Behaviour intention to eat reared crickets in Myanmar: the effects of trust, knowledge, and perceived quality

Edible insects are a good source of proteins, fats, and micronutrients for human consumption. Crickets are one of the most widely reared insects worldwide. They require less capital spending and less space and water consumption while offering more food, employment, and income possibilities than conventional animal farming. Additionally, raising crickets may aid in achieving various sustainable development objectives. Although crickets are Myanmar’s most popular edible insects, a few farmers are presently rearing them. The farming business is not thriving as in other countries mainly because consumers primarily eat crickets collected from the wild. Using the extended theory of planned behaviour, this study identifies factors possibly impacting the intention to eat reared crickets in Myanmar, alongside perceived product quality, consumer knowledge, and trust in value chain actors. Data were collected through telephone interviews, resulting in a valid data set of 212 respondents from Yangon and Mandalay who recently ate crickets collected from the wild. The result of the structural equation modelling revealed that participants are ready to accept reared crickets as a food source. Consumption intention towards reared crickets is directly influenced by consumers’ attitudes, perceived behavioural control, and trust in producers. Concurrently, it is indirectly influenced by consumer knowledge of the environmental friendliness of cricket farming. Subjective norms, trust in retailers, and perceived product quality do not significantly affect the intention to eat crickets. As trust in producers is the new main predictive factor, cricket farmers should build public trust by giving transparency in the production process, thereby achieving a more favourable attitude towards reared insects, possibly leading to higher consumption levels.


Introduction
Along with the international community's growing interest in edible insects as a potential source of animal protein, crickets have become popular (Magara et al., 2021;Reverberi, 2020;Van Huis et al., 2013).Among the different species of edible insects, several cricket species can be reared and need lesser investment than traditional livestock production systems because of the low land and water requirement while providing food, job, and income opportunities (Van Huis et al., 2013).Therefore, cricket rearing can enhance the development and mainstreaming of bioeconomy, thereby helping societies to reach certain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as SDGs 2, 6, 9, etc. (Chia et al., 2019;Moruzzo et al., 2021;SEI, 2019).
According to Jongema's report (2017), 44 species of true crickets of the Gryllidae family are listed in the worldwide catalogue of edible insects.Since crickets are high in protein content (55-73%) and minerals, more attention is given because they could possibly solve present and future food insecurity and malnutrition problems while helping conserve our planet (EFSA Scientific Committee, 2015;Magara et al., 2021;Phesatcha et al., 2022).Moreover, they contribute to the economy and livelihoods in several countries and can provide certain medicinal and social advantages (Magara et al., 2021).Meanwhile, some cricket species are threatened by extinction as their populations have dramatically decreased in many countries and nonentomophagous regions due to wild harvesting, overexploitation, increasing demand, farming system, deforestation, and climate change (Dirzo et al., 2014;Gondo et al., 2010;Miantsia et al., 2018;Van Huis et al., 2013;Worrell & Appleby, 2000).Yet, according to Van Huis and Vantomme (2014), semicultivation and rearing insects are the most feasible and sustainable solutions in wild insect conservation.
Globally, 1,000-1,200 billion insects, such as crickets, mealworms, black soldier flies, and others, are reared annually.The most popular countries for insect farming are Thailand, France, South Africa, China, Canada, and the United States (Rowe, 2020).Even though insect farming is widespread worldwide, Myanmar is an entomophagous country where insect farming is still in its early stages of development (Nischalke et al., 2020).It traditionally uses various insect species as ingredients in food and traditional medicine (Linn et al., 2016), with crickets being the most widely consumed insects in Myanmar (Spectrum, 2016).The most popular cricket species in Myanmar are brown or giant crickets (Tarbinskiellus portentosus Lichtenstein), house crickets (Acheta domesticus [L.]), and black crickets (Gryllus assimilis [Fab.])(Khin, 2016;Linn et al., 2016;Tun, 2016).According to Tun (2016), brown crickets can be found all year round in the wild but are available on markets only from September to October.In contrast, house and black crickets are available on markets from October to February (Khin, 2016).Apart from these three species, several field cricket species, such as Gryllus texensis and Anaxipha sp., can be found during the monsoon period in rice fields (Oo et al., 2020).
According to Spectrum (2020a), approximately 180 tonnes of crickets collected in the wild worth US $3.9 million are sold annually in Myanmar, of which approximately 12-20 tonnes of crickets (3-5 million crickets) are exported to neighbouring countries.Wild harvesting, growing demand for crickets, and the absence of regulations or governance in this sector may harm cricket populations and threaten the well-being of the people (Spectrum, 2020c).While insects are increasingly seen globally as eco-friendly and sustainable food (Iqbal, 2020), insect consumption in Myanmar may adversely affect the environment due to over reliance on wild insect collections.According to Nischalke et al. (2020), wild harvesters must be transformed into "mini livestock" producers to integrate insects into a more sustainable food system.Yet, the same authors noted that market perception of reared crickets is weaker than wild-harvested crickets in Myanmar, even though reared ground and house crickets are often imported from Thailand (Dürr and Nischalke, 2021).In recent years, approximately 100 cricket farms have been operating in Myanmar (Spectrum, 2021), with the reared insects, including crickets, mainly used for feed (Spectrum, 2020b).Although giant cricket farming is economically not feasible due to the extreme length of the lifespan of this species, giant crickets are preferred by Myanmar's general populace due to its delicacy and size (Nischalke et al., 2020).Moreover, since reared crickets are small species, their demand is lower than those of wild giant crickets; nonetheless, there is a market demand for reared crickets in Thailand, opening up the potential for their export (Myanmar Digital News, 2020).Hence, the domestic demand for reared crickets' as food in Myanmar needs to be explored to assess their potential role in contributing to more sustainable food and nutritional security in the country.In Kenya, a traditional entomophagous country, Pambo (2018) investigated the attitudes and desire of the populace to eat insect-based food, as cricket farming and producing insect-based foods were nascent.Similarly, Van Huis et al. (2013) suggested that consumer studies are necessary to explore the commercial possibilities of edible insects and information on consumers' attitudes and willingness to eat them.Consumers' attitudes are crucial when innovations are incorporated into products, particularly insect-based foods (Rabadán, 2021).Crickets are not a new food item, but cricket farming is a novel challenge in producing crickets in Myanmar.Consumer intent and its influencing factors could help producers boost their product sales.Without these information, expanding the business, making effective profit-generating marketing strategies, and increasing the market share and competitiveness in the existing market are difficult (Wong and Mo, 2013).Considering these points, a comprehensive consumer analysis study can offer a potential approach to overcome and improve crickets' productivity.
Because of the limited knowledge on reared cricket consumption in Myanmar, this study aims to evaluate insights into consumers' attitudes and their readiness to accept reared crickets as food and explore their intentions to eat reared crickets and its influencing factors.

Theoretical framework and literature overview
The theoretical framework of this study is primarily based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) developed by Ajzen (1985).Among the vast array of theories and models found in the field of consumer behaviour studies, TPB is commonly used to predict and understand individual behaviour intention following edible insects (Chang et al., 2019;Choe et al., 2020;Hwang and Kim, 2021;Navarré, 2017;Pambo et al., 2018).Such studies have been conducted in both entomophagous and non-entomophagous countries and proved the appropriateness of TPB in insect consumption research.Moreover, the results of TPB research can be easily used to plan interventions (Pambo, 2018).TPB clarifies an individual's purpose in implementing the behaviours (Bae and Choi, 2020;Irianto, 2015;Mancini et al., 2019;Menozzi et al., 2017).An individual's willingness to perform any behaviour is the behavioural intention, assuming it will typically occur before the actual behaviour (Setiawan et al., 2022;Wahyudin et al., 2021).It is the best indicator of the particular action that happens (Kan and Fabrigar, 2017;Worthington, 2021).Additionally, the theory stipulates three factors affecting behaviour intention: attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioural control (PBC).
Applying the TPB to reared crickets (RC), consumption leads to the hypotheses formulated in the following.

Attitude towards RC consumption
ATT is the psychological evaluation of a product (Eagly and Chaiken, 2007).It is a person's general perception of something remaining unchanged over a relatively long period (Solomon, 2009).ATT plays a crucial role as it influences our worldviews and actions and primarily shapes behavioural intentions (Haddock and Maio, 2007;Ajzen, 1991).ATT comprises affective, cog-nitive, and behavioural components.Affective refers to the feelings towards something; cognitive refers to the belief related to the object.The behavioural component is associated with past experiences and the inclination of an individual to act (Haddock and Maio, 2007).Studies on ATT towards insect-based food have shown a significant positive effect on consumption intention (CI) (Chang et al., 2019;Choe et al., 2020;Pambo et al., 2018;Vartiainen et al., 2020).Due to these aspects, this study tested the following hypothesis: H1: ATT towards RCs has a significant positive relationship with the CI towards RCs.

Subjective norm in RC consumption
Another prominent indicator of CI is SN.It refers to the pressure from the surroundings whether to perform or not a behaviour (Ajzen and Albarracin, 2007).
It concerns an individual's beliefs regarding whether important, close, or respectable people approve and support the specific action (Ham et al., 2015).It combines descriptive and social norms.The term "descriptive norms" pertains to the actual performance of other people, whereas "social norms" relate to the opinions of others about the behaviour of an individual (Ham et al., 2015).Navarré (2017) and Bae and Choi (2020) confirmed that SN has a significant positive effect on CI towards insect-based foods, and Nguyen et al. (2020) suggested its effect on ATT in their study in Vietnam.Hence, we tested the effect of SN on CI with the following hypotheses: H2: SN in RC consumption has a significant positive relationship with the CI towards RC.H3: SN in RC consumption has a significant positive indirect relationship with the CI towards RC through ATT.

Perceived behavioural control in RC consumption
The concept of PBC refers to an individual's subjective assessment of the ease or difficulty associated with executing a specific behaviour (Li et al., 2023;Murphy, 2009).As an essential intention construct, as per TPB, several studies proved that PBC is the main contributor to behavioural intention (Chang et al., 2019;Chen, 2020).For instance, Menozzi et al. (2017) found that PBC positively affected the CI of flour-based insect foods, and Brekelmans (2016) asserted that PBC remarkably positively influences the CI towards insect burgers.Based on the above evidence, the following hypothesis was formulated: H4: PBC in RC consumption has a significant positive relationship with the CI towards RC.
When using TPB in edible insect research, extra constructs, such as food phobia, product knowledge, and environmental awareness, have been incorporated.Ajzen (1991) noted the openness of TPB to adding predictors of intention and behaviour.An extension of the model is useful when important additional determinants influence the behaviour under investigation.For example, Navarré (2017) used all three TPB constructs to study the CI of eating insect-based products, whereas Bae and Choi (2020) introduced two constructs, i.e. food neophobia and experience, to measure consumer acceptance of edible insects.Therefore, in the present study, four additional constructs were added to the TPB: (1) perceived product quality (PPQ), (2) consumer knowledge (CK), (3) trust in producers (TP), and (4) trust in retailers (TR).The hypotheses are formulated in the following.

Perceived product quality of RC
PPQ is distinct from real product quality since it is based on the assessment of the customer on the product's visible and invisible features (Vantamay, 2007).Perceived quality also estimates a customer's overall evaluation of a good or service (Vantamay, 2007).Product quality following nutritional value is important in food consumption (Imtiyaz et al., 2021) because it drives peoples' eating preferences and purchasing decisions (McMahon, 2018).The nutritional and health-beneficial values are one of the main reasons for using edible insects as food interest (Vartiainen et al., 2019).Even though people traditionally eat insects in Myanmar, they are unaware of the nutritional benefit of edible insects (Nischalke et al., 2020).Food safety is another important product quality for food consumption (Imtiyaz et al., 2021).According to Spectrum (2020c), wild insect gathering poses a safety and chemical hazard issue and has a higher risk of chemical contamination than rearing insects.Chemical contamination of food causes substantial health problems (Rather et al., 2017).Inadequate food safety knowledge and practices are the major obstacles to enhancing Myanmar's food and nutritional security (FAO, 2019).
It has become the main reason affecting product purchases, following the country's population increased awareness of food safety (FAO, 2019;Vagneron et al., 2018).In our study, nutrition, food safety, and chemical contamination were collectively considered as the construct PPQ that was used to predict CI to eat insects.The impact of PPQ on CI proved to be a significant predictor of the intention to pay for organic foods (Krystallis and Chryssochoidis, 2005).Ali and Ali (2020) and Ueasangkomsate and Santiteerakul (2016) found prod-uct quality to be a significant predictor for the purchase intention of healthy and organic foods.Hence, in our study, we tested the effect of PPQ on the CI of RC using the following hypothesis.H5: PPQ of RC has a significant positive relationship with the CI towards RC.

Consumer knowledge of the environmental friendliness of cricket farming
CK refers to a consumer's perception of numerous product facts (Sumarwan, 2003in Soliha et al., 2019;Zainuddin and Madjid, 2018).According to Ateke and James (2018), it is one of the main drivers of intention.
Although wild crickets are a traditional food for Myanmar people, RC offers an alternative food source.Thus, consumers are often unwilling to eat reared insects (Nischalke et al., 2020).Liu et al. (2020) reported that limited knowledge about edible insects appeared to be the primary issue preventing consumers in China from consuming insects as food, despite the long history of entomophagy in the country.Chen et al. (2017) found that product knowledge was vital for an unfamiliar product among societies.Environmental friendliness of insect production, such as consuming less energy and water than conventional livestock, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and supporting a healthy ecosystem (Kinyuru et al., 2015;Oonincx and de Boer, 2012;Tao and Li, 2018), is one of the main motivating factors for consumers in Western societies to eat insects, where insect consumption rarely exists (Hartmann and Siegrist, 2016;Kornher et al., 2019;Sogari, 2015;Verbeke, 2015;Woolf et al., 2019).Ueasangkomsate and Santiteerakul (2016) and Wijaya and Sukidjo (2017) demonstrated the importance of the environmental friendliness of organic food production in predicting CI.As these facts proved to be powerful enough to convince even people unfamiliar with insect-eating, we tried to explore the effect of the CK regarding the environmental friendliness of cricket production on the CI towards RC in Myanmar, where insect-eating is a traditional habit.It had been previously incorporated as an additional construct of the TPB in organic food studies.Darsono et al. (2018) tested the effect of CK on ATT and CI towards organic foods, showing the positive impact of CK on ATT and CI towards organic foods.Piha et al. (2018) proved that CK significantly affected the willingness to buy edible insects in northern European consumers but not those from Central Europe.The differences in the strength and degree of establishment of novel food cultures might explain these regional differences as food culture in Northern Europe has seen considerable alterations in recent

Trust in producers regarding food safety
Trust is another crucial construct widely applied in the food sector (FAO, 2003).Taylor et al. (2012, p. 1) noted that trust is on the causal pathway for "behaviour change and knowledge, and ATT concerning aspects associated with safety and quality of food is also important."The basic idea of the trust definition is having confidence in the trustworthiness and integrity of one party towards another (Aljazzaf et al., 2010;Robbins, 2016).Trust in the food industry is essential because consumers expect safe food from food manufacturers and also from retailers to take care of food safety during the multiple processing stages (Klimczuk and Klimczuk-Kochańska, 2018).Developing consumer trust in a commodity, trademark, or enterprise is critical to establish a successful seller-buyer relationship (Bachnik and Nowacki, 2018).When forecasting CI towards edible insects, so far, very few studies have paid attention to trust issues.Vagneron et al. (2018) observed that a lack of trust is the main barrier to organic food consumption in Myanmar.Trust, or the lack thereof, could be a construct in determining the CI of RC, especially since RC is a new product with limited information in Myanmar.Thus, the risk is uncertain; in that situation, trust is essential (Swan and Nolan, 1985, as cited in Ba and Pavlou, 2002).
According to Nuttavuthisit and Thøgersen (2017), the trust could be categorised as a personal trust related to producers and retailers, while system trust is related to governmental or certifying institutions.However, since the edible insect sector has received little to no institutional attention, we focused on personal trust, namely TP and TR.Here, the concept of trust was described as consumers' belief in the ability of edible insect producers and retailers regarding food safety.Recent organic food studies used trust as an additional construct to predict CI (Canova et al., 2020;Carfora et al., 2019;Carfora et al., 2021).Carfora et al. (2019) studied consumer behaviour towards organic milk using trust in TPB and showed that trusting farmers is a salient indicator of CI.Carfora et al. (2021) explored the direct and indirect effects of trust in value chain actors on intention through ATT and found that trust, directly and indirectly, impacted purchase intention towards natural food.Hence, we tested the effect of trust in the intention to eat RC using the following hypotheses: H8: TP regarding food safety has a significant positive relationship with the CI towards RC.H9: TP regarding food safety has a significant positive indirect relationship with the CI towards RC through ATT.H10: TR regarding food safety has a significant positive relationship with the CI towards RC.H11: TR regarding food safety has a significant positive indirect relationship with the CI towards RC through ATT.The above-derived hypotheses are summarised in the conceptual framework depicted in Figure 1.

Sampling and study area
Data were collected through telephone interviews between 1st March and 31st May 2021.In total, 3,716 cellphone numbers from Yangon and Mandalay were randomly dialled, yet only 8% (311) participated in the interviews.We used data from 224 of 311 respondents with previous experience in consuming crickets.Yangon is one of the famous lower Myanmar areas where various edible insects are sold.People in Yangon are the main insect buyers in Myanmar due to their high population.Mandalay, one of the famous upper Myanmar areas, is the cricket buying area for regional consumption and serves as a transit to distribute to other cricketdeficit or identified consumption areas, such as Yangon.In addition to the sheer number of potential consumers in the two regions, the prominence of online retail of insects there informed us to use these two regions as survey areas for this study.

Interview structure
The questionnaire was divided into two parts: the first portion focused on the sociodemographic characteristics, while the second was on the TPB constructs.The existing 24 indicators relating to eight constructs were adapted and modified to fit the intended research.ATT and PBC constructs were adapted from Wang et al.   (2019), based on the research of de Jonge et al. (2008).The items to measure CI in this study are based on Kaushal and Kumar (2016), referenced in Zerbini et al. (2019).All indicators used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).The questions were formulated in English, translated into Myanmar, and then retranslated into English by a translator to ensure that the concepts and linguistics were matched.

Statistical analysis
Structural equation modelling (SEM) predicted the influencing factors for the intention to consume RC.This technique integrates factor analysis and multiple regression analysis (Hasman, 2015).Measurement and structural models are initially assessed for their fit; after achieving compatibility, individual pathways can be examined (Hodapp et al., 2013, p. 147).The models' validity was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (Awang, 2014).After models met all the requirements, individual pathways were tested through path analysis using IBM SPSS AMOS 24.
The basic requirements of SEM are a large sample size, normality, and lack of outliers (Jenatabadi, 2015).After outliers (value of ±3) were removed using z-scores, the remaining 212 respondents exceeded the recom-mended 200 sample size (Kline, 2016).Consequently, the final data fell within the accepted range of ±1.96 at 0.05 confidence level for Kurtosis and Skewness and were thus suitable for SEM analysis.

Readiness to accept RC as food
The readiness to consume RC as food for each demographic characteristic is presented in Table 2.The samples from an equal ratio of Yangon and Mandalay were significantly different in readiness to eat RC of 88% and 77%, respectively, between two cities.Urban areas were the predominant geographic location of respondents.The rural (89%) and the urban (80%) dwellers showed their readiness to eat RC.Most respondents were men (59%), and women comprised 41%, with a slight variation in readiness to eat between men and women (82% and 84%, respectively).Most young adults (65%) were more open to accepting RC as food than middleaged and older adults.Respondents with low education and low-income levels comprised 55%, while those with university education and moderate-income groups comprised 45%.People with a low level of schooling demonstrated significantly higher readiness (89%) than those with a high level of education (75%).Low-income (80%) and moderate-income (85%) respondents indicated their readiness to eat RC as food.For the whole sample, 83% of the respondents were ready to accept RC as food; however, the remaining 17% were not.Readiness to eat significantly differed across regions (P < 0.05) and education groups (P < 0.01), employing the Pearson chi-square test.More educated people are less   However, the responses for PBC-3 were tilted towards the scale of disagreement, as they think finding RC in the market would be difficult.As the responses for all PPQ indicators inclined towards agreement, it could be said that people think that RC is safe, nutritious, and chemical-free.The highest percentage of "agree" was found for CK indicators.Thus, respondents had sufficient knowledge regarding the environmental friendliness of cricket production.According to TP-1 indicators, people agree that cricket producers contribute the food safety.While TP-2 and TP-3 indicators showed that they were unsure about producers' competency and knowledge regarding food safety.For TR-1 and TR-2, people were unsure whether retailers took care and were transparent regarding food safety.TR-3 is weighted towards agreeing; thus, they believed retailers were honest regarding food safety.In general, CI to eat RC was high, but they were hesitant to recommend or encourage them to others.

Structural equation modelling
The performance of the proposed model was assessed through CFA using the maximum likelihood estimation method.

Models assessment
The CFA analysis demonstrated that the measurement model was not satisfied due to average variances extracted (AVE) of ATT < 0.5 and normed fit index (NFI) of <0.9.After deleting the item ATT-1, the AVE ranged from 0.518 to 0.726, exceeding the 0.5 threshold.The composite reliability value and Cronbach's alpha also exceeded the threshold of 0.60.Concurrently, the discriminant validity reached an acceptable level, as the √ AVE was greater than the pairwise correlation of the respective constructs (Table 4).
Moreover, model fit indices of measurement and structural models were well fitted, as presented in Table 5.In summary, all the results of the CFA analysis continued with the path analysis.

Path analysis
Intention to consume farmed crickets was tested with path analysis, and the results supported five out of eleven hypotheses, as shown in Figure 2.Only direct causal effects were highlighted in the figure to make the illustration clearer.ATT towards eating RC significantly influenced CI (b = 0.45, P < 0.001) and was the highest predictor for CI of RC.PBC had a significant effect on CI (b = 0.14, P < 0.05).CK had a strongly significant  effect on ATT (b = 0.24, P < 0.05).In addition, TP had a significant impact on ATT (b = 0.23, P < 0.05) and CI (b = 0.22, P < 0.01).
The complete analysis results of SEM, including direct, indirect, and total effects, are shown in Table 6.Only one effect was tested for ATT, PBC, and PPQ; thus, the direct and total effects are the same.The magnitude of the significant total effect ranges from 0.144 to 0.448.According to Mehmetoglu and Jakobsen (2017), the standardised coefficient <0.1 was considered as Small (S), from 0.1 to 0.2 as Medium (M), and >0.2 as Large (L).PBC had a moderate positive direct effect.In contrast, CK has no direct effect but has a positive and large indirect effect on the CI.Thus, its total effect on CI was small.TP had a large and positive direct effect and a large and moderate indirect effect on CI.Hence, its total effect on CI was large.ATT had a large and positive direct effect on the CI.Thus, three out of seven constructs, namely ATT, PBC, and TP, significantly influenced the CI, whereas CK indirectly influenced CI with R2 = 0.324.Those TPB's constructs jointly explained 32% of the variation in behavioural intention to consume farming crickets.According to Chin and Newsted (1998), an R2 of 0.67 was substantial, 0.33 moderate, and 0.19 weak.Thus, our model's explanatory power is moderate.

Discussion
This study analyses how the intention to consume reared crickets is determined in two of the most important regions of Myanmar, Yangon and Mandalay.Generally, most respondents showed a positive attitude towards reared crickets and were ready to accept them as food, possibly because of prior experience of eating different wild cricket types.However, a minority of less than 20% were reluctant to accept reared crickets despite such previous experiences.They seemed to eat only giant crickets, the preferred cricket type in Myanmar (Nischalke et al., 2020) and did not want to try the smaller reared crickets.
Attitude is a personal conclusion of behavioural beliefs based on evaluating the likely consequences of insect consumption (Çoker and van der Linden, 2022).The significant positive effect of attitude on con-sumption intention indicated that people who believed eating reared crickets was a good idea and beneficial tended to have a higher consumption intention.Attitude, positively affecting consumption intention, was consistent with previous insect research conducted in traditionally entomophagous and non-entomophagous countries (Bae and Choi, 2020;Chang et al., 2019;Menozzi et al., 2017;Pambo, 2018).Thus, a positive attitude encouraged the consumption intention towards reared crickets.
The positive effect of perceived behavioural control on consumption intention corroborated earlier research findings on edible insects from Kenya (Pambo et al., 2018).To accomplish specific behaviour, such as purchasing foods, external and internal factors influence perceived behavioural control (Pomsanam et al., 2014).According to our descriptive results, most respondents showed enough controllability  itate reared crickets consumption behaviour, meaning they had time to search for and money to buy them.Still, situational factors, such as the availability of reared crickets, might pose problems because most respondents were unsure whether consuming reared crickets is easy or difficult.People considering reared cricket consumption did not pose an issue are more likely to eat them.
Consumer knowledge of the environmental friendliness of cricket farming indirectly affected consumption intention via attitude but not directly.Few studies, such as that of Piha et al. (2018), have investigated the consumer knowledge of the environmental friendliness of edible insects, where consumer knowledge remarkably affected the willingness to buy insect foods in northern but not central Europe.However, a study by Gundala and Singh (2021) on organic food supports our findings, as they also found that attitude mediates the impact of consumer knowledge on consumption intention.Purboyo et al. (2022) found that environmental attributes of green products significantly impact attitude but not the intention.In their study, respondents knew that environmental friendly products are good for the society; thus, they had a positive attitude towards those products, although not all people intended to buy them.This means that even having acquired enough knowledge to form a positive attitude towards a specific action does not necessarily stimulate the intention to act.Despite cricket farming being known to be good for the environment, most of Myanmar's consumers are still not familiar with cricket farming due to the lack of a welldeveloped cricket-rearing industry in the country.Even though respondents may know theoretically that cricket farming is environmentally friendly, the lack of knowledge on how crickets are reared in Myanmar makes consumers uncertain if reared crickets actually benefit the environment.Moreover, environmental concerns as such might not be strong enough, so the (theoretical) knowledge on the environmental friendliness of reared crickets impacts attitude but does not directly influence consumption intention.
Although trust in producers affects the consumption intention towards reared crickets, trust in retailers does not.There is no supporting research on how specific trust in producers and retailers impacts the consumption intention of reared crickets.Onwezen et al. (2021) found general trust as the primary driver of insect consumption, and similar results have been reported from organic food studies, such as milk (Carfora et al., 2019).In Yangon and Mandalay, retailers, such as street and market vendors, usually sell wild and farmed insects.The latter often being silkworms.Clients purchasing insects are familiar with those retailers and their behaviour, despite not buying reared crickets from them.Consequently, consumers anticipate retailers to behave similarly regardless of the type of insects, reared or collected in the wild, and therefore, trust in retailers appears to be an insignificant construct in the consumption intention of reared crickets.In contrast, consumers are unfamiliar with cricket producers and their farming process.Especially, since it is a new business in Myanmar, there are still no rules or regulations for the rearing sector related to food safety.Hence, currently, trust in producers is more important for consumption intention towards reared crickets than trust in retailers.When individuals have more trust in producers concerning food safety, more positive attitude and consumption intention have been developed (Nuttavuthisit and Thøgersen, 2017).Ajzen (1991) already mentioned that personal factors, namely attitude and perceived behavioural control, often play a bigger role than subjective norm in determining the individual intention to do something.Armitage and Conner (2010) also stated that subjective norm was a weak predictor for intention.Similarly, our results revealed that subjective norm did not affect consumption intention.Hence, social pressure from the surrounding people is expected to not stimulate consumption intention towards reared crickets, as close people probably have no consumption experience of reared crickets.Thus, they have no reason to exercise any social pressure towards eating them.This result is congruent with findings of earlier edible insect studies by Chang et al. (2019) and Menozzi et al. (2017).
Moreover, the perceived product quality of reared crickets neither impacts attitude nor consumption intention.First, as most customers have only consumed wild crickets, this perception might not be particularly pronounced.Second, wild-harvested insects pose greater threats to consumers than reared ones as they can be exposed to pesticides (DeFoliart, 1999;Belluco et al., 2013).Hence, consumers' perceptions favour reared crickets.Third, quality may not be the first priority when people eat crickets as part of their tradition (Barennes et al., 2015;Deroy et al., 2015;Dürr and Ratompoarison, 2021;Hlongwane et al., 2021: Van Huis et al., 2013), leading to insignificant effects of perceived product quality on consumption intention.However, as we have not found any other edible insect study that examined the impact of perceived product quality; we can only speculate.Results from food studies conducted by Krystallis and Chryssochoidis (2005)  that perceived product quality influences consumers' willingness to pay for organic and healthy food products.Conversely, Fleseriu et al. (2020) demonstrate an impact of quality only on consumer attitude, not on purchase intention towards organic food.
Regarding the model explanatory power in several studies of edible insects, the TPB accounted between 17% and 80% of the variation in consumption intention (Brekelmans 2016;Hwang and Kim 2021;Mancini et al. 2019;Menozzi et al. 2017;Pambo et al. 2016;Pambo 2018;Sogari et al. 2019;Vartiainen et al. 2020).With 32%, this study's explanatory power falls in the lower part of the range of previous studies.Even if the extended TPB model appears to be an appropriate framework for investigating consumption intention towards reared crickets in Myanmar, it has some shortcomings in its explanatory power.Further research needs to better explain consumption intention of farmed insects, whether using TPB or alternative models.For example, accessibility and availability of reared crickets are not explicitly taken into account in TPB, but might be decisive for consumption intention.
This study also has limitations as it included only two main cities (Yangon and Mandalay) of Myanmar, and thus, further investigation is also crucial to represent the whole country.Due to the small sample size, determining whether the factors influencing consumption intention in Yangon and Mandalay are similar was impossible.Moreover, this study only focused on reared crickets and did not represent other types of reared insects.Finally, only insect consumers were included in this study, excluding people who had never tried insects.

Conclusions
Even though the TPB has been broadly used to assess consumption intention towards different food types, such as edible insects, it has never been employed to determine insect consumption in Myanmar.This study partially supported from a theoretical standpoint Ajzen's argument that attitude and perceived behavioural control strongly predict intention.A positive attitude and consumers' readiness to accept reared crickets as food strongly highlight the possibility of reared crickets as an alternative food source in Myanmar.Consumer knowledge on the environmental friendliness of crickets farming provides valuable information to further develop the cricket production sector in Myanmar.Wild insect harvesters should try to diversify their business into insect rearing.Cricket producers should gain the public's trust to further promote their industry.Public trust can be achieved by being transparent throughout the whole cricket production process to demonstrate product safety.The power of public media should be used to raise public knowledge of the environmental benefits of eating reared crickets, emphasising their health benefits and as an alternative supply of proteins, the latter being of global importance.This can result in more favourable public attitude towards cricket farming, thus raising the consumption intention.Ultimately, developing cricket-rearing farms combined with a good market strategy should assure all year-round supply of crickets, thereby contributing to reduced malnutrition and improved food security in Myanmar.

Figure 1
Figure 1 Conceptual framework of the study (adapted with modification from Ajzen, 2002).

Figure 2
Figure 2 Results of path analysis.
and Ali and Ali (2020) show Journal of Insects as Food and Feed 0 (2023) 1-19 Downloaded from Brill.com 12/26/2023 11:49:50PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ times, while that in Central Europe has remained more stable.Thus, people from a more conservative food culture are unwilling to try new foods, whereas those from more innovative food cultures could be more open to educational advertising of edible insect-based products.

Table 3
agreement, respecting persons or families would accept RC consumption.The responses for PBC-1 and PBC-2 were inclined towards the agreement scale, indicating they have enough control and ability to eat RC.Journal of Insects as Food and Feed 0 (2023) 1-19 Downloaded from Brill.com 12/26/2023 11:49:50PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Table 2
Distribution of the readiness to accept RC as food

Table 3
Distribution percentages of Likert scale responses for all TPB constructs Threshold is based on Hair Jr et al. (2017), b,c thresholds are based on Ab Hamid et al. (2017).* Numbers in bold are √ AVE.

Table 6
Complete analysis of the theoretical model of Insects as Food and Feed 0 (2023) 1-19 Downloaded from Brill.com 12/26/2023 11:49:50PM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Journal