1. Introduction
1.1 Food Standards Scotland: role, remit, and responsibilities
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) is a non-ministerial government department working to protect public health and consumers’ wider interests in relation to food in Scotland.
Our vision is for a safe, healthy, and sustainable food environment that benefits and protects the health and well-being of everyone in Scotland. We aim to use data and evidence to provide assurance and advice that inspires consumer confidence and improves public health.
Our vision is set out in the strategic plan 2021 – 2026 and includes that:
- Food is safe and authentic
- Consumers have healthier diets
- Responsible food businesses are enabled to thrive
- Consumers are empowered to make positive choices about food
- FSS is trusted and influential
1.2 Food and You 2 (Scotland)
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been running its official statistic survey Food and You 2 covering consumers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 2020. The research is conducted biannually using a primarily online methodology. It covers topics such as food safety in the home, food shopping, eating out, food security, and trust in the FSA and food supply chain.
For the first time, a sample of consumers in Scotland was included in Wave 8 of the Food and You 2 survey. The reason was to gather more extensive and robust consumer data for Scotland, particularly around food hygiene and safety practices, to complement the existing FSS survey, the Food in Scotland Tracker Survey, and to have a comparable data source with the rest of the UK.
Wave 10 is the second wave of Food and You 2 that data has been collected from respondents in Scotland.
For FSS, the Food and You 2 survey will help inform policy decisions by measuring consumers’ self-reported knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety and other food issues in Scotland.
This report focuses on eating at home and food safety practices, eating out and ordering takeaways, and other food issues such as confidence in food, food concerns, changes to eating habits and food-related behaviours and food allergies and intolerances.
1.3 Methodology and data
The Food and You 2 survey is commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) with Food Standards Scotland (FSS) funding the option for a sample of consumers in Scotland for Wave 10. The fieldwork is conducted by Ipsos. Fieldwork for Wave 10 was conducted between 9 October 2024 to 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. An overall response rate of 23% was achieved in Scotland. Sixty-eight per cent (70%) of respondents completed the survey online and 30% completed the postal version of the survey.
Full details of the survey background and methodology are available in Appendix A of this report and in the accompanying Food and You 2: Technical Report.
In addition, data tables for Food and You 2 Wave 10 in Scotland are available.
1.4 Interpreting the findings
An analysis of differences between socio-demographic and other subgroups is provided for some key variables. To highlight the key differences between socio-demographic and other sub-groups, variations in responses are typically reported only where the absolute difference is 10 percentage points or larger and is statistically significant at the 5% level (p<0.05). However, some differences between socio-demographic and other sub-groups are included where the difference is less than 10 percentage points, when the finding is notable or judged to be of interest. These differences are indicated with a double asterisk (**). Variations where the base size of the category group is low (e.g. less than 50) are not included unless they are judged to be of specific interest.
In some cases, it was not possible to include the data of all sub-groups, however such analyses are available in the Scotland data tables.
Key information is provided for each reported question in the footnotes, including:
• Question wording (question) and response options (response).
• Number of respondents presented with each question and description of the respondents who answered the question (Base = N).
• ‘Please note:’ indicates important points to consider when interpreting the results.
Socio-demographic and other sub-groups considered include: gender; age; children in the household aged under 16 years old; children in the household aged under 6 years old; household size; level of food security[1] ; annual household income; socio-economic classification (NS-SEC) [2] ; urban/rural; long-term health condition; food allergy or intolerance; ethnicity.
Some of the figures reported in the text do not add up to 100%. This is because either ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Not Stated’ are excluded, or because of rounding or multiple responses being possible. All figures are available in the Data Tables for Scotland.
References:
[1] Food security is defined as: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” World Food Summit, 1996. The Food and You 2 survey use the US Adult Food Security Survey Model developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to measure consumers’ food security status. Further details of how the level of food security is measured are provided in Chapter 2 of the FSA Food and You 2 Wave 10 Key Findings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Please note that in Scotland, ‘food insecurity’ is generally the preferred term used for the same concept. For instance, the Scottish Health Survey measures food insecurity which is an indicator for the poverty and human rights outcomes in Scotland’s National Performance Framework.
[2] NS-SEC (The National Statistics Socio-economic classification) is a classification system which provides an indication of socio-economic position based on occupation and employment status. NS-SEC is based on several variables including occupation; employment status; whether an employer, self-employed or employee; whether a supervisor; and the number of employees at a workplace. Additional information is provided by the Office for National Statistics on what is included in each classification.