After many postponements, the European Commission intends to present on 22 March the proposal for a Regulation on the substantiation of environmental claims by means of the environmental footprint of the product/organisation (green claims) to combat ‘greenwashing’. The proposal, announced since 2020 was previously expected on 30 November 2022 as part of the second ‘Circular Economy’ package.

As part of its efforts to explain the benefits of food processing, FoodDrinkEurope (FDE) published recently a position paper on “ultra-processed foods”. The paper is complemented by a comprehensive Q&A on food processing on their website. For more content on this topic, you can also consult a series of insightful articles about the benefits of processed foods here.

Beginning of December, Eurostat published its 2022 edition of the key figures on the European food chain, providing a selection of recent data from the domains of agriculture and fisheries statistics, as well as the wider farm to fork chain, with intuitive visualisations and innovative data presentations.

The publication is divided into ten chapters, providing facts and figures about farms, farmers, farm production and prices, the economic performance of the agricultural sector, fisheries activities, food and beverages processing, trade, distribution, wholesale activities and the consumption of food and beverages. It concludes with a chapter on environmental issues related to some of the stages of the food chain.

Before summer, FoodDrinkEurope (FDE) welcomed over 600 people to its #FoodFuture IDEAS Festival in Brussels. On topics such as nutrition and healthy living, climate change and sustainable packaging, FDE welcomed 25 inspiring speakers from the European Commission, environmental organisations, consumer organisations, young innovators, leading researchers as well as industry representatives – including ESA’s Director General, Sebastian Emig.

Sebastian delivered a speech focusing on the gap we often see between consumers’ expectations and their actual behaviour (healthy vs. tasty?) while highlighting the sector’s efforts and achievements in terms of product innovation and the development of “better-for-you” options on the market. This was a great occasion to share ESA’s key messages on nutrition and health.

If you haven’t yet seen it, we invite you to watch Sebastian’s TEDEX style talk of 10 minutes here! You can also have access to all the other sessions here.