diff --git a/scrapyrt/resources.py b/scrapyrt/resources.py
index 5ad219d..4bf0309 100644
--- a/scrapyrt/resources.py
+++ b/scrapyrt/resources.py
@@ -12,10 +12,18 @@
 from .utils import extract_scrapy_request_args, to_bytes
 
 
+class AdaptedScrapyJSONEncoder(ScrapyJSONEncoder):
+    def default(self, o):
+        if isinstance(o, bytes):
+            return o.decode('utf8')
+        else:
+            return super().default(o)
+
+
 # XXX super() calls won't work wihout object mixin in Python 2
 # maybe this can be removed at some point?
 class ServiceResource(resource.Resource, object):
-    json_encoder = ScrapyJSONEncoder()
+    json_encoder = AdaptedScrapyJSONEncoder()
 
     def __init__(self, root=None):
         resource.Resource.__init__(self)
@@ -79,6 +87,7 @@ def format_error_response(self, exception, request):
         # Twisted HTTP Error objects still have 'message' attribute even in 3+
         # and they fail on str(exception) call.
         msg = exception.message if hasattr(exception, 'message') else str(exception)
+
         return {
             "status": "error",
             "message": msg,
@@ -87,6 +96,7 @@ def format_error_response(self, exception, request):
 
     def render_object(self, obj, request):
         r = self.json_encoder.encode(obj) + "\n"
+
         request.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json')
         request.setHeader('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*')
         request.setHeader('Access-Control-Allow-Methods',
diff --git a/tests/sample_data/testproject/testproject/spiders/testspider.py b/tests/sample_data/testproject/testproject/spiders/testspider.py
index 2d0d3f1..e036f5c 100644
--- a/tests/sample_data/testproject/testproject/spiders/testspider.py
+++ b/tests/sample_data/testproject/testproject/spiders/testspider.py
@@ -12,6 +12,9 @@ def parse(self, response):
         name = response.xpath('//h1/text()').extract()
         return TestprojectItem(name=name)
 
+    def return_bytes(self, response):
+        return TestprojectItem(name=b'Some bytes here')
+
     def some_errback(self, err):
         self.logger.error("Logging some error {}".format(err))
         return
diff --git a/tests/test_resource_crawl.py b/tests/test_resource_crawl.py
index bf20a8f..12f5cf1 100644
--- a/tests/test_resource_crawl.py
+++ b/tests/test_resource_crawl.py
@@ -400,3 +400,15 @@ def test_passing_errback(self, server, method):
 
         msg = 'ERROR: Logging some error'
         assert re.search(msg, log_file)
+
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("method", [
+        perform_get, perform_post
+    ])
+    def test_bytes_in_item(self, server, method):
+        url = server.url("crawl.json")
+        res = method(url,
+                     {"spider_name": "test"},
+                     {"url": server.target_site.url("page1.html"),
+                      'callback': 'return_bytes'})
+        assert res.status_code == 200
+        assert res.json()["items"] == [{'name': 'Some bytes here'}]