Consumer Insights Tracker Technical Report: Introduction

Introduction

The Consumer Insights Tracker is the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) tracking survey that monitors changes in consumers’ behaviour and attitudes in relation to food. Fieldwork is conducted on a monthly basis. 

This technical report presents methodological details on the Consumer Insights Tracker; including how data is collected and analysed. It also provides information on the strengths and limitations of the methodology, to support interpretation of the data. 

Overview of methodology 

The Consumer Insights Tracker is conducted using a bespoke online survey approach, administered to members of the YouGov Plc UK panel. Fieldwork takes place monthly, typically during the first week of the month and lasting around 5 days in total. Approximately 2,000 adults (aged 16 years and older) across England, Wales and Northern Ireland participate in the survey each month. This includes a pilot of around 100 responses for each wave. Respondents are excluded from taking the survey again for 6 months. The questionnaire completion time is approximately 10 minutes. The questions remain broadly consistent for each wave, although questions can be added/ removed as needed. Respondents are provided an incentive, in the form of points credited to their YouGov account, upon completion of the survey. Findings are summarised by YouGov into a PowerPoint report and shared with the FSA. The FSA publishes findings on the Consumer Insights Tracker webpage and makes data tables available on the FSA’s data catalogue.

History of the Consumer Insights Tracker

In April 2020 the FSA established a new monthly survey (the COVID-19 Tracker) to monitor consumers’ attitudes and behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. This survey was designed to provide more regular and timely insights than the FSA’s biannual official statistic survey, Food and You 2. In April 2022 the survey was renamed the Consumer Insights Tracker. This version of the Consumer Insights Tracker ran from April 2022 to June 2023. Further details are available via a separate webpage. 

YouGov were appointed as the supplier of the Consumer Insights Tracker from July 2023. At this time, the FSA also took the opportunity to review the survey design and methodology for the Consumer Insights Tracker and the survey was relaunched in August 2023, following an independent review of the survey’s methods and content. 

Due to a change in supplier and changes made to the survey design by the FSA, data collected from the two suppliers pre-and-post July 2023 should not be directly compared. A summary of the key changes are provided in Table 1. 

Table 1: Changes to survey methodology