Ruminations: Assessing the Canadian Public's Sense of Food Assurance

"I do not eat anywhere near as many chickpeas or black beans as I thought I would."
"As soon as the shelves started to empty people started to freak out. I even remember going and thinking 'Do I need these extra couple cans of chickpeas? No, not necessarily but there are only two left'."
"[But the food industry] was able to reroute things ... and we know it can do that again."
Shannon Faires, associate researcher, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University

"It [food stockpiling] points to how people aren't necessarily trusting of how others will behave in a moment of panic."
"Uncertainty is a powerful sentiment and it gets people to do things that they don't plan to do. And that's what happened last spring."
"A lot of people are struggling right now,whether it's physical or mental. [It's] important for the industry to think about being a partner for Canadians in their journey to a better self."
"[Canadians] have always had respect towards farmers, but what came to light during COVID is that other people work in the food industry, starting with people in the grocery stores."
Sylvain Charlebois, director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL)

Photo: Thinkstock

Most food shoppers tended to behave just as Shannon Faires did in the early stages of lockdown amid the fear in spring of 2020 of food scarcity as shoppers viewed empty shelves at their supermarket and panicked over having enough food in stock at home to tide them over a perceived food availability emergency. A few extra tins of beans, packages of spaghetti, tins of fish, rice, flour, yeast -- and of course sanitary wipes and toilet paper. Where had they all gone? The freezer cases of bagged frozen vegetables were empty, eggs were in short supply.

Little wonder panic set in. Little wonder people grabbed whatever was available, in greater numbers than they normally would during a weekly shopping mission. A year later, some people like Ms.Faires are only now using up the last of their hoarded tins and preparing to buy more, in much reduced numbers. The Agri-Food Analytics Lab has issued a new report looking at consumer confidence in the food industry. Reaching the conclusion that despite the disruptions over the year just past, Canadians now have greater faith that their food supply chain will not disappoint.

But the AAL investigation also revealed that the fear that created the hoarding response to begin with, that other shoppers would snap up far more than they needed, leaving nothing on the shelves for others, creating a social aura of suspicion of the intentions of others to selfishly acquire more than needed and thus deprive others, remains intact. Of the 10,005 Canadians surveyed for the report in late February of 2021, only 17.4 percent feel the industry could fail to deliver sufficient food at some point in the future.

Attitudes toward the perceived behaviour of other people on the other hand saw respondents feeling much the same now as they did a year earlier. The food industry could be assured to come through with flying colours, but the intentions of neighbours were not to be trusted. The takeaway for the AAL researchers was that while 72.2 percent of Canadians have confidence in the safety of food products pandemic aside, and 73.7 percent remain satisfied with the level of safety, they're none too certain about people's intentions in returning to stockpiling should the occasion arise.

Reports coming in from Europe and Asia indicate that food fraud -- counterfeiting, ingredient substitution and mislabelling -- is on the increase, even as food prices are slowly but steadily increasing. Olive oil, honey, dried spices and fish are among those items most frequently reported where fraud is involved. Overall, however, fraud is estimated to be affecting about ten percent of all food products sold globally, adding to industry costs of between $10 and $15 billion annually.

On the other hand, while food fraud has become a global issue, only 18.4 percent of Canadians are concerned about the authenticity of their food products. The researchers attribute this to a combination of lack of awareness of the issue and faith in the vigilance of systems put in place to avoid food fraud occurrences. "People don't see [food fraud] as an issue all that much in Canada, but in actuality, it kind of is because there have been some troubling reports about mislabelling and counterfeiting in Canada over the past few years", explained director of the AAL, Sylvain Charlebois.

What has emerged as well over the past year is a heightened awareness among consumers of the importance of food industry workers to society's well-being. Workers who exposed themselves to potential danger of contracting the COVID pathogen through their line of work, but continued to perform those necessary tasks regardless whether it be those who worked in food production factories, or the shelf stockers and cashiers at their local grocery..