Food Standards Agency
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Listen to this siteMonday 17 February 2003
The Food Standards Agency's third annual Consumer Attitudes to Food survey highlights a number of trends developing from when the first survey was carried out in 2000.
As well as giving useful information on issues such as food safety and awareness of nutrition messages, the figures can also be broken down to show how attitudes differ in the various parts of the UK. You can check the results for your region by clicking on the map below.
Region map
North East
South West
Scotland
Northern Ireland
Wales
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Midlands
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The most noteworthy of the overall trends is a small but steady decline in concern over the safety of meat, with a significant decrease in concern about types of meat such as beef, pork, lamb, and raw meat over the past three years.
Confidence in the role played by the Food Standards Agency has also increased significantly, with 60% of consumers now claiming to be very or fairly confident in the Agency's role in protecting health with regard to food safety, an increase of 10% since 2000.
The results are based on a representative sample of more than 3000 consumers across the UK. Although there have been few significant changes in consumer behaviour over the past year, particularly with regards to nutrition, diet and shopping habits, the survey does show that people are slowly becoming more confident about food safety and standards. In the past year there have been significant falls in concern about animal feed (50% in 2001 to 41% in 2002) and the use of pesticides to grow food (50% in 2001 to 44% in 2002).
The 2002 survey also reveals a small but significant increase in the number of people claiming to eat 'convenience' food, illustrated by an increase in the amount of people regularly eating ready-meals and buying takeaway food. Consumers in the south of England are most likely to eat organic food and vegetarianism is most common in the south east of England.
Scottish consumers had the highest level of awareness of the five-a-day fruit and vegetables message, while Welsh consumers had the lowest.
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(pdf 785KB) Survey by Food Standards Agency shows drop in concern over BSE and food safety Read the press releaseFind out what our other sites have to offer
Northern Ireland Scotland North East North West South West Wales Midlands South East