F&Y2 Wave 9: Introduction

The Food Standards Agency: role, remit, and responsibilities 

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.

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 mission and to 
inform policy decisions by measuring on a regular basis consumers’ self-reported 
knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food issues in 
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland ^{(footnote 1)}.

Food and You 2: Wave 9

Food and You 2: Wave 9 data were collected between 24th April 2024 to 1st July 2024. A total of 5,526 adults (aged 16 years and over) from 3,908 households across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland completed the survey (an overall response rate of 25.8%).

Food and You 2: Wave 9 data were collected during a period where food price inflation remained relatively stable and the price of energy was falling, with rates of inflation for both food and energy prices significantly lower than the year before. This stabilisation of food price inflation and drop in energy prices followed a period of high inflation over the previous two years. Wave 9 data was also collected in the period immediately leading up to the UK General election (held on the 4th July 2024). These recent events may impact respondents personal outlook on the topics within this survey.

This report presents key findings from the Food and You 2: Wave 9 survey. Not all questions asked in the Wave 9 survey are included in the report. The full results are available in the accompanying data set and tables.

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 less than 10 percentage points, when the finding is notable or judged to be of interest. These differences are indicated with a double asterisk (**). A single asterisk indicates that the value is not reported as the size of the base size is below 100 and therefore may not be representative (*).

In some cases, it was not possible to include the data of all sub-groups, however such analyses are available in the full data set and 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)
• ‘please note:’ indicates important points to consider when interpreting the results