Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) has released its second Consumer Insights Tracker (CIT) report, showing consumers would prefer food labels to contain more and clearer information, and confidence in cell-cultured food is on the rise.
The 2024 CIT surveyed 1231 Australians and 884 New Zealanders to measure attitudes, understanding, and trust in food labelling and the food regulation system in Australia and New Zealand. It asked 42 quantitative questions across domains, with five key focus areas;
- Trust and confidence in the food system
- Trust, use and understanding of food labelling
- Health and dietary factors affecting food choices
- Food safety knowledge and behaviours
- New and emerging foods and food technologies.
Emerging foods and technologies
Since the inaugural survey was released last year, there have been some major shifts in the food industry. Functional and cell-cultured foods have been exploding in popularity, leading FSANZ to prioritise investigating consumer perceptions and consumption habits of these emerging foods.
The 2024 CIT did a deep dive on formulated supplementary sports foods, to help inform their management through Proposal P1010. Key findings included;
- 71% of consumers report consuming at least one type of sports food in a typical week, with 20% consuming one or more per day.
- The most commonly consumed products were protein bars/cookies and electrolyte drinks/powders (both consumed by 49%).
- Protein powders are most likely to be eaten daily, while electrolytes, protein bars/cookies and energy bars are more commonly consumed less than once per week.
- The reasons for consuming sports food were highly variable.
With biotech company, Vow, recently receiving the landmark green light from FSANZ for its cell-cultured quail to be sold in Australia and New Zealand, ANZ is the fourth country in the world to approve cell-cultured meat for human consumption.
Although over half of consumers remain unconfident in the safety of cell-cultured/cultivated meat and dairy, at 57 and 59 per cent respectively, overall confidence in cell-cultured/cultivated meat and dairy has slightly increased between 2023 and 2024.
Consumer awareness of cell-cultured/cultivated meat and dairy has remained steady since 2023, with 66 per cent and 48 per cent of consumers aware of each respectively, and 22 per cent of consumers said they would include cell-cultured/cultivated dairy in their diet.
Labelling understanding
Although the organisation is working towards food labelling reformation, the 2024 CIT revealed 66 per cent of consumers trust FSANZ regulated food labelling, and 71 per cent of consumers felt confident in their ability to use food labelling.
FSANZ stated in August last year that it would begin preparatory work to support mandating the front-of-pack HSR system, which the CIT survey revealed was more likely to be seen as important by those with less confidence in their ability to use food labelling than the Nutrition Information Panel and Ingredients list – a more accessible form of nutrition labelling.
However, the survey also showed half of participants may not understand that the Health Star Rating should not be used to compare different kinds of foods, suggesting more work can be done to support the adoption of clear and informative labels.
Foodborne illness was the top food safety concern, chosen by 54 per cent of respondents. Consumers perceived raw meats and seafood to be the most risky foods, with only a minority considering eggs to be high risk, despite being one of the most common sources of foodborne illness.
Approximately half of consumers stated they would like more information about how to store and prepare food safely, with product labels being the preferred information source.
Trust in labelling remained mostly steady from last year, with a small increase in trust levels recorded for used-by and best before dates, which were the most trusted and most important labelling elements for consumers. The least trusted were nutrition content claims.
