Questions to Ask in a Food Survey
For a student, a cafeteria manager at a school or workplace, a restaurant owner or a food brand writing a survey about food. The 56 example questions are grouped by the kind of survey they belong to: eating habits, taste and preferences, a school or workplace cafeteria, restaurant and product feedback, and diet and allergies, with the questions about the respondent last, where they go on the form.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Eating habits
How many meals do you eat on a typical weekday?
Why ask it
Offer 1, 2, 3, 4 and '5 or more' as a single choice, and say in the question whether a snack counts as a meal. 'Typical weekday' keeps weekends and holidays out of the answer. If a large share of a school or a shift answers one or two, the next thing to find out is which meal is going missing.
In a typical week, on how many days do you eat fast food?
Why ask it
Respondents disagree about what counts, so name it under the question: a burger, fried chicken or pizza chain, a drive-through, anywhere you pay at the counter before you eat. Days from 0 to 7 are easier to answer honestly than 'rarely' or 'often'. In a student project this tends to be the headline chart, so decide beforehand which two groups you will compare on it.
Which meal do you skip most often?
Why ask it
Include 'I rarely skip a meal' beside breakfast, lunch and dinner, or people who skip nothing are forced to name one. Follow it with the reason, since no time, not hungry and nothing I like each call for a different fix. A cafeteria that finds lunch at the top of this list has a problem a new menu may not solve.
How many servings of fruit and vegetables did you eat yesterday?
Why ask it
Asking about yesterday gets a count, where 'usually' gets a self-portrait. Add an example of a serving, such as one apple or a handful of cooked vegetables, and offer 0 through '5 or more'. People tend to round up on anything that sounds healthy, so compare groups with each other and do not present the figure as a measurement of what anyone eats.
When you choose what to eat, which matters most: taste, price, health, convenience, or something else?
Why ask it
Allow one answer only, with a write-in for 'something else'. If people can choose several, nearly everyone checks taste and health and the chart says nothing. Set the result beside what the same people report eating: a group that picks health and eats takeout most days is telling you that price or convenience is deciding.
On how many of the past seven days was your main meal cooked at home?
Why ask it
A frozen pizza and a stew made from scratch are both dinner made in a kitchen, so say under the question which of them counts as cooked. Offer 0 to 7 days. A teenager's answer describes somebody else's cooking, so in a school survey ask who usually makes the meal as well.
In the past seven days, how many times did you eat food prepared outside your home?
Why ask it
This is wider than the fast food question, so use one or the other: it takes in restaurants, takeout, delivery and a cafeteria, and the form should list them. Give ranges people can count (none, 1 to 2, 3 to 5, 6 or more). A fixed week is easier to recall than 'How often do you eat out?', which every respondent measures against a private idea of often.
What most often gets in the way of eating the way you would like to?
Why ask it
Let people pick up to two from a list: cost, time, not knowing how to cook, what is sold nearby, what the rest of the household wants, 'nothing gets in the way' and an 'Other' line. If 'nothing' wins by a distance, the list was probably missing the real reason, so read the Other box before you report it.
How healthy would you say your diet is?
Why ask it
Taken alone, a self-rating measures confidence more than food. Use five points from 'not at all healthy' to 'very healthy' and put the result beside the fruit and vegetable count or the fast food days from the same people. Where a group rates itself healthy and the counts disagree, ask what 'healthy' means to them.
On a school day or workday, where do you usually eat breakfast?
Why ask it
The options do two jobs at once: at home, on the way, at school or work, and 'I do not eat breakfast'. A school considering a morning food cart learns how many arrive hungry and how many already eat somewhere. Keep it single choice and ask for the usual place, not every place.
On a typical day, how many snacks do you have between meals?
Why ask it
Heavy afternoon snacking in a school survey can mean lunch is too small or too early, which is worth checking against the cafeteria answers. Offer none, 1, 2, and 3 or more, then a short text box for the snack eaten most. A snack brand learns more by also asking the time of day.
How often do you check the ingredients or nutrition label before buying a food?
Why ask it
Checking labels sounds like the right thing to do, so expect the answers (never, sometimes, most of the time, always) to lean higher than the habit. Ask anyone above 'never' what they look for: sugar, calories, allergens, the price per unit. That second answer is the one to build conclusions on.
How much does your household spend on food in a typical week?
Why ask it
Plenty of adults do not know the figure and teenagers rarely do, so leave this off a survey for students. For adults, give ranges in your own currency with a 'not sure' option, say whether eating out is included, and make it optional. Without household size from the same form, the amounts cannot be compared.
Taste and preferences
Which of these types of food is your favorite?
Why ask it
Asked as an open 'What is your favorite food?', this returns nearly as many answers as respondents and nothing to chart. Offer eight or ten cuisines or dish types that your kitchen could cook or your project means to compare, plus an 'Other' line. A favorite is what people would pick once, so treat the winner as the dish to try out next, not as proof they want it weekly.
What level of spice do you prefer in a main dish?
Why ask it
Heat is relative, so name a dish you already serve as the reference point for 'medium' and offer none, mild, medium and hot. A split result argues for sauce on the side, not for a compromise recipe that pleases neither end.
How willing are you to try a food you have never eaten before?
Why ask it
This one explains the rest of the survey: a cautious group will mark an unfamiliar dish down before tasting it, and a free sample will do more for them than a menu description. Adults can answer on five points from not at all willing to very willing. For children, turn it into 'I like trying new foods' with yes, sometimes and no.
Rank these five dishes from the one you would most like on the menu to the one you would least like.
Why ask it
Ranking forces the trade-offs that separate ratings hide, since people will happily give five dishes four stars each. Stop at five or six items, because longer rankings get careless in the middle. Look at the bottom as closely as the top: a dish most people place last is a candidate to retire.
How much do you like or dislike this sample overall?
Why ask it
The first question of a taste test, asked before anything about sweetness or texture so the first impression is recorded untouched. Tasting panels commonly use nine points from 'dislike extremely' to 'like extremely', with 'neither like nor dislike' in the middle. Five points are plenty for a class project, and young children do better with three faces than with words.
Is the sweetness of this sample not sweet enough, about right, or too sweet?
Why ask it
Sensory testers call this a 'just about right' question, and the same three options work for salt, spice, thickness or crunch, one attribute per question. A liking score says a recipe is off; this says whether to add sugar or take it out. A sample that most tasters call about right and still rate low has its problem somewhere else.
Which of these two samples do you prefer?
Why ask it
Label the cups with random three-digit codes, not A and B, and have half the tasters start with each sample, because both the label and the order can sway the choice. Decide before you begin whether 'no preference' is allowed. A near-even split from a small group is not a winner, and the write-up should say so.
What is the first word that comes to mind when you taste this?
Why ask it
Count the repeats. 'Fresh' or 'homemade' are words to put on a menu or a label, while 'bland', 'dry' or 'artificial' turning up more than once is the finding. Give it one short text box, shown before any list of adjectives, and skip it with very young tasters, who mostly write 'good' or 'yucky'.
What, if anything, would you change about this sample?
Why ask it
Place an open box after the ratings and add a 'nothing' checkbox, so a blank is not mistaken for a skipped question. Sort the answers into taste, texture, look and size. When one change is named by several tasters who also rated the sample well, make that change first, since it is unlikely to cost you the people who already like it.
If this product were sold where you usually shop, how likely would you be to buy it?
Why ask it
Saying yes costs a taster nothing, so stated intent runs ahead of what people later do at the shelf. On a five-point scale from 'definitely would not' to 'definitely would', count only the top answer as real interest. The question is best used to compare two recipes or two prices against each other.
Cafeteria
How many days a week do you eat lunch from the cafeteria?
Why ask it
Put it first in a cafeteria survey, with options 0 through 5, and use it to route people: regulars can judge the food, and anyone who answers 0 should jump to the question about reasons. Opinions on dishes someone has not tried for a year should not be averaged in with the regulars'.
On the days you do not eat in the cafeteria, what is the main reason?
Why ask it
This is the question for the people a cafeteria survey usually misses. Give one choice among: I bring food from home, I do not like the food, the line is too long, it costs too much, there is not enough time, I eat somewhere else, other. If the line and the clock beat the food, the fix belongs to the schedule and the serving stations, not the recipes.
How would you rate each of these in the cafeteria: taste, variety, portion size, temperature of the food, speed of service?
Why ask it
Give the five their own rows under one scale, poor to excellent. A single overall score cannot tell a problem in the kitchen from a problem in the line, and five separate scores can. Start with whichever row comes out lowest, and ask about that row again next term to see whether it moved.
Which item on the current menu should we never take away?
Why ask it
The favorite-dish question, worded so the answer tells you what to protect. Use an open box, or the menu as a list with one choice, and pass the results to the kitchen staff, who otherwise read mostly complaints. Removing the top answer here is likely to be noticed more than any dish you add.
If we added one of these dishes next month, which would you be most likely to choose?
Why ask it
An open 'What should we serve?' put to students tends to return pizza, fries and the name of a restaurant chain, while a list of real candidates returns a decision. Offer one choice among dishes the kitchen knows it can make and afford, and include 'none of these' so that a weak set of options shows up as weak.
Do you have enough time to eat your lunch?
Why ask it
The answer (yes, most days or no) is close to a fact, and you can check it with a stopwatch: the minutes from the bell to sitting down with a tray. A no from the students served last is a different problem from a no across the whole room, so also ask which lunch period or shift the person is in.
About how long do you wait in line before you get your food?
Why ask it
Give ranges in minutes (under 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15, more than 15) and time the line yourself on two or three days to compare. A wait people resent tends to feel longer than it was. If the estimates run well past your stopwatch, a menu posted at the door, so people choose before they reach the counter, may help as much as a second server.
How do you usually feel after a cafeteria lunch: still hungry, about right, or too full?
Why ask it
Sort the results by grade or by job, because a portion that suits a nine-year-old can leave a sixteen-year-old athlete hungry. Where portion sizes are set by a meal program or a catering contract, ask whoever runs it what can be changed before promising anything.
Which item do you most often leave unfinished or throw away?
Why ask it
Show the current menu as a list and add 'I usually finish everything'. You can test the answers against what comes back on the trays over a week. Follow it with the reason (too much, cold, did not like it, ran out of time), since each one sends you to a different part of the operation.
How do you feel about the price of a meal here?
Why ask it
Run the scale from much too high, through about right, to very good value. Leave it out where meals are free to everyone. How meals are paid for differs by school, district and employer, so check who pays where you are, and whether that is the person answering.
Restaurant and product
Overall, how would you rate the food you had today?
Why ask it
Keep the word 'food' in it: a guest asked to rate the visit folds in the wait and the bill, and the cooking cannot be told apart from the room. Put it first, on five points from poor to excellent, so no later question colors it. If the food scores well and business is still slow, the kitchen is not the problem, which is worth knowing before you rewrite the menu.
What did you order today?
Why ask it
Without it, every food rating is an average over the whole menu and points at no dish. On a short menu, give each dish a checkbox; on a long one, list the sections and leave a line for the name. Give a new special its own checkbox, since it is often the reason the survey exists.
How would you rate your dish on each of these: flavor, freshness, presentation, temperature?
Why ask it
A four-row grid on one poor-to-excellent scale. The rows send you to different places: flavor to the recipe, freshness to buying and storage, presentation to plating, temperature to how long the plate waited. Low temperature scores that gather at your busiest hour are about the rush, not the recipe.
How likely are you to order the same dish again?
Why ask it
People return to a place they like and still never reorder a disappointing plate, so a five-point likelihood scale attached to the dish finds the weak items on a popular menu. A dish with good flavor ratings and a low score here often has a price or portion problem.
Was there a dish you hoped to find on our menu and did not?
Why ask it
A yes should lead to a line for the name of the dish. One-off wishes can be left alone, but the replies tend to gather: a lighter plate, something for a child, a meat-free main, a dish you used to serve. Several regulars naming a dish you took off the menu is the cheapest request to grant, because the kitchen already knows how to make it.
How much of your meal did you finish?
Why ask it
All of it, most of it, about half, or less, with a follow-up for anything under 'most': too much food, did not like it, took the rest home. It asks about portion without asking for an opinion, and the plates coming back to the dish station will confirm it. A well-liked dish that is regularly half eaten can be served smaller, possibly at a lower price.
When your delivery arrived, what condition was the food in?
Why ask it
Show it only for delivery orders, with one choice among hot and intact, warm, cold, and spilled or damaged. Ask which item as well, because the answer is rarely about the whole bag. When one dish collects the 'cold' and 'spilled' answers, try it in a different container before blaming the driver.
How closely did the product match what the package led you to expect?
Why ask it
For a food brand: a product can taste fine and still disappoint if the picture showed more fruit or the name promised more heat. Scale it from 'nothing like it' to 'exactly as described' on five points. Follow a low answer with 'What was different?' and send the replies to whoever writes the label.
How does this product compare with the brand you usually buy?
Why ask it
Offer better, about the same, worse and 'I do not usually buy this kind of product', with a line for the brand they had in mind. 'About the same' is the worrying answer for a newcomer on the shelf, because it gives nobody a reason to switch. Ask the people who said better what was better, and note the words they use.
When do you usually eat this product?
Why ask it
The answers do not always match the use printed on the pack, and they bear on pack size and where the product should sit in a store. Make it checkboxes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, on the go, as an ingredient in something else. Anyone who checks 'as an ingredient' should be asked what they make with it.
Diet and allergies
Do you follow any of these ways of eating? Select all that apply.
Why ask it
List vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, halal, kosher, gluten free, dairy free and 'none of these', and set 'none' so it cannot be checked alongside anything else. A kitchen uses the totals to decide how many meals each option has to cover. Add a write-in line, because the names people give their diets change faster than any list.
How often do you choose a meat-free meal when one is offered?
Why ask it
This counts the flexible eaters a diet checklist misses: people who would not call themselves vegetarian and still take the vegetable curry twice a week. Offer never, sometimes, about half the time, usually and always. A caterer who sizes the meat-free option only for declared vegetarians may see it run out, and this is the number that explains why.
Do you have a food allergy?
Why ask it
Offer yes, no and 'prefer not to say'. This is health information, and what you may collect, from whom and with whose permission depends on the school, the employer and the country, so ask whoever is responsible for that before the survey goes out. An anonymous survey can count allergies for menu planning, but it cannot keep one person safe, which takes a separate form with a name on it.
Which of these foods do you need to avoid? Select all that apply.
Why ask it
The allergens that must be declared are set by local rules and differ from place to place, so build the checkboxes from the list that applies to your kitchen. Peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, wheat or gluten, soy, fish, shellfish and sesame are common entries, and an 'Other' line catches the rest. Show the question only to people who reported an allergy or a diet.
Do you avoid that food because of an allergy, an intolerance, a religious or ethical reason, or a preference?
Why ask it
A kitchen treats these differently: a preference needs an alternative on the menu, while an allergy calls for whatever separate handling and labeling your own rules require. Take one answer per food, or one for the main reason. If most people avoiding a food do so by preference, that is a menu finding, not a safety one.
How confident are you that you can find out what is in the food we serve?
Why ask it
Low scores on the five points from not at all confident to completely confident point at labels, menus and the answers staff give, not at recipes, which makes them some of the cheaper problems to fix. Read the replies from people with allergies on their own, since they are the ones who have tried to find out.
In the past month, was there a time you could not find anything here that you could eat?
Why ask it
It finds the vegetarian with one option a week and the person who cannot eat what is served on certain days, both of whom vanish inside an average satisfaction score. After a yes, ask which day it was and what was on offer. When the yes answers cluster on one day of the week, check that day's menu rotation first.
About you
Which grade or year are you in?
Why ask it
Often the only personal detail a school cafeteria survey needs, as a dropdown or a single choice. It shows whether the complaints about portions come from the oldest students. In a small school, a grade plus a rare diet can point to one child, so report small groups together.
How old are you?
Why ask it
Offer ranges that do not overlap, such as under 18, 18 to 24, 25 to 34 and upward, unless the analysis needs exact ages. Surveying anyone under 18 may need a parent's or the school's permission. The rule differs by place and by institution, so ask a teacher or whoever approves research there before collecting a single answer.
How many people live in your household, including you?
Why ask it
A weekly food budget only makes sense per person, so include this whenever you ask about spending, with answers from 1 to '6 or more'. The words 'including you' stop someone who lives alone from answering zero.
Who does most of the food shopping in your household?
Why ask it
I do, I share it, or someone else does. A food brand wants the shopper's view on price and the eater's view on taste, and they are often different people. In a survey of teenagers, expect 'someone else', and read their answers about cost and labels as guesses.
Would you be willing to join a tasting panel for new menu items?
Why ask it
Collect the contact details on a separate page so the rest of the answers stay anonymous, and say what is involved: how long, how often, whether it happens during lunch. Volunteers lean toward people who already like the food, so invite a few critics by hand.
What else would you like us to know about the food?
Why ask it
Leave it optional and put it last. Read every answer once before counting anything, because the problem your questions did not think of appears here: a broken microwave, a dish that runs out by noon, a line that blocks the salad bar. Three people naming the same thing is a finding.
How to build a food survey from these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you write it
Name what the kitchen could change
List what the answers could move: a dish added or dropped, a lunch period lengthened, a recipe made less sweet, the conclusion of a class report. A question that could move none of them comes off the form. Without that list a food survey drifts toward favorite foods, which are pleasant to read and change nothing.
One group is usually the whole survey
Each group here is a survey of its own, written for a different moment. A habits survey asks what people do across a week. A taste test asks about a sample in front of them. A cafeteria or restaurant survey asks about a meal they just had. Take most of your questions from one group, add Diet and allergies only if you will act on it, and close with two or three from About you.
Size it to the moment
A card on a restaurant table has room for about five questions. A taste test should take less time than the sample takes to go cold. A class project can run longer because classmates will sit through it, but every extra page costs you careful answers on the last one. Time yourself filling it in and cut until it feels short.
Children, allergies and permission
Surveys of children, and any question about allergies or health, can come with rules about consent, anonymity and who may see the answers. What applies depends on where you are and on the school or employer, and a class project may need a teacher's or a review board's approval. Settle it with whoever is responsible before those questions are written, not once the answers are in.
Choosing the answer format
Habits get numbers and a time frame
For anything people do, ask for a count inside a period: yesterday, the past seven days, a typical weekday. Offer ranges that cannot overlap. Words such as 'often' and 'regularly' mean something different to each respondent, so two people with the same habit give different answers.
Opinions get a labeled scale
For liking, satisfaction and likelihood, five points are enough, each with a word on it, and the good end should stay on the same side from the first page to the last. Several things judged on one scale, such as taste, variety and speed, fit in a grid. Nine points suit a formal tasting panel. Three faces suit a seven-year-old.
Recipes get 'about right'
When the aim is to adjust a dish, a liking score only says something is wrong. Three options for each attribute (not enough, about right, too much) say which way to move the salt, the sweetness or the portion. Ask overall liking first, then the attributes.
Choices get a short, real list
Single choice when you need a winner, checkboxes with a limit when you need a shortlist, ranking for five or six items at most. List only dishes or products you could really offer, with 'none of these' and an 'Other' line. Where the form can show the dishes in a different order to each person, switch that on, so the top of the list gets no head start.
Open text, two or three times
Open boxes produce the most useful answers and the most work. Put one after a rating to ask why, one for what to change, and one at the very end. More than that and people start leaving them empty.
Running it
Catch people as the meal ends
Feedback on a meal is best collected at the tray return, with the check, or in a message on the day of the delivery. By the next day people remember whether they liked it and little about why. A habits survey has no such clock and can go out in any quiet moment.
Keep a taste test blind
Use identical cups, coded with random three-digit numbers, and the same amount in each. Vary which sample people try first, give water between samples, and keep tasters from talking until they have marked their sheet. Ask about allergies before anyone tastes anything, and have the ingredient list on hand.
Reach the people who do not eat there
A survey handed out in the cafeteria line hears only from the people in the line. Send it to the whole school or workplace, or hand it out in classrooms and break rooms, and use the days-per-week question to separate regulars from everyone else. The people who stopped coming hold the answers a manager most needs.
Try it on one lunch table first
Give the draft to one lunch table, or to five tasters, and watch them fill it in. Where they pause, ask what a word means or mark two boxes on a single-choice question, the wording needs fixing. With children, have them read each question aloud, and replace any word they stumble on, such as 'cuisine' or 'portion'.
Mistakes to avoid
Praising the food in the question
A question that calls the soup 'homemade' or the menu 'new and improved' has voted before the respondent does. Describe the dish the way the menu board does and name both ends of the scale: like or dislike, too little or too much. Questions about health lead the other way: 'Do you eat too much junk food?' tells people which answer is the respectable one.
Two foods in one question
'How were the taste and the price?' collects one score for two things, and a guest who loved the first and resented the second has to pick. The food version of the trap is the combined plate: 'the soup and sandwich', 'fruits and vegetables' when you care about each, 'the food and service'. Give each its own question, or its own row in a grid.
Reading stated habits as measured ones
What people say they eat and what they eat are different records. A survey is good at comparing groups and tracking change over time, and weak at absolute amounts. Where you can, check it against something counted: trays returned, items sold, what is left in the serving pans.
Surveying on pizza day
A cafeteria survey handed out on the most popular day of the menu cycle, or a restaurant card collected only on a quiet Tuesday, describes that day. Run it across a full menu cycle or a full week, and have each form record the date and what was served. Then a bad score can be traced to a dish, not to the kitchen as a whole.