The Women's Food and Farming Union has demanded an apology from Tesco over its shopper survey on farming in Britain in 2001. Chairman Janet Godfrey said some of the questions were ambiguous and could cause concern among shoppers about food safety. Her comments come two weeks after the chain drew criticism from the NFU which said it had failed to consult the unikon over the questionnaire's wording and had wrongly labelled foot and mouth as a food safety issue. The forms were distributed to every Tesco store and the results will inform Tesco's submission to the Commission on the Future of Food and Farming. Godfrey said: "I'm upset about the survey because it is ambiguous." She said the use of the word concerned' when referring to the safety of food produced by British farmers could have been interpreted two ways ­ either as worried about or concerned with. In each case the answer would have produced an extreme response. "Another question," she said, "was, would you be prepared to pay more for organic food to ensure the food you buy is safe?' I felt that this implied conventional food wasn't safe. "You only have to put that element of doubt into consumers' minds and they worry about it." Tesco has refused to apologise for its survey after Godfrey wrote to the chain. She added: "It would have been nice to know what their purpose was. All of a sudden it was in the stores and people had to respond within 10 days." A Tesco spokesman said the questions had been formed by previous customer research and insisted: "We know these are areas of concern. We tried to make it as constructive as possible." {{NEWS }}

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