New research from Red Tractor and YouGov has revealed the UK public’s attitudes to food and drink, including a lack of trust in some imports.
The research, conducted by YouGov with over 3,500 adults across the UK, found the public overwhelmingly believes that the UK’s food is safe, traceable and good quality.
One of the main reasons behind the public’s confidence in British food is an implicit trust in the systems of regulation and assurance that exist in the UK. Half (48%) of those surveyed refer to high standards and regulations as the reason they trust food in the UK. Respondents also feel that inspection and assurance schemes such as British Lion and Red Tractor (70%) play a greater role than the Government (64%) in ensuring that the UK’s food is safe and of good quality.
Significantly, while 84% of UK consumers trust food from Britain, levels of trust in food from outside the UK vary wildly. Ireland and New Zealand maintain the highest levels of trust amongst UK consumers, followed by leading EU food producers such as Sweden, Germany, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands. By contrast, only 25% of Brits trust food from the USA and just 11% trust food from China. Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada lag several of the major EU food producing countries. Just 17% of British consumers trust UK food a little or not at all. Of these, 40% base their criticism on the belief that the food available to them is unhealthy, overly processed or in other ways low quality.
More than twice as many people trust food bought in shops than trust takeaways and deliveries. Consumers’ trust in food ingredients they buy to prepare themselves at home is very high. This is especially the case with food perceived as local, bought in specialist or ‘hyper-local’ shops, which is trusted by more than eight out of ten people. Almost as many people (78%) trust food bought from supermarkets. The level of trust falls slightly for food prepared in restaurants (70%), with much lower trust in food from takeaways and deliveries (37%). The low level of trust in the takeaway sector is especially interesting given the exponential growth of the sector in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Tacon, Chair, Red Tractor, said: “The most important finding in this Report isn’t simply that most people trust the food they buy in the UK. It’s the reason why. By far the biggest reason why people trust food here in the UK is the strength of our food standards and our independent assurance schemes.”
