In the last decades, modern food systems have been faced with a challenge to accelerate the shift towards sustainable development and production; identifying solutions that are able to enhance productivity and sustainability along the supply chain while helping the sector cope with climate change issues (OECD, 2012). The transition towards new models of food production and consumption will depend on the sector’s capacity to introduce innovative approaches and strategies at any level of the supply chain (Schiefer and Deiters, 2016). Nonetheless, compared to other manufacturing sectors, the food and drink sector in Europe is less innovative and only the 1.9% of the EU patent applications were related to such products (Eurostat, 2012).1 In the food sectors, ready-made meals are the most innovative, with 8% of the total European food innovation, followed by dairy products (7.5%), soft drinks (6.3%) and savory frozen products (6.2%) (FoodDrinkEurope, 2016). Moreover, in addition to patent data, research and development (R&D) expenditures can also be used as a measure of innovation. Data revealed that the low levels of R&D expenditures at an aggregate level and the low propensity for the development of new knowledge led to considering the European food and drink sectors as lowtech industries (Costa et al., 2016). The capacity to innovate represents a strategic tool for firms to maintain a competitive position in the marketplace (de Jong and Marsili, 2006; Laforet and Tann, 2006). This is particularly relevant in the Italian market, where small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent a greater part of the food industry (Spillan and Parnell, 2006; Banterle et al., 2016): the introduction of new ideas, processes and products allows SMEs to survive alongside big enterprises and to face the growth of competition due to globalization processes (Traill and Grunert, 1997). On the demand side, consumers are increasingly careful about what they eat, as a consequence of problems related to food intolerance, allergies and episodes of food poisoning and scares (McEachern and Schroder, 2004; Grunert, 2005; European Commission, 2007), along with the increased awareness of the existence of a direct link between diet and health (Banterle and Cavaliere, 2014; Bui and Fazio, 2016; Cavaliere et al., 2016, 2017). In this context, despite the fact that technological innovation in the food chain can play a strategic role in coping with the evolution of the consumers’ needs and choices, evidence suggests that consumers tend to appreciate technology applications in general and, conversely, find food technologies risky (Lusk et al., 2014). As a consequence, the academic interest towards food products produced with innovative technologies has increased and a specific attention has been paid on the factors that could explain consumer acceptance or skepticism with regard to these new technologies (Magnusson and Hursti, 2002; Biltekoff, 2010; Verneau et al., 2014; Ferrazzi et al., 2017). Moreover, for the specific case of Italy, Eurobarometer data showed the lowest percentage of respondents who think that both science and technological innovation as well as people’s actions and behavior will have a positive impact on the availability and quality of food (European Commission, 2014). In addition, the highest proportion of respondents who consider food origin as important can be found in Italy. Indeed, almost 70% of the respondents were aware and interested in the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) logos (European Commission, 2012). This is the peculiarity of the Italian population, which translates to a great preference for high quality, typical, and niche food productions and a high adherence to ‘Made in Italy’ products (European Commission, 2012). In this frame, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to analyze consumer acceptance towards new technologies in food and, second, a special focus on Shelf Life Extension, which is considered to be one of the most sustainability-driving food innovations. Plenty of studies have focused on new innovation technologies in the food sector, such as bio-fortified food, nanotechnology, and transgenic food, but, to our best knowledge, the acceptance of Shelf Life Extension technologies has been scarcely investigated (Magnusson and Hursti, 2002; Stevens and WinterNelson, 2008; Gonz alez et al., 2009; Vandermoere et al., 2010; Bieberstein et al., 2013; McFadden and Lusk, 2014; Stranieri and Baldi, 2017).