It seems the British don’t trust us when it comes to food.
According to a poll by YouGov commissioned by food certification firm Red Tractor, only 25% of British adults trust food from the U.S. That puts us down around Kenya and Brazil in terms of trust. At least we’re ahead of China, which clocked in at about 11%. By contrast, 84% of British consumers say they trust their own country’s food.
My first response, as a patriotic American: Where do people who eat things with names like “bubble and squeak” and “spotted dick” get off disdaining anyone else’s food? My indignation wasn’t helped when the report got to the foreign countries whose food the British do trust: Ireland, New Zealand (those Brits like their lamb), Australia and Canada. In other words, the British Commonwealth. Pure chauvinism.
But when you look a little closer, there are a pair of findings that work a little against this cozy little portrait of national comity:
- In the list of foreign countries with trustworthy food, the second through eighth spots, after Ireland and New Zealand, went to nations of the European Union.
- Among the minority of British citizens who don’t trust British food, the second most prevalent reason, cited by 20% of respondents, is fear that food standards will drop because of Brexit, the UK’s exit from the EU. The concern is that the situation will motivate Britain to accept lower-quality imported food to make up for the loss from the EU.
So, in addition to shortages of everything from industrial carbon dioxide to chicken wings, Brexit has led to a shortage of trust in food generally.
If there’s even one person in the UK – farmer, processor, retailer, restaurateur or ordinary consumer – who has benefited from Brexit’s effect on the British food industry, I’d like to know who he or she is.
Pan Demetrakakes is a Senior Editor for Food Processing and has been a business journalist since 1992, mostly covering various aspects of the food production and supply chain, including processing, packaging, distribution and retailing. Learn more about him or contact him
