High Mark by Consumers for Food Safety

November 26, 2001

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% 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% of consumers grading an A or a B.

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

Also, the survey 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 and seafood, milk, fruits and vegetables. On average, 18% 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 Nov.16-18 by IPSOS-Reid U.S. Public Affairs and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.2 percentage points.