Measuring consumer trust in our food system

Every year since 2018, EIT Food has measured European consumers’ trust in the food system. Over the last seven years they have surveyed around 120,000 European people from 18 different countries.

Moving towards a healthier, more sustainable food system depends on behaviour change. People will only embrace new innovations, foods and habits because they believe they are truly good for them (and the planet). Consumers need to have trust in the organisations that produce their food as well as those that inform their food choices and regulate the food system. The TrustTracker aims understand the state of trust today and how to build on it.

To read the most recent Trust Tracker report visit EIT Food’s website here.

Back to the school of trends

Client:

European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Food

Brief:

Each year we collaborate with EIT Food to check-in on the state of consumers’ trust in the food system. We also investigate how consumers perceive their diet in terms of other important metrics including health, sustainability and affordability.

This year, we made substantial improvements to the TrustTracker instrument, by adding a number of elements. These important improvements have been designed to measure the impact of trust on actual behaviour, such as adopting specific innovations. We also added a section on the reliability of food information and how this leads to consumers feeling knowledgeable about their diets.

Our approach:

The TrustTracker® was originally developed by EIT Food partners University of Reading (project lead), the European Food Information Council (EUFIC), Aarhus University, KU Leuven and the University of Warsaw.

In 2024, 19,500 European consumers over 18 years old, and nationally representative in terms of age and gender, participated in the study.

Findings in a nutshell:

Europeans are generally satisfied with their current diets:

Consumers looking to make a change to their diet are primarily focused on eating more healthily. 51% consider this their main priority. More affordable food (12%) and more sustainable food (9%) follow at a large distance.
Less than 1 in 5 (18%) European consumers currently avoid animal-based products.

Difficulty breaking habits, alongside budgetary restrictions, are the main barriers to consumers making changes to their diets:

Budget emerge as a large barrier for near a third (31%), while breaking current habits is a large barrier for over a quarter (25%).
Consumers are moderated interested in sustainable food choices and favour engaging with local and season foods.
There is limited momentum towards plant-based diets but a strong preference for traditional, homecooked and farmer-sources food.

Consumer trust in food has risen overall:

67% of consumers trust farmers. They are valued for perceived transparency, sustainability and integrity.
Food safety authorities are the least trusted actors (46%) and are judged according to how high their standards are and if they act in the national public interest. They are distrusted for perceived corruption and serving corporate interests.

European openness to innovative foods has dropped from 34% to 28% in the past year:

Openness to food innovation is strongly tied to trust in the food system in general; only 16% of those with low trust are open to new products compared to 38% among those with high trust.

Trust plays a crucial role in effective communication about food:

Only 40% of consumers consider general food information reliable and less than half of people know where to find trustworthy sources.
Only 46% of Europeans feel informed about food sustainability. Lower knowledge levels correlate with less healthy and sustainable diets.

Find out more:

Read the full article on EIT Food’s website here.

We believe that understanding consumers is key to making the food system more sustainable. Successful innovation and impactful communication require a solid foundation of consumer insight.

We are the insights partner of choice for food companies and non-profits that aim to have a positive impact on society and our planet. Together we empower consumers to make food choices that are good for them as well as for the planet.