A new survey commissioned by nonprofit information standards organization GS1 US shows that while 85% of Americans believe food recalls are effective at protecting public health, 93% of consumers are concerned about the frequency of food recalls.
About 60% of consumers say they have avoided an entire food category, such as lettuce, following a recall and 59% report a hesitancy to purchase the same product or brand again after a recall. But that hesitancy to purchase again shows a generational divide among younger generations. Millennials (65%) and Gen Z (64%) show a higher reluctance to purchase the same product or brand again after a food recall, compared to 53% of baby boomers.
Melanie Nuce-Hilton, senior vice president of innovation and partnerships at GS1 US, says this disparity between generations could be due to younger shoppers becoming accustomed to having data at their fingertips, and if food safety recall isn’t readily available, they may be less likely to trust the safety of the brand and category.
But she says, this data shows a strong need for more modern traceability information.
“That UPC barcode is really designed to identify the product, but at a bagged lettuce level, that same UPC identifies all bagged lettuce of this type from this brand,” she says. “What we’re saying with improved traceability regulation and improved traceability data sharing now, batch lot information gathered at the farm and also the source of the farm is part of that data.”
And this will help the fresh produce industry better track a product to a farm, date of harvest and batch lot.
Other things that stood out to Nuce-Hilton is how strongly consumers, 85%, see food recalls as effective, but consumers also have a high level of concern about the frequency of food safety recalls, 93%.
“The root process of a recall seems to resonate with the consumer,” she says. “Improving transparency means the data has to be available, and it has to be captured, and it has to be shared.”
Nuce-Hilton says the industry needs to focus on transparency through data, and while GS1 US has some tools that can help growers better prepare for FSMA 204, she says the industry should expect a future with data.
“It’s going to be data driven,” she says of the future. “That, to me, is a little bit where some of the generational responses showed up is, ‘Give me more data. Give me the data I need to make a confident decision.’ And that’s, to me, also why FSMA 204 was extended. The hope now, and in the conversations we’re having with in the industry, is that the extension is going to give us the opportunity to provide the transparency we think consumers want.”
GS1 US’s full survey results can be found at gs1us.org/foodrecall.
