A majority of American voters say they have little or no confidence in government oversight of food safety, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll conducted in the last full week of July, as the country’s largest recorded Cyclospora outbreak spread past twenty thousand cases by the states’ own published counts.
Asked how much confidence they have in government oversight of food safety in the United States, 12 percent of respondents said a lot and 31 percent said some, for a combined 43 percent. Twenty-five percent said not so much and 30 percent said none at all, for a combined 55 percent. Quinnipiac interviewed 963 registered voters from July 23 through July 27 and reported a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. The food safety question was the last of thirty-three in a survey otherwise devoted to the war with Iran, gasoline prices and the midterm elections.
The question does not appear in Quinnipiac’s published trend tables, indicating it was asked for the first time. Comparable long-term measures come from two other organizations, and both are at or near record lows.
Gallup has asked Americans about their confidence in the federal government to ensure the safety of the food supply since 1999, as part of an annual Consumption Habits poll fielded each July. Confidence stood at 76 percent in September 1999 and reached 82 percent in July 2004 during the mad cow scare, holding near eight in ten through 2006. It fell to roughly seven in ten after a large Salmonella outbreak in 2007 and remained at that level through 2019, when it measured 68 percent. It dropped to 57 percent in 2024 and to 53 percent in July 2025, the lowest reading in the twenty-six years Gallup has asked. Gallup’s 2026 survey was fielded in July, during the current outbreak, and is expected to publish in mid-August.
Gallup attributed much of the 2025 decline to partisan shifts following the change in the party holding the presidency. Democratic confidence fell from 74 percent in 2024 to 48 percent in 2025, while Republican confidence rose twelve points to 62 percent. Confidence among independents was unchanged at 52 percent. Gallup also noted that confidence that food sold in grocery stores is safe to eat has held far steadier, at 73 percent in 2025 compared with 81 percent in 2019.
A second long-running measure comes from the International Food Information Council, an industry-funded group that has tracked consumer confidence in the safety of the U.S. food supply since 2012. That figure was 78 percent in 2012, 70 percent in 2023 and 62 percent in 2024, and fell to 55 percent in the 2025 survey of 3,000 adults — the lowest in the thirteen years IFIC has asked. The share describing themselves as very confident fell from 24 percent in 2022 to 11 percent in 2025. Six percent reported full confidence in the safety of the food supply.
Among respondents who lacked confidence, IFIC reported that 59 percent said profit is prioritized over safety, 54 percent said the parts of the food system do not work together, 46 percent cited insufficient government regulation and 43 percent cited the number of recalls. Asked which actors are committed to ensuring food is safe, respondents put the federal government at 48 percent, food companies at 46 percent and grocery stores and retailers at 43 percent. The survey also found that foodborne illness caused by pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria had become the leading food safety concern, displacing chemical and additive concerns. IFIC customarily releases its food safety findings at the International Association for Food Protection annual meeting each July; this year’s meeting was held in New Orleans the week of July 26, and 2026 food safety figures have not yet been published.
Three additional surveys were conducted this month. CBS News and YouGov interviewed 2,193 adults from July 22 to 24 and found that 61 percent were following news of the outbreak at least somewhat closely, compared with 66 percent following the conflict with Iran. Forty percent said they were buying or eating less produce as a result of the outbreak, against 4 percent who said more and 56 percent who reported no change. Asked about the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to deal with the outbreak, 13 percent expressed a lot of confidence and 40 percent some, while 31 percent said not much and 16 percent none at all.
Rasmussen Reports, surveying 1,247 adults on July 15, 16 and 19 and asking about the food supply itself rather than about government, found 51 percent confident and 44 percent not confident in the safety of the American food supply. In an April survey published in May, before the outbreak became national news, KFF found that 36 percent of adults had a lot or some confidence in the FDA to act independently of outside interests, and that 25 percent trusted food and beverage companies to act in the public’s interest.
Comparable surveys abroad show different trajectories. The 2025 Eurobarometer on food safety, commissioned by the European Food Safety Authority and conducted through 26,370 face-to-face interviews across the twenty-seven European Union member states, found trust in national authorities at 70 percent, up four points since 2022, and trust in EU institutions at 69 percent, up three. Seventy-nine percent agreed that regulations are in place to ensure their food is safe, an increase of six points. EFSA reported gains across each of its awareness and trust measures.
In the United Kingdom, the Food Standards Agency’s monthly Consumer Insights Tracker recorded trust in the agency at 60 to 62 percent from January through March 2026 among respondents with some knowledge of it, essentially unchanged since the tracker began in 2023. The agency’s Food and You 2 survey has separately found 89 percent of consumers confident in the safety of the food they purchase and 69 percent confident in the food supply chain.
In Canada, the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity reported in October 2025 that 45 percent of Canadians believed the food system was headed in the right direction, up fourteen points from 2024 and a five-year high, with trust in the Canadian food inspection system at a record level. The same research found a reversal in views of American food imports: in 2023, 22 percent of Canadians said they trusted food imported from the United States more than food from other international exporters, against 12 percent who trusted other sources more, while by 2025 the figures had nearly inverted, at 15 percent and 23 percent respectively. The organization attributed the shift largely to trade tensions rather than to food safety concerns.
The surveys are not directly comparable. The Eurobarometer is conducted face to face and asks whether respondents agree that a food safety system exists rather than measuring confidence in it. The British tracker asks about a single named agency and only among respondents who report knowing what it does. Rasmussen asked about the food supply, CBS about the FDA’s handling of one outbreak, KFF about agency independence and Quinnipiac about government oversight generally — four distinct constructs. Each of the European, British and Canadian instruments is able to name a national food safety authority; the American question is framed around government oversight in general, reflecting a system in which food safety responsibility is divided among the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state health departments.
The partisan pattern recurs across the American surveys. In the Quinnipiac poll, 70 percent of Republicans expressed confidence in government food safety oversight compared with 25 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of independents. In the CBS survey, 73 percent of Republicans expressed confidence in the FDA’s handling of the outbreak, compared with 41 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of independents. The 2025 Gallup reading recorded the same split in the opposite direction under the previous administration.
The CBS finding that 40 percent of adults are buying or eating less produce was consistent across demographic groups, with 46 percent of women and 34 percent of men reporting the change, and 46 percent of adults 65 and older. The reduction comes as federal health officials have urged Americans to eat more whole foods.
As of July 31, the states’ own published counts totaled more than 21,000 cases across all fifty states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 1,947 outbreak-associated cases and 98 hospitalizations in nine states and separately reported 6,707 cyclosporiasis cases nationally through July 27. No product has been named since the recall of shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico, and the FDA is tracking six open Cyclospora investigations. Gallup’s next reading is due in mid-August.