Posted: July 23rd, 2010 - 9:05am
Source: FSA

The Food Standards Agency has released the latest results of its quarterly tracker survey, which monitors public opinion and awareness of the Food Standards Agency and key food issues.
A representative sample of 2,111 adults in the UK was interviewed in the latest wave of the tracker (March 2010), by placing questions on the TNS consumer omnibus survey. Results show that awareness of the Food Standards Agency, when prompted, has remained stable at 79% since the survey was last carried out in December 2009, and confidence in the Agency has remained at a similar level (currently at 63%).
Concern about food safety issues has shown a significant decrease this wave, from 70% to 59%, with the main food issues of total concern for respondents being the amount of salt in food (44%), food poisoning (43%) and the amount of fat in food (41%).
Awareness of hygiene standards in eating establishments remains unchanged from the last survey at 83%. Of this 83%, the general appearance of the premises (73%), the appearance of staff (59%) and the reputation of the business (50%) were all identified as factors that encouraged their awareness of hygiene standards.
The Agency has been examining changes in consumer opinion about a variety of food-related issues since 2001, this includes people’s attitudes towards areas of food safety, and confidence and awareness of the FSA. The existing version of the tracker is currently being revised, with the view that the next tracker survey will take place in autumn 2010 and then on a bi-annual basis.