Food waste, sugar levels amongst top issues for consumers: survey
45% of respondents reported food safety concerns.
Food waste, the amount of sugar in food and animal welfare some of the biggest food concerns for consumers, according to a new survey by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
Surveying more than 2,000 adults 16 and over in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the respondents also cited food prices and the amount of salt in food as pressing issues.
The top food safety issues of concern for those surveyed were chemicals from the environment (32%), food hygiene when eating out (31%), the use of pesticides to grow food (31%) and food poisoning (28%).
FSA said the awareness of different types of food poisoning gradually increased in the last two years. Whilst awareness of salmonella (92%) and e-coli (86%) were high, awareness of norovirus (60%) and listeria (61%) have increased by eight and 15 percentage points since November 2017.
45% of respondents also reported concern about food safety in UK restaurants, pubs, cafes and takeaways whilst 40% of respondents reported concern about food safety in UK shops and supermarkets. Reported concern, FSA said, continued to decrease slightly over time, indicating “a general decline in concern about food safety in UK food outlets.”
A majority also reported that they trust that food is accurately labelled (78%) whilst 76% trusted the authenticity of ingredients, origin or quality of food. Findings also revealed that 83% of respondents felt they had enough information about what food contains to make their food choices.
