Consumer Insights Tracker Report March 2022 - March 2023
Consumer Insights Tracker: Chapter 2 Background
Background to the FSA's yearly Consumer Insights tracker
This publication is a summary of the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) Consumer Insights Tracker data, focussing on trends over the past year (March 2022 to March 2023). The Consumer Insights Tracker collects monthly insights to allow for the tracking of consumer attitudes and behaviours in relation to a range of topics, including:
- household food insecurity
- consumer perceptions of food availability
- consumer concerns in relation to food
- consumer confidence in the food supply chain and the FSA
The report draws on the data from the Consumer Insights Tracker survey commissioned by the FSA and administered by Ipsos UK. This survey was established in November 2021 and replaced the COVID-19 consumer tracker survey that ran from April 2020. This annual report provides commentary on data from March 2022 to March 2023. For some measures the report also includes commentary on data collected pre-March 2022.
Although longer term trends can be monitored in FSA’s flagship Food and You 2 survey (which offers a more robust methodology), the Consumer Insights Tracker reports monthly and is designed to provide more regular monitoring of key issues that impact people and specific demographic groups. The key differences between these two surveys are outlined in Table 1.
Table 1: Key differences between Consumer Insights Tracker survey and Food and You 2 survey
| Difference | Food and You 2 | Consumer Insights Tracker |
| Sample size | Approximately 6,000 | Approximately 2,000 |
| Sampling approach | Random probability sampling using postal address file (PAF) | Quota sampling from an online panel |
| Mode | Push-to-web (online, with postal option) | Online only |
| Frequency | Biannually | Monthly (was fortnightly between November 2021 and January 2022) |
| Representation | Nationally representative of England, Wales and Northern Ireland with boosted samples in Wales and Northern Ireland | Nationally representative of England, Wales and Northern Ireland |
| Topics captured | Food safety in the home, food shopping, eating out, food allergy (including intolerance, and other hypersensitivities), food security, concerns about food, and trust in the FSA and food supply chain | Food security, food availability, concerns in relation to food, confidence in the food supply chain and confidence/trust in the FSA |
| Cognitively tested | Cognitive testing on some survey questions | No cognitive testing |
| Beginning of timeseries | July 2020 (Fieldwork conducted between July and October 2020) | April 2020 (question dependent) |