The number of consumers taking sustainability into account in their food choices is on the wane, according to a study of 19,500 consumers across 18 European countries. The EIT Food Trust Report, now in its seventh year and spanning 18 countries including Spain, France, Turkey and the UK, found health trumps sustainability by some way.
Since 2020 the intention to live sustainably has been declining every year, from 78% to 70%. This is reflected in the sustainability of diets with the share of consumers who claim to take sustainability into account when making food choices falling from 51% to 46%.
When asked what they would like to change in their diet, just 9% said eating more sustainably is their first priority; this compared to 51% who said eating more healthily.
Changes many consumers would like to make include eating less fat (57% of consumers), less sugar (61%) and less processed food (59%). The survey found most consumers know they should limit their intake of salt, fat, sugar and processed food, but their current behaviour reveals how difficult they find this.
Just under a fifth (18%) currently avoid animal-based products; 25% said they’d like to further reduce their consumption of animal-based products.
Indeed, one of the two behaviours that not many are showing and have low intentions to carry out is ‘avoiding animal-based products’. The other is ‘buying food from regenerative agriculture’. This is likely due to a lack of familiarity with the concept. “When the concept gets better known, consumers will be able to make up their mind about it,” the research team said.
Respondents were quizzed on the barriers to changing their diets, with budget emerging as the main barrier for nearly a third (31%). Breaking current habits is also a barrier for over a quarter (27%). Just 46% of Europeans consider they have sufficient knowledge about the sustainability of food.
“While we can see a desire by consumers to eat more healthily, we’re not seeing the same desire to prioritise sustainability through dietary changes,” said Sofia Kuhn, EIT Food director of public insights and engagement. “But linked to this, we’re also seeing consumers struggle with gauging reliability of information about food. How can we expect consumers to change their behaviour if they can’t access the information they need to do so?”
Trust in restaurants and caterers has, at 49%, remained fairly stable in the last three years. When consumers give examples of restaurants and caterers they distrust, the same brand names come up “time and time again”, and are primarily fast food chains, said EIT. Consumers cite articles and documentaries that have damaged the reputation of these companies. The sentiment is that the companies “value profits over health”.
