Consumers Give Good Grades to U.S. Food Safety

Consumers give the U.S. food supply a B-plus for safety, according to a national consumer poll conducted on behalf of the Cattlemen`s Beef Board by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).  That’s the same grade received by beef steaks and roasts, according to the poll.

U.S. consumers are, however, moderately concerned about the food supply’s vulnerability to terrorist attack, the checkoff-funded poll found.

Americans gave the highest grades to the safety of vegetables and fruits; both earned a grade of A-minus with 88 percent of respondents giving each a grade of A or B. Next on the list for confidence in safety was beef steaks and roasts which earned a B-plus with 80 percent of consumers grading an A or a B.

The safety report card survey found that 38 percent of Americans gave food in the U.S. an A for being safe to eat and another 39 percent graded it a B. Only 3 percent of Americans gave U.S. food a grade of D, while 2 percent graded it an F.

Consumers gave an average safety grade of B to pork chops (72% A/B), fish (68% A/B), chicken (69% A/B), ground beef (64% A/B) and ground pork (57% A/B).

The survey also found consumers’ top three food safety concerns were bacteria (39% extremely concerned) pesticides (38%), and chemical additives (33%). Other food safety concerns were hormones (30% extremely concerned), genetically modified foods (26%), antibiotics (23%) and irradiated foods (21%).

When asked to choose the food about which they had the highest food safety concern, the largest percent of consumers (26%) said fish, followed by chicken (22%) and pre-prepared foods (21%). Fewer consumers were most concerned about beef (14%), pork (12%) and fruits and vegetables (4%).

When asked how concerned they are about certain foods being vulnerable to a terrorist attack to contaminate them, consumers were moderately concerned about all foods. There was no significant difference in consumers’ levels of concern for beef, chicken, pork, fish & seafood, milk, fruits and vegetables. On average, 18 percent of respondents said they were extremely concerned about the vulnerability of all these foods while an average of 27% said they were not at all concerned.

The checkoff-funded survey was conducted November 16-18 by IPSOS-Reid U.S. Public Affairs and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.2 percentage points.

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The survey was part of an Issues Management program funded by beef producers through their $1-per-head checkoff. These kinds of programs are managed for the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board and state beef councils by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA). The Cattlemen’s Beef Board is a 110-member board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the collection of the $1-per-head checkoff, certify state beef councils, implement the provisions of the federal order establishing the checkoff and evaluate the effectiveness of checkoff programs.

Producer-directed and consumer-focused, the National Cattlemen`s Beef Association is the  trade association of America’s cattle farmers and ranchers, and the  marketing organization for the largest segment of the nation’s food and fiber industry.