Sustainable food innovation finding the right balance between technological determinism and technophobia

A consequence of the endorsement of technological determinism is that technical change, even when it entails high social and environmental costs, must never be delayed. Consistently with the notion of technological determinism, consumers opposing new food technologies, such as nanofoods, have been accused of irrational attitudes driven by technophobia. This study was aimed at investigating whether technophobia and prejudices towards science could be considered as important factors affecting consumers’ attitude to buy nanofoods. Through a hierarchical clustering a sample of interviewees was classified on the basis of their overall attitude toward food technologies, with the identification of three groups exhibiting considerable differences. The results show that the opposition to nanofoods is mainly dictated by the knowledge of the incertitude about its net benefits and by the desire to keep control over food choices and food risks.