**1. Introduction**

The increasing interest of food companies in innovation in the search for competitiveness has encouraged the development of innovations even in food sectors in which tradition has long been established as their main competitive advantage [1]. Few food sectors are as influenced by heritage and tradition as the wine production sector, especially in the traditional wine-growing countries [2]. However, changing consumer tastes and the emergence of nontraditional wine markets worldwide have encouraged wine makers to adapt their products in order to succeed [3–6]. However, innovation in the production of traditional food products must be evaluated carefully [1,7]. In a study conducted in different European countries, Kühne, Vanhonacker, Gellynck, and Verbeke [1] concluded that consumers were open to accepting innovation in traditional food products as long as the traditional character of those foods was preserved. As a result, even if significant consumers segments are interested in new wines [2,5], these innovations should be considered carefully.

Although innovation in the food sector is mainly devoted to the development of novel products [8], innovation within food companies should be understood as a wider process [9]. Drawing on the Oslo Manual [10], two different types of innovation can be identified: technological and nontechnological innovations. The former refers to the development of new products or production processes, while the latter refers to the innovations that companies implement in their marketing strategies or their managemen<sup>t</sup> [11]. In the wine sector, technological innovations include a range of possibilities, from the addition of different extracts [5] to the use of fungus-resistant grapes [12] or changes in the wine-

**Citation:** Rabadán, A. Consumer Attitudes towards Technological Innovation in a Traditional Food Product: The Case of Wine. *Foods* **2021**, *10*, 1363. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/foods10061363

Academic Editor: Jean-Xavier Guinard

Received: 17 May 2021 Accepted: 9 June 2021 Published: 12 June 2021

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making process [13]. On the other hand, nontechnological innovations include changes in marketing strategies [14] or the implementation of voluntary certification schemes [15].

Although food innovation is crucial to meet the increasing demand of safer, healthier, and more convenient foods [16,17], the development of novel products faces the rejection of consumers that perceive risks or disadvantages in these innovative foods [18,19]. Several studies have reported that only a small percentage of launched novel food products succeed, while the vast majority continue to fail [7,20–22]. This negative perception increases when production is perceived to be more industrial [23] as food innovation is sometimes associated with processed products and unhealthiness [24]. With this in mind, the development of new food products must consider the effects of so-called Food Neophobia (FN), which was defined by Henriques et al. [25] as the personal reluctance to accept and/or enjoy new or unfamiliar foods.

Due to the direct effect of FN on the success of food innovation, numerous tools have been proposed to evaluate this attitude [26]. However, thirty years after its presentation, the most successful tool to evaluate FN is still the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) developed by Pliner and Hobden [27]. This scale has been used as the basis for the development of other scales to measure additional aspects of FN. This is the case of the so-called Food Technology Neophobia Scale (FTNS), developed to evaluate consumers' reluctance toward foods produced using new technologies [28]. Various studies have reported that although the FNS and the FTNS are related, the low correlations found on the scores of the two scales (ranges from −0.12 to 0.33) [19] show that they measure different aspects of FN, supporting the idea of general FN as a complex variable that can only be evaluated using a combination of different instruments.

Wine is a complex product, and, for this reason, consumer wine consumer preferences are influenced by a wide range of factors from the emotional and social to intrinsic quality factors [29–31]. The importance attributed to each quality factor, from origin to wine barrel aging, depends on consumer involvement with the product [32] but also on individual attitudes that appear as a result of social background [5]. All these specific characteristics of wine encouraged the creation of a specific Wine Neophobia Scale (WNS) [6] using the existing FNS, to specifically evaluate wine neophobia (WN). Few studies have been developed using the WNS, although there are some noteworthy exceptions. This is the case of the study by Nguyen, Johnson, Jeffery, Danner, and Bastian [5], who, after evaluating the level of WN in Australia, Vietnam, and China, found that WN is country-dependent.

After thirty years of studies on FN, some general conclusions have been reached, while other areas are still open to debate [33]. Knaapila et al. [34] reported that up to twothirds of the variation in individual FN was genetically determined. Supporting the idea of FN as a personal trait, lower FN scores have been associated with a higher individual openness [35] and greater exposure to cultural diversity [36]. Following this association, higher FN scores have also been reported for individuals living in rural areas [36,37]. In this regard, most of the studies coincide in reporting higher levels of FN in individuals with lower levels of education and income [37–42]. However, it is still unknown whether the general conclusions reached for general FN might also apply to WN.

The current study aimed to evaluate consumer attitudes toward innovation in the wine industry, including the combined study of WN and food technology neophobia (FTN). The identification and characterization of consumers with the most positive attitudes toward innovation is crucial to develop strategies that ensure wine companies committed to wine innovation achieve higher profits than penalties as a result of their breaking with the association between wine and tradition and heritage.
