How innovativeness relates to social representation of new foods and to the willingness to try and use such foods

The relationship between domain specific innovativeness scale (DSI) and social representation (SR) components of new foods (suspicion of new foods; adherence to natural food; adherence to technology; eating as an enjoyment; eating as a necessity) was explored in a survey with Finnish consumers (N = 1156). Both DSI and SR were used to predict willingness to try/use new foods, categorized into six subgroups of which three were functional (cereal-based and otherwise functional foods; functional drinks), and the remaining three categories were modified dairy products, organic products, and energy drinks. Enjoyment and low suspicion predicted 27% of variation in DSI, which, in turn, predicted up to 6% of willingness to try categories of new foods, excluding organic products. When added to the predictive model, SR components increased the prediction of all food categories, particularly functional cereal-based and organic products (up to 20.4%). Thus, DSI predicted willingness to try new foods to some extent, but SR components, most of all low suspicion of new foods and adherence to natural food, significantly improved the prediction.