When it comes to food safety, Austrians apparently feel on the safe side: food safety and nutritional quality and supply are the least of their concerns, as our Risk Barometer shows. With the Risk Barometer, we have been surveying the risk perception of the Austrian population since 2017.

In a year-on-year comparison, the risk perception of pathogenic germs in food has decreased significantly. The people surveyed are also significantly less concerned than five years ago about harmful substances that arise during the preparation of food. Unchanged is the concern about the effects of chemicals and pollutants on people's health and about allergenic substances in food. People are most concerned about microplastics in food, ingredients contained in food packaging materials, and deception through inaccurate information on food packaging.

However, it also shows that people in Austria still want more information in many areas: Around three quarters of respondents feel they are not sufficiently informed about hormone-like substances and mold toxins in food and harmful substances that are produced during preparation. This was already the case five years ago, although the proportion who feel uninformed has also decreased for these topics.

This desired information is provided by the #EUChooseSafeFood (Safe Food for the EU) campaign, which is being run by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) together with us and other European partner organizations from June 7 throughout the summer.