FMI reports on consumer confidence: Food safety

The FMI news release on their study about consumer confidence is found here.

Some highlights;
Foodborne illness outbreaks and high energy costs are significantly changing consumer shopping behavior and attitudes, according to the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends, 2007.

The number of consumers "completely" or "somewhat confident" in the safety of supermarket food declined from 82 percent in 2006 to 66 percent — the lowest point since 1989 when the issues of pesticides in apples and contaminated grapes were widely reported.

Consumer confidence in restaurant food is even lower at 43 percent. "These findings send a strong message to the entire food industry," said FMI President and CEO Tim Hammonds. "All of us need to work together to be sure our consumers continue to receive the high quality, affordable food they have every right to expect."

The Trends survey found that safety concerns prompted 38 percent of consumers to stop purchasing certain foods in the past 12 months — up from 9 percent in 2006. Among those who stopped buying products, the items most often mentioned were spinach (71 percent), lettuce (16 percent), bagged salad (9 percent) and beef (8 percent). The survey was conducted in January 2007, when the outbreak linked to spinach was still in the news and illnesses associated with other foods were starting to make headlines.

TK: The FMI report says that confidence in food safety varies widely, and shoppers with children are "much more doubtful" of food safety. In addition, FMI said that consumers who shop at organic specialty stores are also more skeptical of food safety. Those shoppers with more confidence in food safety were men, the youngest and oldest shoppers, Midwesterners and consumers not concerned with the nutritional value of the foods they eat.
The restaurant numbers FMI produced were stand alone; they have no comparative figures from previous years. Still, they are staggering. The FMI survey says 10% of consumers are very doubtful and 48% are somewhat doubtful of food safety at restaurants. Wow.