Public Opinion Research with Canadians on Food Safety and Food Fraud: 2019-2020

Research purpose and objectives

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is dedicated to safeguarding food, animals and plants which enhances the health and well-being of Canada's people, environment and economy. The CFIA continually works to improve the overall health of Canadians.

In January 2019, CFIA's Safe Food for Canadians Regulations came into force for many food businesses. The regulations provide clear and consistent rules for food commodities so that consumers can be confident that food on grocery shelves is safe to eat, whether it is produced in Canada or imported. CFIA regulations also require that food is accurately represented. Canadian law prohibits the labelling, packaging, treating, processing, selling or advertising of any food in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive to consumers.

In order to help understand the public's awareness and perceptions of food safety and food fraud, CFIA commissioned Quorus Consulting to collect up-to-date opinion data from the public on a variety of topics related to food safety and the accurate representation of food. With this feedback from Canadian consumers, the Agency will be better informed to respond to Canadians' needs and concerns, and to develop appropriate communication campaigns. More specifically, the research objectives are to:

• Measure Canadians' awareness and understanding of food safety and food fraud.
• Measure Canadians' habits and concerns about food safety.
• Measure Canadians' sources of information on food safety and food fraud.
• Measure Canadians' perception about food fraud.
• Allow for a comparison of findings with previous POR conducted on this topic.

The research consisted of an online survey of Canadians 18 years of age and older who are at least partially responsible for purchasing groceries. Quorus collaborated with the CFIA to finalize the survey instruments to meet the research objectives. Respondents had the choice to complete the survey in English or French. The survey took on average 14 minutes to complete. A total of 1,504 surveys were completed through the online survey. Data collection occurred between February 14^th and February 19^th, 2020, including a pretest of 26 surveys. The equivalent margin of error for a probability study of 1,500 cases would be +/- 2.5%. Data were weighted by region, gender, and age to ensure that the final distributions within the final sample mirror those of the Canadian population according to the latest Census data.

Food safety confidence in Canada

Canadians are confident that food in Canada is safe. Eight in ten respondents are confident that food products produced in Canada are safe to eat. At least 7 in 10 respondents agree they are confident Canada's food system protects Canadians, that Canada's food safety system is managing food safety issues, that Canada's food system is protecting Canadians from preventable food safety hazards, and that labels on food in Canada provide the information they need. Confidence levels are much lower when it comes to genetically modified foods, foods imported from other countries, or the use of pesticides.

The Government of Canada is identified as the stakeholder in the food industry with the most responsibility in terms of providing safe food to Canadians, followed by food manufacturers or processors, farmers, provincial governments, and companies that import foods into Canada, and, to a lesser extent, scientists and academics, grocery stores, and consumers.

Communications with the public

Two thirds of respondents say they regularly look for information on food safety. This is usually approached by consulting a search engine, news sites or TV news, visiting the CFIA website, or the Canada Food Guide.

Confidence in sources of information on this topic is highest for healthcare professionals, Canadian farmers, and scientists and academics. To a lesser extent, respondents also trust information coming from international organizations, the Government of Canada, grocery stores in Canada, Canadian food manufacturers or processors, and labels on food packages.

Over six in ten consumers are familiar with the CFIA. Roughly two thirds of these respondents agree the CFIA protects Canadians from unsafe food, and a similar proportion believe the CFIA is fair when inspecting food businesses.

One in ten respondents have contacted the CFIA, mainly for a food safety complaint, for a food labelling complaint or for misrepresented food or suspected food fraud. Nearly four in five of these respondents are satisfied with the service and information received from the CFIA.

Most respondents are interested in knowing more about food-related topics. Topics of most interest include restaurant/food service inspection, food inspection, food containing pesticides/residues, labelling, food recalls, food testing, imported food and food fraud.

Food fraud

Nearly a third of respondents report being aware of food fraud. Food fraud was defined to respondents as the intentional misrepresentation of food for economic or personal gain.

The top-five examples provided by respondents of what is considered misrepresented food include:

• mislabeling in general, including wrong nutritional information, inaccurate weights, misleading pictures,
• fish-related examples portraying false species or origin,
• organic or “natural” foods that do not meet standards,
• a general country of origin misrepresentation where the products are packaged in Canada but grown [or produced] elsewhere,
• and the information in the ingredient labels where not all or the wrong composition ingredients are listed.

Over one third of Canadians say they have encountered misrepresentation of certain foods. The main reported issues are related to mislabeled, mislabeling in general, organic or natural food not meeting standards, and country of origin misrepresentation (i.e. packaged in Canada but grown elsewhere).

Canadians are concerned about the possibility of encountering food-fraud. At least half of Canadians say they believe it is possible to encounter food fraud with products imported from other countries to Canada, and roughly one quarter say it is possible to encounter misrepresented food in Canada with products made in Canada.

Many (50%) Canadians have confidence in the Government of Canada managing food fraud. The Government of Canada is also perceived as the most responsible stakeholder for ensuring food in Canada is accurately represented. Other stakeholders considered having a high level of responsibility for the accurate representation of food include provincial governments, and food manufacturers or processors.

Over three quarters of respondents agree “food fraud” is the appropriate term to describe the intentional misrepresentation of food. Other terms considered appropriate include “food misrepresentation”, “misrepresented food”, “misrepresentation”, and to a lesser extent “fraudulent”, “cheated food”, “fake or counterfeit food/products”, “food lies or agro-industrial lies”, “food theft” or “imitation food”.

Labelling

There is a high level of confidence in the truthfulness of product labels. Seven out of ten Canadians say they are confident that the information on food labels regarding the common name of the food is truthful. Six in ten are confident the ingredient information, and the nutrition information on food labels is true. Confidence is lower for other aspects such as the best before date of the food, where the food is from, the way the food is produced, health claims, and organic claims.

Food recalls

There is moderate awareness among Canadians regarding food recalls. Over half of respondents say they remember hearing about food recalls in Canada during the past six months. This was mainly through news sites, Facebook, and radio. A CFIA email list was mentioned by 13% of respondents who remember hearing about a food recall.

Most Canadians understand food recalls are inevitable. More than 4 in 5 respondents agree food recalls happen, even with the best of efforts to keep food safe. More than 3 in 5 agree unsafe food is recalled in a timely manner in Canada, and more than 1 in 3 agree Canadians are at a higher risk of consuming unsafe foods today compared to three years ago.

One in five respondents are aware of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR). These respondents mainly heard about SFCR either online, through television, or the news in general.

Most respondents see the positive impact of the SFCR. More than 4 in 5 respondents believe the SFCR improve food safety in Canada.

Six in ten Canadians would like to have more information regarding food safety in Canada. This includes more detailed information than what the food labels provide, general food-related information, information on specific foods, information related to the type of food, information on regulations, and chemicals on foods. The most preferred methods of receiving information related to food safety are social media, email notifications and a mobile app that issues alerts.

Additional analysis

For the first group of foods presented, the combination of the top-two values shows respondents feel most confident about eating eggs in Canada (84%), dairy (82%), maple (82%), and honey (81%), followed closely by fresh fruits and vegetables (78%). Over two thirds feel confident eating meat and poultry (70%), or organic products (69%). Roughly half of participants feel confident eating fish (57%), and 46% feel confident eating processed products (canned, cooked, frozen, etc.).

Q6: For each of the following types of food products, please indicate how confident you are that the products sold in Canada are safe to eat. You can do this by using a 5-point scale in which a response of 1 means you are not at all confident and 5 means you are very confident. Base: SPLIT SAMPLE, n= 752.

Confidence in Food Products

	5 - Very confident	4	3	2	1 - Not at all confident	Don't know/Prefer not to say
Eggs	45%	39%	11%	2%	1%	2%
Dairy	44%	38%	11%	3%	2%	2%
Maple	52%	30%	9%	1%	1%	7%
Honey	46%	35%	12%	2%	1%	3%
Fresh fruits and vegetables	31%	47%	16%	3%	1%	0%
Meat and poultry	28%	42%	20%	4%	3%	3%
Organic products	30%	39%	20%	5%	3%	3%
Fish	17%	40%	26%	10%	4%	4%
Processed products	13%	33%	32%	13%	6%	3%

In terms of regional differences, confidence that meat and poultry and processed products are safe to eat is highest in Alberta, while confidence regarding eggs and maple safety is highest in Quebec. Conversely, respondents in Quebec, British Columbia, and Atlantic Canada are more likely to say they are not confident processed products are safe to eat, compared to respondents from other provinces.

Another trend observed is that the lower the household income, the more likely respondents are to say they are not confident that fish is safe to eat in Canada. The older respondents are more likely to say dairy, fresh and vegetables are safe to eat.

Respondent profile

A variety of questions were asked to study participants to obtain their demographic information. This information not only allowed the research team to understand the profile of those participating in the study, but also to weight the data and ensure results are representative of the population.

Survey instrument

Survey – information in square brackets is not displayed to respondents

[Introduction]

Thank you for participating in this survey. Quorus Consulting Group, a Canadian market research firm, is conducting this survey on behalf of the Government of Canada. The survey will ask you questions in regards to food safety and the truthful representation of food. The survey should take you about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

Your participation is voluntary and completely confidential. All your answers will remain anonymous. The information provided will be managed according to the requirements of the Privacy Act. The final report on the survey will be available through Library and Archives Canada.

Vous pouvez également répondre au sondage en français.

This concludes the survey. Your answers have been submitted. Thank you for your participation!

For more information on food safety, food fraud or to sign up for email notification of food recalls please visit Canadian Food Inspection Agency. (Inspection.gc.ca)