Mention of barometers always takes me back (some way back!) to my youth when these were glass cased objects hung on the walls of elderly relatives and could be tapped for their life until wiser parents intervened. The instruments’ purpose was to reflect the barometric pressure and thus provide a rudimentary weather forecast. Sadly nowadays, because of the risk from the mercury they contained, their manufacture is banned. Instead we have a wholly different assessment tool, namely the European Union’s Eurobarometer surveys, held throughout the EU on key topics with the similar questions being asked over time and the results collated both by country and across the EU as a whole. Of specific interest is the recent Eurobarometer on food safety, undertaken in April 2019 and which given our still likely departure from the EU will presumably be the last to include the United Kingdom.
Mention of barometers always takes me back (some way back!) to my youth when these were glass cased objects hung on the walls of elderly relatives and could be tapped for their life until wiser parents intervened. The instruments’ purpose was to reflect the barometric pressure and thus provide a rudimentary weather forecast. Sadly nowadays, because of the risk from the mercury they contained, their manufacture is banned. Instead we have a wholly different assessment tool, namely the European Union’s Eurobarometer surveys, held throughout the EU on key topics with the similar questions being asked over time and the results collated both by country and across the EU as a whole. Of specific interest is the recent Eurobarometer on food safety, undertaken in April 2019 and which given our still likely departure from the EU will presumably be the last to include the United Kingdom
Food safety findings
Overall findings from the new Eurobarometer survey are reassuring for the food and hospitality industries at all levels, although personally I believe there is a danger, as I shall explain, of complacency creeping in as regards the conclusions that have been drawn from it.Throughout the EU there is no trace of the kind of panic which was a common and wholly understandable reaction to the BSE crisis of some 20 years ago. The UK in particular comes
out well from the survey both in regards to confidence in the safety of the food supply and a generally well targeted understanding of the real risks that inevitably exist. Less than 29% of our compatriots believe the statement that “food is full of harmful substances” as opposed to 43% across the EU as a whole. The UK has a higher level of trust in the food industry (49%) than is the EU average (43%). Most impressively to me, the UK public has amongst the best appreciation of the real “killers” – and I use the word literally – amongst food safety risks ranking food hygiene (48%) and bacteria poisoning (38%) as amongst their highest food risks – 16% and 8% respectively higher than the European average.
An increase in trust?
Not surprisingly the European Food Safety Authority has been unable to resist a gloat at the fact that trust in food scientists has increased across the EU from 73% to 82%. In fact, trust in almost all sources of information has risen including consumer organisations and farmers (the latter up from 58% to 69%). This does rather raise the issue as to whether the survey findings really show people, not least in the UK, have fully regained trust in the food supply after BSE and consequently are generally less alarmed and questioning than once they were. That said, the survey notes that more concerns about food safety are often found amongst women, the middle income and higher educated group whose views are obviously very important as they may have a major influence on food and hospitality purchase. That said, the Survey also seems not to be free of the well-known tendency of those surveyed to give the answer they believe is expected of them – do we really believe that one in five of the population across Europe knows that the EU has a separate institution giving advice on the safety of food across Europe?!
The acid test will of course come with the next food crisis – an event difficult to rule out in my view given the imperfect state of human knowledge, the ever-present risk of human error and the presence of a criminal element – those looking for an opportunity to misrepresent the nature of their products. The fact that television is identified throughout the EU as the main source of public information on food safety is not necessarily a comfort to those of us who want the public to have accurate advice proportionate to risk. Similarly, the vaunted public confidence in scientists is not quite as valuable as it might seem, given that there are usually scientists to be found on both sides of food controversies as for example, the row over genetically modified foods. In my view the real question which the Eurobarometer survey results pose is whether we have really moved on from the arrangements which caused the food safety problems of the past or whether we are simply in the “lull before the storm.” Not a question one can ask in a survey of this kind, but with potentially huge commercial consequences it is a really important one we should ask ourselves nonetheless.