Lessons learned from the national household food acquisition and purchase survey in the United States

- A food diary survey needs to account for the local diversity of food products.
- To understand food demand in the U.S., one must account for food obtained for free.
- Information about the local food environment can add substantial value to research.
- More attention is needed on the trade-offs between data needs and response burden.
- Matching survey data to administrative sources is beneficial but also difficult.

The National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey conducted in 2012 (FoodAPS-1) was an ambitious survey of Americans' food acquisitions sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The survey was challenging due to its goals of collecting comprehensive acquisition information and including data from extant sources to broaden the survey's research capabilities. Some challenges were foreseen, and efforts were taken to overcome them through survey design features. Other challenges came as a surprise. This paper shares the experiences of the authors and others at USDA with survey design, survey implementation, and post-survey processing of data to ensure the availability of high-quality data to the research community. Lessons from FoodAPS-1 can inform similar future data collections both in the U.S. and abroad.