Food and You 2 Survey: Scotland Wave 10 Key Findings

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been running its flagship survey Food and You 2 covering consumers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 2020.

The Food and You 2 survey replaced the biennial Food and You survey (2010-2018), biannual Public Attitudes Tracker (2010-2019), and annual Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) Consumer Attitudes Tracker (2014-2019). The Food and You survey has been an Official Statistic since 2014. Due to the difference in methodology between the Public Attitudes Tracker, FHRS Consumer Attitudes Tracker and Food and You survey (2010- 2018) it is not possible to compare the data collected in Food and You 2 (2020 onward) with these earlier data[40].

Since Wave 6, FSA have published a separate trend report for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on an annual basis, which comments on changes over time. 

FSA has produced a number of reports on Food and You 2 covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In the Food and You 2 Survey Wave 8, a sample of consumers in Scotland was included alongside consumers in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland for the first time. 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 that data for Scotland has been produced.

The findings in this report are based on the Scotland-only dataset of the Food and You 2 Survey Wave 10. It is hoped that, in future, the data for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland will be available in one dataset, allowing for comparisons between countries, where required. Data from England, Wales and Northern Ireland Waves 1-9 is also currently available via the UK Data Service. Wave 10 data for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland will be deposited with the UK Data Service in November 2025.  Data for Wave 10 in Scotland will be available in due course.

This report focuses on eating at home and food safety practices, eating out and ordering takeaways, and other food issues. Other topics covered in the survey will be reported at a later date in further publications.

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 and 7 February 2025. 

Food and You 2 is a sequential mixed-mode ‘push-to-web’ survey (summary of method below). Push-to-web helps to reduce the response bias that otherwise occurs with online-only surveys. This method is accepted for government surveys and national statistics, including the 2021 Census and 2019/2020 Community Life Survey.

A random sample of addresses (selected from the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File) received a letter inviting up to two adults (aged 16 or over) in the household to complete the online survey. A first reminder letter was sent to households that had not responded to the initial invitation. A postal version of the survey accompanied the second reminder letter for those who did not have access to the internet or preferred to complete a postal version of the survey. A third and final reminder was sent to households if the survey had not been completed. Respondents were given a gift voucher for completing the survey.

The sample of main and reserve addresses [41] was stratified by local authority to ensure that the issued sample was spread proportionately across the local authorities. 

Due to the length and complexity of the online questionnaire it was not possible to include all questions in the postal version of the questionnaire. The postal version of the questionnaire needed to be shorter and less complex to encourage a high response rate. To make the postal version of the questionnaire shorter and less complex, two versions were produced. The two versions are referred to as the ‘Eating Out’ and ‘Eating at Home’ postal questionnaires. See the Technical Report for further details. 

All data collected by Food and You 2 are self-reported. The data are the respondents own reported attitudes, knowledge and behaviour relating to food safety and food issues.   

The minimum target sample size for the Food and You 2 survey is 6,000 households (2,000 in England, 1,000 in Wales, 1,000 in Northern Ireland, and 1,000 in Scotland), with up to two adults in each household invited to take part as mentioned above.

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.

Weighting was applied to ensure the data are as close as possible to being representative of the socio-demographic and sub-groups in the population, as is usual practice in government surveys. The weighting applied to the Food and You 2 data helps to compensate for variations in within-household individual selection, for response bias, and for the fact that some questions were only asked in one of the postal surveys. Further details about weighting approach used and the weights applied to the Food and You 2: Wave 10 data are available in the Technical Report. The data have been checked and verified by members of the Ipsos research team and members of the FSA Statistics branch. Further details about checks of the data are available in the Technical Report. Descriptive analysis and statistical tests have been performed by the FSA Statistics branch. R (statistical software) was used by the FSA Statistics branch to calculate the descriptive analysis and statistical tests (t-tests).

The p-values that test for statistical significance are based on t-tests comparing the weighted proportions for a given response within that socio-demographic and subgroup breakdown. An adjustment has been made for the effective sample size after weighting, but no correction is made for multiple comparisons. 

Reported differences between socio-demographic and sub-groups typically have a minimum difference of 10 percentage points between groups and are statistically significant at the 5% level (p<0.05). However, some differences between respondent groups are included where the difference is fewer than 10 percentage points when the finding is notable or of interest. Percentage calculations are based only on respondents who provided a response. Reported values and calculations are based on weighted totals.

Statistical significance is indicated at the 5% level (p<0.05). This means that where a significant difference is reported, there is reasonable confidence that the reported difference is reflective of a real difference at the population level. 

Food security means that all people always have access to enough food for a healthy and active lifestyle (World Food Summit, 1996). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has created a series of questions which indicate a respondent’s level of food security. Food and You 2 incorporates the 10 item U.S. Adult Food Security Survey Module and uses a 12-month time reference period. Respondents are referred to as being food secure if they are classified as having high food security (no reported indications of food-access problems or limitations), or marginal food security (one or two reported indications—typically of anxiety over food sufficiency or shortage of food in the house. Little or no indication of changes in diets or food intake). Respondents are referred to as being food insecure if they are classified as having low food security (reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake) or very low food security (reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake). Further details of how levels 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.   

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.