Scientist

Only one in three people trust supermarkets, food manufacturers and the government when it comes to food safety.

However, 60% would trust farmers and 70% would believe food inspectors to make sure food was safe to eat, according to a new report from the NatCen’s British Social Attitudes survey.

Above and beyond questions around everyday trust, the survey also asked who would be the most trusted in the event of a food scare and found not much had changed since the notorious 2013 horsemeat scandal.

The most trusted were still health professionals (40%) and scientists (30%) with only 10% of people believing they would be able to trust the government to tell the truth, 8% the media, 4% food manufacturers and 2% supermarkets.

In other areas, the survey revealed that 58% of people felt sure that food from the UK was prepared to the highest quality standards, the same proportion believing in the labelling and 54% confident about its provenance. However, less than a quarter (23%) thought food imported from abroad was prepared to the same high standards.

Further factors in the choices people made included health over low cost, which mattered to 83% of those questioned, while low cost mattered more to 47%. That food had not gone through a lot of processing mattered to seven in 10 people, the farmer or grower being paid a fair price to 58% with only 35% caring if it was grown locally.

“Today’s report tells us whether the food supply matters to the British public when they’re buying food, and which organisations involved in the food chain they trust,” said Caireen Roberts, research director at NatCen Social Research.

“Healthiness of food is clearly an important issue when buying food, more so than considerations around the origin and cost. While confidence in the quality of food produced in Britain was just over 50%, it was higher than levels of confidence in imported food and we also saw low levels of trust in the government, supermarkets and food manufacturers. This may be because these organisations are viewed as being motivated by profit either directly or indirectly or it may be the result of previous food scares.”

Topics