Trust and confidence in the FSA and food system

Key successes in the quarter

• Public attitudes: Results from our latest Food and You 2 survey indicate that trust in the FSA (77%), confidence that food is safe to eat (92%) and confidence that information on food labelled is accurate (86%) remain high.
• Building our reputation as an evidence generator: The Food Standards Annual Report launch saw widespread national coverage with 3 launch events involving 83 external stakeholders
• Handling major incidents: the high-profile recall of Kinder chocolate and the advice on Sunflower oil substitutions generated widespread coverage across both mainstream and social media.
• Increasing our profile: Chair’s consumer stakeholder forum and other cross-government engagement resulted in better engagement and advocacy (for example, household food insecurity). Growth of stakeholder channels (↑342% in CEO/Chair stakeholder bulletin subscribers to 3,588)​

Concerns/Risks

• achieving profile and traction on marketing, media and stakeholder communication is becoming increasingly challenging with public and media interest in food more focussed on cost of living and supply chain issues
• overall decline in public trust in government, institutions and the food industry may have an impact on our future trust scores
• increasing scale of incidents puts pressure on communication resources making it more challenging to ensure we communicate risk effectively
• need to continue to improve cross-FSA capability on systematic and meaningful stakeholder engagement.​

Next steps

• continue to look for proactive opportunities to make the FSA voice heard in the media, through marketing channels, on social media and with our stakeholders, with a particular focus on reflecting public concerns around food affordability.​

Out of those who have some knowledge of the FSA:

• 77% trust the FSA to ensure food is safe and what it says it is (over our ambition of 75%)
• 92% are confident that the food they buy is safe to eat (over our ambition of 86%)
• 86% are confident that the information on food labels is accurate (level with our ambition of 86%).

Consumer awareness, knowledge and trust in the FSA

Consumer confidence in food safety and authenticity