Food Processors Top the American Customer Satisfaction Index

Dec. 14, 2021

Individual food companies also scored high marks, breweries were 1 point behind and soft drink makers were 18th.

Food manufacturing collectively got the highest ranking of the 47 services ranked in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a national economic indicator of the quality of products and services available to consumers in the U.S.

All of food processing's individual companies also scored high marks. Full-service restaurants tied food manufacturing with a score of 80, breweries were 1 point behind and soft drink makers were 18th on the list.

Internet service providers and subscription television services were tied for last place with a score of 65.

Among individual food processors, Hershey, Mars and Quaker (PepsiCo) all had scores of 82, eclipsing food manufacturing's aggregate score of 80 – which itself was up 1 point from the 2020 survey. Conagra dropped 5 points from the previous survey to anchor the bottom of the food manufacturing list with a decent score of 75. Tyson dropped 3 points to score a 76.

While the collective soft drinks score was a respectable 78, that was a drop of 2.5% from 2020.

The ACSI Nondurable Products Study 2020-2021 is based on interviews with 5,080 customers, chosen at random and contacted via email between Oct. 6, 2020, and Sept. 25, 2021. Customers are asked to evaluate their recent experiences with products provided by the largest manufacturers in terms of market share, plus an aggregate category consisting of “all other”—and thus smaller—companies in each industry.

For the full report and the 47-industry list, see www.theacsi.org.