Consumer Attitudes towards Emerging Technologies

The development of new and emerging food technologies and their applications is a fast growing area. The Food Standard Agency’s (FSA) focus on protecting consumer interests in relation to food means it needs to understand and keep up to date with consumers’ views towards these technologies. This report presents the results of a rapid evidence assessment (REA) and a series of public dialogue events in different parts of the UKconducted by Collingwood Environmental Planning (CEP) to update the FSA’s existing evidence base (see FSA, 2009). The technologies covered by the REA are genetically modified (GM) foods, nanotechnology applied to foods, functional foods, cultured meat, novel food (in the UK) such as insect foods, food from a cloned animal, 3D printed foodsand synthetic biology applied to foods.The public dialogue events further explored the views of members of the public towards 4 of these technologies: GM foods, nanotechnology in foods, food from cloned animals and cultured meat.