Almost half (49%) of the respondents reported concern about food safety in UK restaurants, pubs, cafes and takeaways. Concern decreased 3 percentage points compared to the previous wave (52%, May 2013), but there is no overall trend across waves. The proportion of respondents concerned about food safety in shops and supermarkets (46%) has decreased 6 percentage points when compared with Wave 6 (52%), but is consistent with all other waves.
Awareness of the Food Standards Agency remains at 82% in this wave of the tracker. Of those who reported being aware of the FSA, 58% said they trusted the FSA to do its job. Only 8% said they distrusted the FSA to do its job. Levels of trust fell in Wave 6 (May 2013) when compared to all previous waves, and have remained at this level in this wave.
More than four-fifths of respondents (82%) said they were aware of the hygiene standards in places they eat out at or buy food from. In this wave, 40% of these respondents reported hygiene certificates and 25% reported hygiene stickers, as ways of knowing about hygiene standards.
The proportions of respondents reporting hygiene certificates and hygiene stickers progressively increased between Wave 1 (29% and 12% respectively, Nov 2010) and Wave 6 (40% and 25% respectively, May 2013) and have remained steady in this wave.
Awareness of the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) has continued to increase in this wave. More than a third (37%) of respondents in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reported being aware of the FHRS (compared to 21-34%, between November 2011 and May 2013). The proportion of respondents in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reporting that they had seen an FHRS certificate and/or sticker (66%) in this wave has also increased compared to previous waves (50%, Nov 2010 and 57%, May 2013).
Awareness of Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS) was mixed, with 9% of respondents in Scotland report being aware of the FHIS consistent with the previous three waves. However, 50% said they had seen the FHIS certificate and/or sticker before, an increase of 18 percentage points compared to Wave 5 (32% in Nov 2012).
Background
Fieldwork for this wave took place in November 2013 and a representative sample of 2,509 adults in the UK was interviewed via the TNS consumer face-to-face omnibus survey. This is the seventh wave of the biannual tracker, which started in November 2010.