The UK Food Standards Agency’s latest public attitudes tracker shows that the main food safety issue people continue to be concerned about is food hygiene when eating out. Other issues include food poisoning and the use of additives in food.

The Agency’s Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Food Hygiene Information scheme in Scotland, aim to reduce these concerns by encouraging businesses to improve hygiene standards and reduce the incidence of foodborne illness. The schemes help consumers choose where to eat out or shop for food by giving them information about the hygiene standards in restaurants, cafés, takeaways, hotels and food shops.

In this latest tracker survey, three new questions were asked to measure people’s awareness of food hygiene schemes. The results show that 19% of respondents had seen or heard about this type of scheme. When prompted, 21% of respondents reported that they had seen or heard about the ‘Food Hygiene Rating scheme’, 12% had seen or heard about ‘Scores on the Doors’ and 10% had seen or heard about the ‘Food Hygiene Information Scheme’.

This latest wave of research was undertaken in November 2011, with a total number of 2,076 respondents interviewed via the TNS consumer face-to-face omnibus survey.