considered. The goal of this Master’s thesis is to study the processing methods and parameters of house cricket in creating flour for food applications that is safe and of optimal quality. The thesis hopes to provide a reference for parameters used in house cricket drying and milling, with the equipment available. Furthermore, the goal is to study the optimal time to get below critical value in water content of 10 % and within critical values in water activity of 0,25-0,45 with an oven and a freeze-dryer. The samples within the critical safety values with minimal drying time are then milled with centrifugal mill with two different sieve-sizes and particle size distribution is measured and compared between oven-drying and freeze-drying, the two sieve-sizes and to reference flours. Particle size range of 45-150 μm was used as a goal. Optimal measured drying time at T=70 °C for oven-drying was 5 hours. For Freeze-drying at Tp=25 °C, Tc=-87 °C, p=1 mbar was 6 hours. Of the optimally dried samples, Oven-dried sample milled with 0,5 mm sieve size had the lowest mean and median particle size followed by Freeze-dried sample milled with 0,5 mm sieve size. The 5-hour Oven-dried sample milled with 0,5 mm sieve size was thus the closest to the optimal product, because it had the smallest particle size from all the samples with minimal drying time. Samples milled with 1 mm sieve size had coarser mean and median particle size similar to that of the reference samples obtained from the industry. Furthermore, it can be concluded that compared to reference flours, finer house cricket flour can be milled with 0,5 mm sieve size. On the other hand, 1 mm sieve size with the particular centrifugal mill used yields a flour with similar coarse particle size than those used in the industry today. However, Oven-dried samples caused smearing during milling and thus the relationship between drying method and smearing should be studied further. All of the milled samples showed narrower particle size distribution compared to the Reference samples, which indicates a more homogenous flour and thus is considered a desirable trait in this study, when the specific food application is not known. Furthermore, all samples including the Reference samples showed negative skeweness in terms of their particle size distribution.