FSA consumer survey, conducted by Ipsos, highlights risky kitchen behaviours

The Wave 9 survey conducted between April and July last year, shows that more than three-quarters of respondents (76%) would rely on the ‘sniff test’ to assess whether raw meat is safe to eat or cook with. A further 73% of respondents said they would rely on the sniff test for milk and yoghurt, and 65% of respondents said they would do so with fish.

The report also found that many respondents would eat bagged salad (72%) or cheese (70%) after the use-by date, while around six-in-ten respondents would eat yoghurt (63%), milk (60%), or cooked meats (58%) after the use-by date.

Some of the more positive findings in the report show that 94% of respondents would never eat sausages when they are pink or have pink juices, and the majority of respondents (62%) reported that they always check use-by dates before they cook or prepare food. Most people (83%) also reported that they would only reheat leftover food once, in line with FSA guidance.

Other highlights from the report include:

• Across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, 21% of respondents were classified as food insecure, which means having limited or uncertain access to adequate food. This marks a slight improvement on the previous figures (Wave 8, October 2023 to January 2024) which showed that 24% of respondents were classified as food insecure.
• Most respondents reported confidence in food safety and authenticity, with 89% of respondents saying they were confident that the food they buy is safe to eat.
• Respondents were asked to report whether they had any concerns about the food they eat. Most respondents (79%) had no concerns. Amongst the remaining 21% of respondents, the most common concerns related to food production methods (35%) and nutrition and health (26%). All online respondents were asked if they had concerns about several food-related issues, from a list of options, and the most prevalent concern was food prices (69%).
• 75% of respondents reported that they had made a change to their eating habits for financial reasons in the previous 12 months. The most common changes were eating out less (43%), eating at home more (42%), eating fewer takeaways (38%) and buying items on special offer more (39%).

Resources

• Report: https://www.food.gov.uk/research/food-and-you-2/food-and-you-2-wave-9 
• Technical report: https://www.food.gov.uk/research/food-and-you-2-technical-report-introduction 
• Data: https://data.food.gov.uk/catalog/datasets/a6ba60ff-c9c6-4d13-9891-f9282e919cec 
• News story: https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/news/fsa-consumer-survey-highlights-risky-kitchen-behaviour 

Technical Note 

Fieldwork for Food and You 2: Wave 9 was conducted between 24 April 2024 and 1 July 2024, and a total of 5,526 adults from 3,908 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.