People want to change, but don’t follow through. At first glance, the explanation seems simple. It’s easy to assume that consumers lack knowledge, but what we find is the opposite. Consumers do broadly understand what a healthy diet looks like.

By taking a closer look at the data, we can identify underlying structural barriers. This is where the scale of the dataset becomes critical. When we segment the data, by age, income, or attitudes, a more nuanced picture emerges.

The main barrier to adopting healthier food habits is not a lack of knowledge. Consumers actually struggle most to break existing habits and grapple with budget constraints. Social norms are another influential barrier; 63% of people aged 18-34 cite the people around them as a barrier to dietary change. Whereas among the 55+ age group, only 36% experience this barrier.

Younger Europeans stand out as the group most motivated to change their diets. They are more open to dietary change, more engaged with sustainability, and more willing to experiment with new foods. However, they are also the least able to act.

The data shows that younger consumers face stronger barriers: tighter budgets, habits and lower cooking confidence. In other words, the group most ready to change is also the most constrained. They need to be supported with resources to build confidence in their cooking abilities and access to convenient, affordable healthy options.

Affordability is one of the most consistent barriers to healthy food choices, particularly for younger and lower-income consumers. Here too, the data points to a more complex reality.

There is a real affordability challenge, but healthy food also faces a perception problem. Consumers often associate healthy and sustainable food with premium, expensive products. Yet many staple foods that support both health and sustainability, such as lentils, beans, and chickpeas, remain among the most affordable options available.

This disconnect highlights how perceptions are shaped. Pricing matters, but so do product placement, promotions, and marketing cues. What is presented as “normal” or “extra-healthy” has a powerful influence on whether consumer believe they can afford healthy food.

One of the most discussed findings in the latest data is the decline in consumer interest in sustainable eating. On the surface, this can look like disengagement.

If we interrogate the data, a different story emerges. A strong majority of consumers (69%) still say living sustainably is important to them. Environmental awareness remains high. Sustainability is losing out to more immediate concerns: affordability, health, and convenience.

Consumers continue to treat “healthy” and “sustainable” as separate types of food choice. Models like the Planetary Health Diet show conclusively that what is good for the planet is, broadly, also good for the body: a diet that reduces your cancer risk also tends to reduce your carbon footprint

This suggests that the “decline” is not a rejection of sustainability, but a signal that it is not being translated into choices that feel relevant, accessible, or actionable in everyday life. By aligning sustainability messaging with consumer’s health priorities, we can simplify their decision-making process.

The value of this dataset is not just in identifying problems, but in enabling deeper analysis. We can track how attitudes evolve over time, compare behaviours across countries, and identify where interventions are most likely to succeed. For industry, policymakers, and researchers, this opens up a more precise question: not “why aren’t consumers changing?”, but “under what conditions do they change and how can those conditions be scaled?”

The headline remains clear: Europe wants to eat better. That desire is consistent, widespread, and resilient over time. The gap between intention and action is not a failure of consumers, but a reflection of the systems around them.

The data gives us something valuable: not just evidence of that gap, but insight into its drivers, its variations, and its potential solutions. The next step is to use that insight to design food environments, products, and narratives that make healthier and more sustainable choices the easy, obvious, and desirable ones.

The full first chapter of this year’s Trust Report is free to access now on EIT Food’s website. Click here to read the full report.