OFA recently led a joint initiative called the Food Literacy Attitude and Awareness Research Project to take a pulse on the current state of food literacy. The project surveyed three distinct groups of Ontario consumers – parents with children at home, teenagers aged 13-17, and millennials aged 18-26 who are living on their own. OFA worked together with an advisory committee including the Nutrition Resource Centre of the Ontario Public Health Association, the Ontario Home Economics Association, AgScape, and Farm and Food Care Ontario. The project measured the current level of food literacy among the three groups to develop baseline data, and gain insights to guide future programs, resources and information.

Two focus groups gathered qualitative information, and an online survey with 1,003 consumers collected quantitative information on local food, meal planning, purchasing, preparation and consumption in the home, and sources of information.