Introduction: Food and You 2 Wave 4

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 vision and inform policy decisions by measuring self-reported consumers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food issues in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on a regular basis. 

Food and You 2

In 2019 Ipsos was commissioned by the FSA to develop and run a biannual survey, ‘Food and You 2’, carried out primarily online. 

Food and You 2 replaced the FSA’s face-to-face Food and You survey (2010-2018) ^{(footnote 2)}, Public Attitudes Tracker (2010-2019) and Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) - Consumer Attitudes Tracker (2014-2019). Due to differences in the question content, presentation and mode of response, direct comparisons should not be made between these earlier surveys and Food and You 2. More information about the history and methodology can be found in Annex A. 

Food and You 2: Wave 4

Food and You 2: Wave 4 data were collected between 18th October 2021 and 10th January 2022. A total of 5,796 adults from 4,026 households across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland completed the survey (an overall response rate of 28.5%). 

Food and You 2: Wave 4 data were collected during a period of political and economic change and uncertainty following the UK’s exit from the EU and the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 ^{(footnote 3)}.  

Food and You 2 is a modular survey, with ‘core’ modules included every wave, ‘rotated’ modules repeated annually or biennially, and ‘exclusive’ modules asked on a one-off basis. The modules presented in this report include: ‘Food you can trust’ (core); ‘Concerns about food’ (core); ’Food security’ (core); ‘Eating out and takeaways’ (rotated); ‘Food allergies, intolerances and other hypersensitivities’ (rotated); ‘Eating at home’ (rotated); ‘Food shopping: sustainability and environmental impact’ (rotated); and, ‘Sustainable diets, meat alternatives and genetic technologies’ (rotated).

This report presents key findings from the Food and You 2: Wave 4 survey. Not all questions asked in the Wave 4 survey are included in the report. The full results are available in the accompanying full 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 (**). 

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.  

Future publication plans

Modules expected to be reported in the Food and You 2: Wave 5 Key Findings report include, ‘Food you can trust’ (core), ‘Concerns about food’ (core), ‘Food security’ (core), ‘Food shopping’, (rotated) and ‘Eating at home’ (rotated). However, findings included in the Food and You 2: Key Findings reports will be responsive to new and emerging issues and observations which are novel or of interest. A series of secondary reports will explore key modules in more detail.