European consumers report growing confidence in their food choices even as trust in the information environment stays weak, according to the EIT Food Consumer Observatory's 20,000-respondent pan-European survey released on 28 September 2026.

The report, titled "Who do consumers believe?" and co-funded by the European Union, draws on responses from 18 countries. It documents a 6 percentage-point rise in the share of Europeans who feel able to make good food choices, climbing from 60% in 2024 to 66% in 2025. Fewer than half consider the food information they encounter reliable, and only 53% say they know where to find sources they trust.

What does the data show on health versus sustainability?

Confidence is uneven across topics. On health, 72% of respondents say their knowledge of healthy diets is sufficient, and 62% feel able to judge how healthy a given food is. On sustainability, those figures drop to 52% and 47% — a gap of roughly 20 points.

The shortfall is sharper among consumers with low trust in information sources. Just 37% of low-trust respondents say they can determine the sustainability of a food product, compared with 65% among high-trust consumers. The pattern suggests access to data alone will not close the credibility gap.

Where does age fit in?

Confidence skews older. 70% of consumers aged 55 and above feel positive about their food choices, against 62% of those under 35. The 55-plus group, however, reports the lowest confidence on sustainability specifically — fewer than half say they feel sufficiently knowledgeable.

Who do consumers actually trust?

Farmers lead the trust ranking at 64% in 2025, up from 49% in 2024. Manufacturers sit at 39%, down from 41%. Doctors, health practitioners, scientists and academics rank ahead of the food chain but are losing credibility, with trust in those sources also declining. Traditional and online media face greater scepticism, and online influencers sit among the least trusted channels.

For hospitality operators, the headline figure is how few consumers trust their venues: fewer than one-third rate restaurants and caterers as reliable food-information sources, putting the sector alongside retailers and public authorities at the bottom of the trust ladder.

Klaus G. Grunert, professor of marketing at Aarhus University and lead of the EIT Food Consumer Observatory, said: "Consumers do not appear to be asking simply for more information. They need information they can understand, assess and trust."

He added: "The findings show that confidence in our own choices can grow even while confidence in the information environment remains fragile — addressing these gaps will require clearer, evidence-based and coordinated communication on food, particularly around sustainability, where consumers report the greatest uncertainty."

What does it mean for hospitality operators and investors?

The data frames a commercial challenge for Europe's restaurant, catering and food-retail sectors. Menu claims and front-of-house communication carry limited credibility by default. Operators who back sustainability labelling with verifiable chain-of-custody data, third-party certification and trained service staff will hold more leverage than those relying on generic marketing.

Health positioning offers the stronger play: a 62% self-assessed ability to judge healthiness is the highest topic-level figure in the dataset, indicating room for menu engineering around nutrition density, allergens and calories. Sustainability-based differentiation faces a harder sell until consumer confidence on the topic closes the 20-point gap with health.

What happens next?

The Observatory's 18-country, 20,000-respondent methodology sets the baseline against which future EU consumer-confidence surveys will be measured, and Grunert's call for clearer, evidence-based and coordinated communication on food will shape the next research phase. Operators in the 18 covered markets should expect the trust gap — and the 47%-to-65% sustainability confidence spread between low- and high-trust consumers — to become a recurring benchmark in forthcoming pan-EU food-information policy reviews.