Our eighth consumer attitudes survey

Sunday 24 February 2008

The Food Standards Agency's eighth annual Consumer Attitudes to Food Survey points to increased confidence among the public in the food they are consuming, and with regard to wider food issues.

Since the initial survey in 2000, the number of people concerned about issues such as food poisoning, additives and food safety in general has been steady, but the latest survey reveals the first dip in the number of people who are concerned about many food safety issues. The results reveal some other encouraging trends, particularly relating to increased awareness and claimed consumption of ‘five-a-day’.

Food safety highlights

• A decrease since 2006 in concern over many food safety issues including additives (35% down from 38%), food poisoning (36% down from 42%), GM foods (20% down from 25%)
• Food labels remain important to shoppers looking for a range of information such as ‘best before’ dates, allergy advice and additives in foods. Half of respondents said they check some form of labelling information when buying food
• Almost half of respondents in the survey did not know the difference between ‘use by’ and ‘sell by’ dates on food

Diet and nutrition highlights

• More than three quarters (78%) of consumers are now aware that we should be eating at least five portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables each day and 58%, also an improvement on last year, claimed to be putting this into practice by eating at least ‘5-a-day’
• The amount of fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar in foods are still the top issues of concern among consumers and the quantity of fat and salt are the most commonly checked for nutritional information on labels. However, the percentage of people who are concerned about these is slightly down since 2006 – fat to 40% from 46%, saturated fat to 37% from 44%, salt to 50% from 54%, and sugar to 39% from 43% in 2006
• Nine out of ten respondents claimed that healthy eating is important to them, and 87% also believed that a limited budget is not a barrier to healthy eating, with those aged over 50 more likely to agree with this sentiment than those in any younger age group

You can check the results for your region by clicking on the map below.