Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 24 ISSUE 3
Written by Romeo Cătălin CREȚU, Georgiana GURBAN, Ioan Iulian ALECU, Viorel Costin BANȚA, Petrică ȘTEFAN

Recently, the European Commission approved mealworms as a food product in the European Union. Following this authorisation, mealworms are considered 'novel foods'. Lab-grown meat is regulated in the EU as "novel food", a legal definition that includes products not significantly present in Europeans' diets before May 1997. In this context, the paper aimed to analyze the perception of the Romanian consumers towards the use of insects and artificial meat in public food. For this purpose, it was applied a questionnaire with 6 questions to a number of 1,200 people over 16 years old. The results pointed out that of the 1,200 questioned individuals, only 30% would consume edible insects. This aspect is due to the fact that in Romania the consumption of insects is not a habit as in other countries, where insects are consumed almost daily. Also, artificial meat is not highly rated by consumers. A very small proportion of those who took part in the survey agree with the production and consumption of artificial meat.

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