F&Y2 Wave 8: Introduction

The Food Standards Agency: role, remit, and responsibilities 

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is a non-ministerial government department working to protect public health and consumers’ wider interests in relation to food in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland ^{(footnote 1)}. The FSA’s overarching mission is ‘food you can trust’. The FSA’s vision as set out in the 2022-2027 strategy is a food system in which:

• Food is safe
• Food is what it says it is
• Food is healthier and more sustainable

Food and You 2 is designed to monitor the FSA’s progress against this mission and to inform policy decisions by measuring on a regular basis consumers’ self-reported knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food issues in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 

Food and You 2: Wave 8

Food and You 2: Wave 8 data were collected between 12th October 2023 and 8th January 2024. A total of 5,808 adults (aged 16 years and over) from 4,006 households across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland completed the survey (an overall response rate of 26.7%).

Food and You 2: Wave 8 data were collected during a period of political and economic change and uncertainty; including a cost-of-living crisis where food price inflation and energy bills were high. This context is likely to have had an impact on the level of food security, concerns and food-related behaviours reported in Food and You 2.

Food and You 2: Wave 8 data were collected during a period of political and economic change and uncertainty; including a cost-of-living crisis where food price inflation and energy bills were high. This context is likely to have had an impact on the level of food security, concerns and food-related behaviours reported in Food and You 2.

Food and You 2 is a modular survey, with ‘core’ modules included in every wave, ‘rotated’ modules repeated annually or biennially, and one-off modules addressing current issues of interest. The modules presented in this report include: ‘Food you can trust’ (core); ‘Concerns about food’ (core); ’Food security’ (core); ‘Eating at home’ (core); ‘Food hypersensitivities (rotated)’ and ‘Eating out and takeaways’ (rotated).

This report presents key findings from the Food and You 2: Wave 8 survey. Not all questions asked in the Wave 8 survey are included in the report. The full results are available in the accompanying data set and tables. 

Interpreting the findings 

To highlight the key differences between socio-demographic and other sub-groups, variations in responses are typically reported only where the absolute difference is 10 percentage points or larger and is statistically significant at the 5% level (p<0.05). However, some differences between socio-demographic and other sub-groups are included where the difference is less than 10 percentage points, when the finding is notable or judged to be of interest. These differences are indicated with a double asterisk (**). A single asterisk indicates that the value is not reported as the base size is below 100 and therefore may not be representative (*).

In some cases, it was not possible to include the data of all sub-groups, however such analyses are available in the full data set and tables. Key information is provided for each reported question in the footnotes, including:

• Question wording (question) and response options (response). 
• Number of respondents presented with each question and description of the respondents who answered the question (Base= N).
• ‘Please note:’ indicates important points to consider when interpreting the results.