Food concerns on the decline

After years of uncertainty, concerns about the safety of British meat and genetically-modified food are decreasing, according to a new survey.​

The Consumer Attitudes to Food survey discovered that 45 per cent of people say they are worried about BSE - a drop of 16 per cent from the 61 per cent who were worried in 2001.

This growing consumer confidence is good news for food-led pubs that have been leading the way in promoting local produce.

According to the survey, which was carried out by the Food Standards Agency, just 36 per cent of people are concerned about GM food. There has also been a significant drop in the number of people describing themselves as concerned about food safety.

The BSE crisis hit the UK food industry very hard. Sales of British beef fell sharply and its reputation worldwide has struggled to recover.

During the crisis British publicans and restaurateurs were forbidden to serve beef on the bone, meaning several favourite pub dishes including rib of beef and T-bone steak were banned. Many publicans defied the law in order to serve customers and faced prosecution for doing so.

Recently, however, publicans have been hugely influential in promoting British food, making the most of local suppliers and telling their customers about where their ingredients come from.

And now it seems their hard work has paid off with consumers becoming more confident about British meat.

But the survey also highlighted the importance of food hygiene for licensees. Half the people questioned said they were worried about the standards of food hygiene in all catering outlets.

But although these concerns would stop them visiting an outlet again, just seven per cent said they would report those worries to the owners - meaning customers could be lost without the licensee knowing why.

The number of people suffering from food poisoning did not change this year, with 75 per cent of those affected blaming food they ate outside the home.

Meanwhile a leading microbiologist from Aberdeen University has said food poisoning could be killing three times as many people as official figures suggest.

Professor Hugh Pennington told the Daily Mail that research from Denmark found food poisoning has a greater long-term effect than was previously thought.

Researchers compared the death rates of healthy people with those of people who had suffered from food poisoning in the last 12 months. They discovered three times as many people who had been infected with food-borne bacteria died within a year of being infected.