FSA consumer survey, conducted by Ipsos, highlights rise in confidence in food safety

Research from the survey, published by the Food Standards Agency reveals the highest level of public confidence in food safety recorded since the start of the project.

Since 2020, Ipsos has been running the FSA’s flagship consumer survey, Food and You 2. Research from the survey, published by the Food Standards Agency reveals the highest level of public confidence in food safety recorded since the start of the project.

The Wave 10 survey, conducted between October 2024 and February 2025, found that 94% of respondents said they are confident that the food they buy is safe to eat. This is a higher proportion than in the previous three surveys, which found that between 88-90% of respondents were confident.

Public confidence has also grown in other key areas. 86% of respondents said they were confident that the information on food labels is accurate, up from 81-83% in the previous three surveys.  

Other highlights from the report include:

  • The most common changes to eating habits reported by respondents were that they had eaten less processed food (47%), started eating more fruit and/or vegetables (35%), and started minimising food waste (35%).
  • 70% of respondents reported that they always wash their hands before preparing or cooking food, and 92% reported that they always wash their hands immediately after handling raw meat, poultry, or fish.
  • 65% of respondents reported that they always check use-by dates before they cook or prepare food, and 60% of respondents correctly reported that their fridge temperature should be between 0-5 degrees Celsius.
  • Across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, 80% of respondents were classified as food secure and 20% of respondents were classified as food insecure. Meanwhile, 3% of respondents reported that they had used a food bank or other emergency food provider in the last 12 months.

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Technical Note
Fieldwork for Food and You 2: Wave 10 was conducted between 9 October 2024 and 7 February 2025, and a total of 5,690 adults from 3,965 households across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland took part.

The Food and You 2 survey is an official statistic and measures self-reported knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food topics.  
Food and You 2 is the FSA’s biannual survey. The survey uses a 'push-to-web’ methodology in which participants are invited to take part by post and are provided with the option to complete the survey online or on paper. This methodology allows us to collect robust data using a random probability sampling approach.

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