72 percent of consumers in Germany have great confidence in the safety of food they buy from German food retailers. Food safety is very important to 88 percent when buying meat and sausages and 82 percent when buying fresh fruit and vegetables. This is according to a survey commissioned by QS to mark its 20th anniversary. In the representative survey, the institute asked consumers in August of this year about the relevance, trust, development as well as aspects of fresh food safety in the German retail sector, QS Qualität und Sicherheit Ltd reports.
Graphic: QS Qualität und Sicherheit Ltd
For consumers, food safety is understandably very important. At the same time, trust is very high here. For producers and retailers of fresh food, this is both a success and a mission, says Dr. Alexander Hinrichs, Managing Director of QS Qualität und Sicherheit. Consumer confidence also confirms the joint commitment of the 180,000 system partners in the QS scheme. The strict focus on safety across company and industry boundaries - from the farmer to the store counter - has made the QS scheme great and our food safer. But trust is a very sensitive commodity. Maintaining and increasing it through constant commitment is our driving force at QS.
Regular controls, traceability and compliance are key aspects
The question of what is meant by food safety was also the subject of the survey. 82 percent understand food safety to mean that processing steps are checked regularly, 80 percent expect compliance with limit values for residues of substances such as pesticides or in the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry, and for 63 percent the question of traceability is a central aspect of food safety.
Majority sees food safety development in recent years as positive
For 78 percent of respondents, the situation surrounding safe food in Germany has strengthened or improved in recent years: 40 percent say it has remained the same and 38 percent even see a further improvement in food safety.
The fact that consumers perceive the development of food safety to be positive is also seen as confirmation of the joint effort of all system partners for the intensive 20 years of work in the QS scheme, Hinrichs continued. On this path - I am convinced of this - we will develop many more solutions in the future, with which we as QS can support and further develop the industry.
Information on the survey
As part of the survey, a total of 1,002 people aged 18 and over in Germany were selected using a systematic random procedure. The survey was conducted in August 2021 using the representative online survey panel forsa.omninet. The results obtained can be extrapolated to the entire adult population in Germany with the error tolerances possible in all sample surveys (in this case +/- 3 percentage points).