Executive Summary
This report presents the key findings from the Food and You 2 Wave 10 survey carried out in Scotland. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been running the survey in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 2020. In Wave 10, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) collaborated with the FSA to enable a sample of consumers in Scotland to be included in the survey. Food and You 2 measures consumers’ self-reported knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food issues amongst adults across the UK.
Fieldwork for Food and You 2 Wave 10 was conducted between 9 October 2024 and 7 February 2025. For Wave 10 in Scotland a total of 1,331 adults (aged 16 years or over) from 911 households across Scotland completed the survey.
This report focuses on eating at home and food safety practices, eating out and ordering takeaways and other issues, such as confidence in food, food concerns, changes to eating habits and food-related behaviours and food allergies and intolerances.
Findings
Eating at home
Cleaning
72% of respondents reported that they always wash their hands before preparing or cooking food.
93% of respondents reported that they always wash their hands immediately after handling raw meat, poultry or fish.
Chilling
63% of respondents reported that their fridge temperature should be between 0-5 degrees Celsius.
58% of respondents who have a fridge reported that they monitored the temperature; either manually (46%) or via an internal temperature alarm (11%).
Cooking
81% of respondents reported that they always cook food until it is steaming hot and cooked all the way through, and 19% reported that they do not always do this.
92% of respondents reported that they never eat chicken or turkey when it is pink or has pink juices. 7% of respondents reported eating chicken or turkey at least occasionally when it is pink or has pink juices.
84% of respondents reported that they would only reheat food once, 11% would reheat food twice, and 3% would reheat food more than twice.
69% of respondents reported that they would eat leftovers from the fridge within 2 days. 24% of respondents reported that they would eat leftovers within three to five days and only 2% would eat leftovers after 5 days or longer.
Avoiding cross-contamination
62% of respondents reported that they never wash raw chicken; however, 33% of respondents reported that they do this at least occasionally.
69% of respondents reported storing raw meat and poultry at the bottom of the fridge.
Use-by dates
68% of respondents identified the use-by date as the information which shows that food is no longer safe to eat.
71% of respondents reported that they always check use-by dates before they cook or prepare food.
Eating out and takeaways
60% of respondents had eaten out in a restaurant and 62% from a café, coffee shop or sandwich shop (either to eat in or take out) in the previous four weeks. A half had ordered a takeaway directly from a takeaway shop or restaurant (50%) and 35% had eaten out in a pub or bar.
Respondents were least likely to eat out or buy food to take out for breakfast, with 44% never doing this, compared to 54% who did. The majority of respondents eat out or buy food to take out for lunch or dinner with 84% and 90% reporting doing so, respectively.
Food issues
Confidence in food
95% of respondents stated that they are very or fairly confident that the food they buy is safe to eat and 87% are very or fairly confident that the information on food labels (e.g. ingredients, nutritional information, country of origin) is accurate.
Food concerns
33% of respondents reported that they were highly or somewhat concerned about food produced in the UK being safe and hygienic while 61% were highly or somewhat concerned about food outside the UK being safe and hygienic.
34% were highly or somewhat concerned about food produced in the UK being what it says it is, while 60% were highly or somewhat concerned about food from outside the UK being what it says it is.
Changes to eating habits and food-related behaviours
44% of respondents said they had eaten less processed food in the previous 12 months.
38% had started minimising food waste and 35% reported that they had started eating more fruit and vegetables in the previous 12 months.
Food allergies and intolerances
22% of respondents reported that they suffer from a bad or unpleasant physical reaction after consuming certain foods or avoid certain foods because of the bad or unpleasant physical reaction they might cause. Most (75%) reported that they did not have a food allergy or intolerance.
19% of respondents who reported having a food hypersensitivity had been diagnosed by an NHS or private medical practitioner and 5% had been diagnosed by an alternative or complementary therapist. However, most (76%) had not received any diagnosis.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, our thanks go to all the respondents who gave up their time to take part in the survey.
We would like to thank the team at Ipsos who collected the data and made a significant contribution to the project.
We would like to thank colleagues at FSA, particularly Rachall Shillitoe, Lucy Murray and Beth Armstrong. Special thanks also to Robin Clifford and Matt Jenkins in the FSA Statistics Team and Ipsos who played a key role in preparing the data cleaning and analysis, and who prepared the linked Technical Reports.
Within FSS, thanks to the Consumer Research Group for their valuable support and guidance.
Finally, many thanks to everyone at FSS involved in writing, checking of data, reviewing, and revising the report.