For EU citizens, both quality and price tend to be important factors when buying food and these considerations are of particular importance to Maltese people as 89% regard price is important while 86% believe quality is a priority.

The European average stands at 91% for price while 65% say food quality is very important for them, according to a Eurobarometer survey entitled Europeans’ Attitudes towards Food Security, Food Quality and the Countryside, published on Friday.

Meanwhile, only a minority of EU citizens recognise any of the logos introduced by the EU to ensure the quality and origin of certain types of food products.

The report explains that EU citizens clearly understand that food security is a global issue, with a large majority expressing concern at the challenge of feeding the world’s population. However, concern about the sufficiency of food production in the EU is driven more by respondents’ assessments of the sufficiency of food production in their own country than by a general perception of food insecurity.

The highest proportion of respondents who always check labels can be found in Italy (35%), Malta (34%) and Romania (33%). But when statistics for those who sometimes check for labels are included, Finland, Sweden (both 82%) and Ireland (80%) have the highest proportion of respondents.

In almost all member states, two-thirds (66%) or more of those polled agree that agriculture benefits the environment. The exceptions are in countries with a lot of greenery – the Netherlands, where 53% agree, and Denmark, where a minority (43%) of respondents agree. Levels of agreement are especially high in Cyprus, where almost all (99%) respondents agree, and in Malta (96%) and Portugal (95%) that agriculture is important for the environment.

Again, 96% of Maltese respondents believe that agriculture contributes to the beauty of the countryside. Aside from in Germany (73%) and Denmark (75%), four-fifths (80%) or more of those surveyed agree with this statement, and in 20 of 27 member states levels of agreement are above the EU average of 86%.

In Greece and Portugal, where respondents are extremely concerned about domestic food production, levels of concern about production in the EU are also high. In Germany and the Netherlands, low levels of concern about domestic food security are accompanied by low levels of concern about EU food security.

Food security also has a socio-demographic dimension. This survey finds that those who are financially vulnerable are most concerned about food security.

This is reflected in attitudes to the EU response to the challenge of achieving food security. While the majority of EU citizens agree that the EU should take steps to make itself less dependent on food imports and better equipped to take advantage of growing external markets, this response is more common among respondents in countries where concern about food insecurity is greater and – to a lesser extent – among people who are economically insecure.

Quality labels are important for two-thirds of respondents, and there is an improvement on previous years in the recognition of the different EU quality logos. The survey showed that 24% of those asked already recognise the EU organic logo, less than two years after it was launched.

On food security, three-quarters of EU citizens expressed concern at the challenge of feeding the world’s population, but less than 60% are concerned about the ability of the EU and member states to meet the food needs of their populations.