FY2 Wave 3-4 NI: Introduction

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is a non-ministerial government department working to protect public health and consumers’ wider interests in relation to food in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland ^(footnote). The FSA’s overarching mission is ‘food you can trust’.

The FSA’s vision as set out in the 2022-2027 strategy is a food system in which:

• Food is safe
• Food is what it says it is
• Food is healthier and more sustainable

Food and You 2 is designed to monitor the FSA’s progress against this vision and inform policy decisions by measuring self-reported consumers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food issues in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on a regular basis ^(footnote).

Food and You 2

Ipsos were commissioned by the FSA to develop and run a biannual survey, ‘Food and You 2’, carried out primarily online. Food and You 2 replaces the FSA’s face-to-face Food and You survey (2010-2018) ^(footnote), Public Attitudes Tracker (2010-2019) and Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) - Consumer Attitudes Tracker (2014-2019). Due to differences in the question content, presentation and mode of response, direct comparisons should not be made between these earlier surveys and Food and You 2. More information about the history and methodology can be found in Annex A.

Food and You 2: Wave 3 and Wave 4

Fieldwork for Food and You 2: Wave 3 was conducted between 28th April and 25th June 2021. A total of 6,271 adults from 4,338 households across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland completed the survey. A total of 1,626 adults in Northern Ireland completed the survey.

Fieldwork for Food and You 2: Wave 4 was conducted between 18th October 2021 and 10th January 2022. A total of 5,796 adults from 4,026 households across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland completed the ‘push-to-web’ survey. A total of 1,575 adults in Northern Ireland completed the survey.

Food and You 2: Wave 3 and 4 data were collected during a period of political and economic change and uncertainty following the UK’s exit from the EU and the COVID-19 pandemic. This context is likely to have had an impact on the level of food security, concerns and food-related behaviours reported in Food and You 2 ^(footnote).  

Food and You 2 is a modular survey, with ‘core’ modules included every wave, ‘rotated’ modules repeated annually or biennially, and ‘exclusive’ modules asked on a one-off basis. The modules presented in this report include ‘Food you can trust’, ‘Concerns about food’, ’Food security’, ‘Eating out and takeaways’, ‘Food allergies, intolerances and other hypersensitivities’, ‘Eating at home’, ‘Food shopping and labelling’ and ‘Healthy eating’.

This report presents key findings from the Food and You 2: Wave 3 and Food and You 2: Wave 4 survey. Not all questions asked in the surveys are included in the report. The full results are available in the accompanying Food and You 2: Wave 3 data tables and underlaying data set and Food and You 2: Wave 4 data tables and underlaying data set. Findings presented in this report refer to data collected in Northern Ireland unless otherwise specified.

Future publication plans

A Food and You 2: Wave 1-4 Trends report is expected to be published in 2023. A Food and You 2: Wave 5-6 Northern Ireland Key Findings report is expected to be published in 2024.

Interpreting the findings

To highlight the key differences between socio-demographic and other sub-groups, variations in responses are typically reported only where the absolute difference is 10 percentage points or larger and is statistically significant at the 5% level (p<0.05).

However, some differences between socio-demographic and other sub-groups are included where the difference is fewer than 10 percentage points, when the finding is notable or judged to be of interest. These differences are indicated with a double asterisk (**).

The report presents some of the differences between some socio-demographic and sub-groups in the population. In some cases, it was not possible to include the data of all sub-groups, however these data are available in the Food and You 2: Wave 3 and Food and You 2: Wave 4 data tables.

Key information is provided for each reported question in the footnotes, including:  

• question wording (question) and response options (response).
• number of respondents presented with each question and description of the respondents who answered the question (Base = N).
• whether data were collected from Wave 3 or Wave 4.
• please note: indicates important points to consider when interpreting the results.