Some things you grow accustomed to expecting, like clockwork, each year—New Year’s Day, Tax Day, and for many food and nutrition stakeholders: the IFIC Food & Health Survey. Nineteen years ago, when I had the privilege to be part of the team that conceived and produced our first edition, I am not sure we appreciated the contribution, value, and longevity that this consumer survey would represent all these years later.

Food & Nutrition Insights Are More Important Than Ever

Much has happened since 2005 when the first IFIC Food & Health Survey was released. Three leaders have served at IFIC’s helm. The US Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services produced four editions of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). Our population has become more diverse than at any other time in history. Rates of obesity rose from close to 35% to well over 40%, accompanied by a global shift from infectious diseases to diet-related conditions—such as heart disease and stroke—as the leading cause of mortality. We experienced a global pandemic that illuminated co-morbidities, such as diabetes, as risk factors for experiencing severe illness and death.

Still, one fact is constant. Food and nutrition are central to all these topics, and sound science supports following healthy eating patterns, such as those that the DGA has recommended for over 40 years. Yet, consumers overwhelmingly do not eat this way.

IFIC Is A Consumer-Centric Organization With A Unique Contribution

The consumer voice is often missing in the food systems dialogue as well as in decision-making related to policy, research, communication, and more. To better support Americans in achieving improved diet quality, we must thoroughly understand their realities and offer commensurate and compelling solutions.

IFIC has been a trailblazer in collecting and interpreting consumer perception, knowledge, and behavior data through a broader nutrition and food safety issues environment lens to deliver timely and astute data-based insights. This is part and parcel of what we have become known for, and a core platform that informs our work overall.

The IFIC Food & Health Survey Captures The Nuanced Perceptions Of Real People

At IFIC, we strive for our research to be relevant now and well into the future. We do this by exploring topics (e.g., stress, food cost, misinformation, hot trends) that serve both as barriers and motivators to making healthy food choices and building healthier dietary patterns. These phenomena are experienced by real people in a very real world.

Over time, we have worked to ensure that the IFIC Food & Health Survey balances the need to understand emerging and novel issues (e.g., drugs to treat overweight/obesity, AI) with trended questions that are core to understanding the food and nutrition environment. One core question that comes to mind is, “How much of an impact do [taste, price, healthfulness, convenience, and environmental sustainability] have on your decision to buy foods and beverages?” Close to 20 years of data show that taste outranks the rest of the factors time and time again.

For the 2024 IFIC Food & Health Survey, we expanded our sample size to triple the number of respondents. Surveying 3,000 nationally representative consumers allows us to tease out nuances between and among various sociodemographic population segments and identify additional insights. The purchase driver question is one example where we generated insights with greater granularity. Compared with the general population, who report taste as the most important food purchasing factor, households with an annual income of $100,000 or more said that health is the most important variable when purchasing food and beverages; this same income level also report greater happiness and less stress compared to other income segments.

This is just one example of how we plan to utilize IFIC Food & Health Survey data now and into the future to tell an increasingly comprehensive story. You can expect IFIC to be dynamic as an organization and in the delivery of our research and insights, whether through the way we disseminate findings to various audiences (e.g., stakeholder and expert briefings, media relations, consumer articles and resources, collaborating with like-minded groups) or the topics we study and methodology we use.

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