Understanding Acceptance of Genome-Edited Crops and Foods: The Role of Trust, Attitudes, and Perceived Literacy in Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I would like to thank the Editor for entrusting me with reviewing this manuscript. The manuscript investigates the psychosocial drivers of consumer acceptance regarding genome-edited (GE) crops and foods in Italy. By utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the authors present interesting findings, particularly regarding the negative direct effect of trust on willingness to buy (WTB) when attitudes are controlled for, and the moderating role of perceived literacy. The topic is timely, and the theoretical framework is sound.

Below are my suggestions/comments:

The text formatting appears inconsistent with the journal's recommendations. For example, the citation format.

Missing Demographic Data: The text states that "Sociodemographic characteristics... are described in the Results section," but no table or detailed description of the sample (age, gender, education distribution) is provided in the manuscript. Please include a table describing the sample.

Citation 25 (Wong et al., 2022) in the reference list refers to "Medication adverse events," which does not match the in-text citation context regarding biotechnology attitudes. Additionally, "Wong et al., 2018" is cited in the text but missing from the references. Please carefully check the bibliography.

A separate conclusions section is missing, along with specific conclusions from the conducted studies.

Author Response

The text formatting appears inconsistent with the journal's recommendations. For example, the citation format.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for highlighting this issue. We have updated the citation style to align with the journal’s requirements. Regarding the rest of the formatting, we used the template provided in the Food author guidelines and have checked for compliance throughout the manuscript. However, we remain open to further suggestions from the editor or reviewers.

Missing Demographic Data: The text states that "Sociodemographic characteristics... are described in the Results section," but no table or detailed description of the sample (age, gender, education distribution) is provided in the manuscript. Please include a table describing the sample.

Response: we thank the Reviewer for highlighting this omission. We have now added a dedicated subsection (Section 3.1, Sample Description) in the Results section, including Table 1 reporting the full sociodemographic characteristics of the sample (gender, age, and education distribution). A corresponding descriptive paragraph has also been added to summarize the main features of the sample. Percentages are weighted to ensure representativeness of the Italian population.

Citation 25 (Wong et al., 2022) in the reference list refers to "Medication adverse events," which does not match the in-text citation context regarding biotechnology attitudes. Additionally, "Wong et al., 2018" is cited in the text but missing from the references. Please carefully check the bibliography.

Response: we thank the Reviewer for noticing these inconsistencies. We carefully checked all in-text citations against the reference list. We found that Reference 25 was incorrectly included and did not correspond to the citation context in the manuscript; therefore, we removed the erroneous reference and revised the corresponding in-text citation accordingly. We also removed the in-text citation to “Wong et al., 2018”, as it was not supported by a corresponding reference entry. Finally, we cross-checked the entire bibliography to ensure full consistency between in-text citations and the reference list.

A separate conclusions section is missing, along with specific conclusions from the conducted studies.

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this valuable suggestion. We have revised the manuscript by restructuring and expanding the Conclusions section to clearly and explicitly summarize the main findings of the study. The revised section now provides a concise synthesis of the mediation and moderation results and clarifies the specific empirical contributions of the research.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, 

I have read your manuscript.

Please find my comments in pdf attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Line 43: This is too generic. Please widen this sentence by naming which global food challenges are GE responding too. It would be much more appealing for someone who is reading the paper.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for the feedback. We have revised the opening paragraph to clarify which global food challenges genome editing targets, now referencing climate change–related crop stress such as rising temperatures, water scarcity, pest and disease pressure, and the need for faster development of resilient crops.

Line 80: Please do not get me wrong, but I prefer that for the sake of reading and text understanding, you should change the style of this sentence in order to be more understanding to the wider population.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for the feedback. We acknowledge that the sentence was overly complex and have revised it accordingly.

Line 93: Please format the text

Response: We thank the Reviewer for pointing it out, we have formatted the text.

Line 238: nice specter of indices. Good choice.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for the positive feedback.

Line 459: Please change this to Title no. 5 and declaration and statements change to 6.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for pointing it out, we have now changed it accordingly.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is written on an interesting topic, though I have a number of concerns for the authors to consider:

1. The introduction is very complex, long and hard to follow. I would advise deleting subchapters in the introduction and state clearly how the article contributes to the existing academic literature?
2. I very much miss a decently written literature review section with up to date literature, concentrating on the "what have we learnt so far from previous studies" concept.
3. 1000 people were asked online? In what ways? Is this representative or selective and if so, on what basis? When the survey was sent out?
4. Findings are written on a very technical way - more interpretation of the data is needed!
5. How results are in line with previous literature cited?
6. Discussion should also talk about policy recommendations.
7. What about future research ideas?

Author Response

The introduction is very complex, long and hard to follow. I would advise deleting subchapters in the introduction and state clearly how the article contributes to the existing academic literature?

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this helpful suggestion. We have substantially revised the Introduction to make it more focused and easier to follow. The previous subchapter structure has been removed and the section has been reorganized into a single, coherent narrative. The revised Introduction now follows a clearer progression: it first frames NGTs within global food challenges, then synthesizes what previous studies have identified about psychosocial drivers of acceptance, highlights the inconsistencies in the role of generalized trust in science, and more explicitly defines the literature gap. We then contextualize the study within the Italian regulatory and cultural setting before briefly introducing the theoretical framework and the model tested. In addition, the hypothesis section has been streamlined to reduce redundancy and improve conceptual clarity

I very much miss a decently written literature review section with up to date literature, concentrating on the "what have we learnt so far from previous studies" concept.

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this comment. In the revised manuscript, we strengthened the literature synthesis by providing a more explicit summary of what previous research has established regarding NGT acceptance. The Introduction now more clearly outlines the main findings on perceived risks and benefits, trust in science, attitudes, and knowledge-related variables, highlighting both converging results and areas of inconsistency. We also ensured that the cited literature is up to date and that the discussion of prior findings leads directly to the identification of the specific research gap addressed in this study.

1000 people were asked online? In what ways? Is this representative or selective and if so, on what basis? When the survey was sent out?

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this request for clarification. The survey was conducted in June 2024 using a Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) methodology. Participants were recruited through a professional panel provider (SWG). A stratified quota sampling procedure was applied to reflect the Italian adult population in terms of gender, age, geographical area, and education. These details have now been explicitly added to the Methods section to clarify the recruitment procedure, timing of data collection, and sampling strategy.

Findings are written on a very technical way - more interpretation of the data is needed!

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this helpful comment. While we aimed to keep the Results section statistically precise and clearly separated from the Discussion, we have revised it to improve readability and interpretation. In particular, we added brief explanatory sentences clarifying the substantive meaning of the main path coefficients, interaction effects, and variance explained, in order to make the findings more accessible to a broader readership. At the same time, we maintained a clear distinction between statistical reporting in the results and theoretical interpretation in the discussion.

How results are in line with previous literature cited?

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this comment. In the revised Discussion section, we more explicitly connect our findings to the literature cited in the Introduction. In particular, we clarify that the positive association between trust in science and attitudes toward GE is consistent with prior studies reporting that institutional trust is linked to more favourable evaluations of emerging biotechnologies. We also explicitly link the strong association between attitudes and willingness to buy to the Theory of Planned Behavior framework, where attitudes represent a proximal determinant of behavioural intentions. Furthermore, we situate the negative direct effect of trust, when attitudes are controlled for, within the previously reported inconsistencies in the literature on generalized trust in science. By referring back to the studies cited in the Introduction, we clarify how our findings help explain these mixed results by showing that trust may operate through indirect and conditional mechanisms rather than as a simple linear predictor.

Discussion should also talk about policy recommendations.

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this valuable suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have expanded the Discussion to explicitly address policy implications. In particular, we now clarify that fostering generalized trust in science is not sufficient to ensure consumer acceptance of genome-edited foods. We discuss how communication and governance strategies should focus on transparent presentation of specific benefits, risks, and regulatory safeguards, as well as on deliberative public engagement approaches rather than one-way informational campaigns. This addition strengthens the practical relevance of the study by linking the empirical findings to implications for science communication and innovation governance.

What about future research ideas?

Response: we thank the Reviewer for this suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have added a short paragraph outlining future research directions. Specifically, we suggest the use of longitudinal designs to better assess the temporal ordering of trust, attitudes, and behavioural intentions, and cross-national comparisons to test whether the observed moderation by perceived literacy holds in different cultural and regulatory contexts.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Paleologo et al. examine how trust in science influences willingness to buy genome-edited foods in Italy, finding that attitudes mediate this relationship, while perceived literacy moderates it. Higher perceived literacy strengthens a negative direct effect of trust on purchase intention, indicating that trust alone is insufficient, acceptance depends on complex psychosocial factors requiring informed, critical public engagement.

This is a timely study, but major concerns need to be addressed:
1. The terminology, specifically "New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs)" and "Genome-editing (GE) techniques", should be updated to align with the European Union’s current regulatory framework, which uses the term New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). Adopting this terminology would improve clarity, consistency, and policy relevance. Furthermore, the recent EU political agreement enabling the commercialization of certain NGT plants and products (see https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2912 ) should be discussed to better situate the study’s implications within evolving regulatory landscapes.

2. While acknowledged as a limitation in discussion, the exclusive focus on Italy warrants stronger contextualization. Given the long-standing tradition in high-quality food products, Italy may not be seen as a representative country in the European or global context to analyze the public perception of novel foods, as exemplified by the Italian pre-emptive ban on cultivated meat, in 2023 (npj Sci Food, 2025, doi:10.1038/s41538-025-00384-0).
- The authors should consider revising the title to reflect this specificity, such as: "The role of trust, attitudes, and perceived literacy in acceptance of genome-edited foods: Italy as a case study."
- Moreover, since NGT foods are already available in markets like the USA, Japan, and the Philippines (Front Bioeng Biotechnol, 2024, doi:10.3389/fbioe.2024.1483857), a broader discussion is needed on how cultural, regulatory, and informational contexts shape public acceptance and whether the hypothesized psychosocial drivers (e.g., scientific literacy) would operate similarly across different regions.

3. The manuscript soundness is undermined by multiple in-text citations that do not appear in the reference list, e.g., Shineha et al., 2024; Swedish Gene Technology Advisory Board, 2025; Caputo et al., 2025. For instance, on lines 59–61, the authors claim that “survey data from Japan confirm a prevalent ‘wait-and-see’ stance,” which seems incongruent with the fact that Japan launched the world’s first commercial NGT crop product, the Sicilian Rouge tomato in 2021. Please clarify.

Author Response

1. The terminology, specifically "New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs)" and "Genome-editing (GE) techniques", should be updated to align with the European Union’s current regulatory framework, which uses the term New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). Adopting this terminology would improve clarity, consistency, and policy relevance. Furthermore, the recent EU political agreement enabling the commercialization of certain NGT plants and products (see https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2912 ) should be discussed to better situate the study’s implications within evolving regulatory landscapes.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for this important remark. We have revised the manuscript to align the terminology with the current EU regulatory framework by consistently adopting the term New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) when referring to the broader regulatory category. In the Introduction, we now explicitly clarify that NGTs represent the overarching framework, within which genome editing (GE) constitutes one of the most prominent and publicly debated applications. At the same time, we retain the term genome editing (GE) when referring specifically to the focus of our empirical study, as the survey items explicitly addressed genome editing. This distinction is now clearly stated in the manuscript to ensure conceptual and terminological consistency.

2. While acknowledged as a limitation in discussion, the exclusive focus on Italy warrants stronger contextualization. Given the long-standing tradition in high-quality food products, Italy may not be seen as a representative country in the European or global context to analyze the public perception of novel foods, as exemplified by the Italian pre-emptive ban on cultivated meat, in 2023 (npj Sci Food, 2025, doi:10.1038/s41538-025-00384-0).

- The authors should consider revising the title to reflect this specificity, such as: "The role of trust, attitudes, and perceived literacy in acceptance of genome-edited foods: Italy as a case study."

- Moreover, since NGT foods are already available in markets like the USA, Japan, and the Philippines (Front Bioeng Biotechnol, 2024, doi:10.3389/fbioe.2024.1483857), a broader discussion is needed on how cultural, regulatory, and informational contexts shape public acceptance and whether the hypothesized psychosocial drivers (e.g., scientific literacy) would operate similarly across different regions.

Response: we thank the Reviewer for these suggestions. Indeed, the Italian context is distinctive with regard to food consumption. Accordingly, we have revised the title and provided clearer contextualization in the Introduction to better situate the study within the Italian setting.

3. The manuscript soundness is undermined by multiple in-text citations that do not appear in the reference list, e.g., Shineha et al., 2024; Swedish Gene Technology Advisory Board, 2025; Caputo et al., 2025. For instance, on lines 59–61, the authors claim that “survey data from Japan confirm a prevalent ‘wait-and-see’ stance,” which seems incongruent with the fact that Japan launched the world’s first commercial NGT crop product, the Sicilian Rouge tomato in 2021. Please clarify.

Response: We thank the Reviewer for highlighting this issue. Unfortunately, we encountered some difficulties with the citation management system, which resulted in inconsistencies between the in-text citations and the reference list. We have now thoroughly reviewed and corrected all references to ensure they are aligned with the journal’s style and that every in-text citation corresponds accurately to the bibliography.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have responded to all my comments and suggestions, I am happy for the article to be published.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed the comments raised during the previous review round.