Morning Consult recently released its first annual list of The 25 Most Trusted Brands in America, and five food brands made the cut.
Respondents were asked, “How much do you trust each brand to do what is right?” and given five levels of response to choose from: A lot, some, not much, not at all, and don’t know. The resulting rankings were determined by brands’ percentage of “a lot” responses. The ranking was determined by an average of 16,700 interviews per brand for nearly 2,000 total brands. Morning Consult’s Brand Intelligence conducted the survey, with the group noting it was the largest study of its kind to-date.
Given that methodology, respondents chose Hershey as the leading trusted food brand at seventh overall (36.1 percent). Cheerios was at ninth (35.9 percent), followed by M&M’s at 10th (34.8 percent) and then Heinz (32.7 percent) and Campbell’s (32.7 percent) tying for 21st.
USPS was picked as respondents’ most trusted brand overall, with 42 percent saying the trust the postal service “a lot”. Amazon was second (38.8 percent), followed by Google (37.9 percent), PayPal (36.5 percent) and The Weather Channel (36.3 percent) to round out the top five.
The survey also tracked responses by age bracket:
- Gen X respondents’ results included eight food brands in their top 25, with Kellogg’s, Betty Crocker and Coca-Cola making the cut in addition to the aforementioned five.
- Millennials’ results included six food brands in the top 25, though none in the top 11 and only one in the top 18. Gatorade led Millennials’ brand rankings at No. 12
- Baby Boomers’ rankings included seven food brands in the top 25 and they valued them the highest, with four food brands included in their top nine.
- Gen Z Adults’ rankings included six food brands, with only one in their top 15, led by Gatorade at No. 10.
