Consumer Confidence. Customer Choice.
Why visible food safety reassurance matters during hospitality’s busiest season
At a glance
- Consumers are actively looking for reassurance when deciding where to eat.
- 78% of consumers look for food hygiene information before eating out or ordering takeaway.
- 7% of consumers believe food businesses should communicate their commitment to food safety.
- Food safety is becoming part of the trust, reputation and customer choice conversation.
- Safe to Trade helps businesses make confidence visible.
What if one of the most overlooked drivers of customer confidence, customer choice and business growth isn’t the menu, the marketing or the location — but food safety?
Research shows that consumers are actively looking for reassurance about food safety before choosing where to eat. Published research by Dr Mark Flanagan (Chief Executive Officer of Safe to Trade) highlights that 78% of consumers actively look for food hygiene ratings before eating out or ordering takeaway, while recent national research found that 86.7% of UK consumers agree food businesses should communicate their commitment to food safety to customers. The message is simple: visible reassurance builds trust, and food businesses that make confidence visible are better placed to influence customer choice before a customer even walks through the door.
That matters even more during summer. More people are travelling, families are eating out more often, and visitors are choosing places they have never been to before. Hotels, restaurants, pubs, cafés and takeaways are welcoming customers who may know very little about the places they are choosing.
In these moments, confidence matters.
Consumers are not only choosing where to eat based on location, menu, price or reviews. They are also looking for indicators that tell them a business takes food safety seriously. Safe to Trade is a food safety and hygiene standard that helps hospitality businesses demonstrate their commitment to customers. It provides a visible signal that helps consumers choose with greater confidence.
Consumers are already looking for reassurance
Food safety is often invisible to customers.
Customers cannot see the training, allergen controls and day to day management systems that sit behind a safe food business. So they look for visible cues they can trust.
The research also suggests this is particularly important for people with food allergies or intolerances, families with young children, expectant mothers, older adults and anyone who has previously experienced food poisoning.
Consumer expectations are high
Recent national research adds further weight to this point.
A Censuswide survey of 2,001 UK adults, conducted on behalf of Shield Safety, found that more than 80% of consumers believe food businesses are inspected for food safety every year or more often. Nearly all consumers, 95%, believe they should be.
This does not mean every consumer understands exactly how inspection frequency works in practice. But it does show something important: consumers expect food safety oversight to be regular, meaningful and part of how they are protected.
The same survey found that 86.7% of UK consumers agree that food businesses should communicate their commitment to food safety to customers.
That is one of the clearest findings of the research. Consumers are saying food safety should not stay hidden. They are saying they want businesses to communicate their commitment.
For food businesses, that creates a clear opportunity. Food safety is not only something to manage behind the scenes. It is also a powerful way to build confidence, earn trust and support customer choice.
(Source: Nationally representative survey of 2,001 UK adults, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Shield Safety, May 2026).
Food safety is now part of the customer decision
For many hospitality businesses, food safety has traditionally sat within operations. Brand teams focus on awareness. Marketing teams focus on growth. Commercial teams focus on customer acquisition, spend and footfall.
But consumer behaviour shows those conversations can no longer sit apart.
If consumers are actively looking for food safety information before deciding where to eat, then food safety becomes part of the customer decision-making journey. It becomes part of the brand experience before the customer even arrives.
That should matter to everyone responsible for reputation, customer trust, repeat visits, brand preference and growth.
Hospitality businesses invest heavily in websites, reviews, social content, customer experience, loyalty, design, menus, photography and local marketing. Yet consumers are clearly telling us that food safety influences confidence, and confidence influences choice.
The implication is simple. Consumers are looking for reassurance. Businesses that help customers feel confident are better placed to earn trust, strengthen reputation and influence choice.
This is why marketing leaders, commercial directors and senior decision-makers should have a voice in how food safety is communicated. The brands that recognise this opportunity earliest may be the ones best placed to turn food safety investment into customer confidence, stronger reputation and greater preference.
Visible reassurance builds trust
One of the strongest themes from Dr Flanagan’s research is that consumers use visible cues to form judgements about food safety. The research highlights that consumers who see, understand and use food hygiene information are more confident in food safety, particularly when information is recent and accessible.
That points to a simple but powerful idea: information supports confidence.
When consumers can see and understand relevant food safety information, they are better able to make informed choices. This is not about creating concern. It is about building trust.
John Barnes, Former FSA Head of Local Delivery and Safe to Trade Independent Governance Board member, captured this well: “Today’s consumers don’t just expect food to be safe. They expect food businesses to demonstrate and show they can be trusted.”
Consumers may not understand every technical detail behind food safety, but they do understand clear, visible and independent reassurance. Food hygiene ratings have long helped people make more informed decisions because they provide visible reassurance customers can recognise.
Safe to Trade builds on this by also checking front of house maintenance, allergen controls, food labelling and menu accuracy alongside food safety and hygiene controls.
It enables businesses to turn behind the scenes commitment into visible reassurance that customers can recognise, trust and act on. Businesses can also be confident their controls are robust, independently assessed and readily communicated to customers and regulators. These are the signals customers notice. These are the things that help people feel confident in their choice.
The challenge for operators
Many food businesses are already working hard to do the right things. They invest in training, manage allergens, support teams, review systems, respond to customer needs and maintain standards during busy service.
The challenge is that much of this work is invisible to customers.
Operators may be investing in food safety, but customers cannot always see the training, systems, controls and culture behind that investment. That makes it harder for customers to understand the standards a business is working to, and its commitment to food safety, especially when choosing somewhere unfamiliar.
During summer, that challenge becomes sharper. Higher footfall, seasonal teams, outdoor dining, tourism peaks, functions, events, changing menus, ingredient substitutions and greater pressure on front-of-house communication can all test consistency. These are the moments when food safety systems need to work in real life, not just on paper.
Food safety should not be viewed only as an internal responsibility. It is part of the customer experience, the brand experience and the commercial conversation.
The businesses that help customers feel confident are better placed to be chosen.
Shield Assure: the route to becoming Safe to Trade
Shield Assure is an end-to-end safety and risk management solution, combining independent Safe to Trade certification, RiskProof software, expert support and strategic insight, and the route for food businesses to become Safe to Trade.
Shield Safety is a certification body for Safe to Trade, supporting operators through assessment against the Safe to Trade Standard. Through Shield Assure, businesses can work towards achieving and demonstrating Safe to Trade status, giving them a clearer way to show consumers, regulators and stakeholders that their commitment to food safety is not only happening behind the scenes, but being made visible in a credible way.
Safe to Trade provides the visible trust signal. Shield Assure provides the route to achieving it.
Conclusion: make confidence visible
The consumer voice is clear.
Consumers are actively looking for reassurance. They want confidence that food safety is being taken seriously and, increasingly they want that commitment to be visible.
For hospitality businesses, the opportunity is clear. It is not enough for high standards to exist behind the scenes if customers cannot see, understand or trust them.
For operators, that means turning trust into a point of difference.
For brand, marketing and commercial leaders, it means recognising that food safety is not only an operational responsibility. It is increasingly part of the trust equation that influences reputation, preference and growth.
Safe to Trade was created to support exactly this challenge: helping businesses make their commitment visible, helping consumers choose with confidence, and helping build trust across the food system.
Because when confidence becomes visible, trust grows.
When trust grows, customers are more likely to choose you.
And when customers choose you more often, food safety becomes more than something a business manages behind the scenes.
It becomes an investment in customer confidence, brand strength and long-term growth.
Continue the conversation
Summer is only part of the story.
As hospitality businesses prepare for autumn trading, festive bookings, Christmas events and year-end demand, the challenge of building and maintaining customer confidence becomes even more important.
Over the coming months, we will continue sharing industry insight, operator experiences and real-world examples of how businesses are making confidence visible and helping customers make informed choices.
Later this year, we will be bringing together industry leaders, hospitality operators and experts for a dedicated webinar exploring how businesses can build and maintain customer confidence during hospitality’s busiest trading periods.
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