As a recognition of ESA’s constructive engagement with DG SANTE along the years and more recently with the EU Code of Conduct for Responsible Food Business and Marketing Practices, ESA was granted a seat in the new Advisory Group on Sustainability of Food Systems (AGSFS).

The purpose of the group is to consult stakeholders in an open and transparent way during the preparation, revision and evaluation of EU food legislation. The AGSFS will replace the existing Advisory Group on the food chain and animal and plant health, and will now include issues relating to the implementation of the Farm to Fork Strategy and food systems’ sustainability in general.

Members are appointed for a period of  five years. The first meeting will take place in Autumn 2022.

#FoodFuture is a public conversation to engage European citizens, policymakers, NGOs, academics, and the industry in a constructive dialogue about the future of our food. The monthly email feature is sent across the FoodDrinkEurope network to thousands of relevant stakeholders in Brussels and beyond.

Our Public Affairs and Communications Manager, Olivier Devaux, participated in the latest edition to explain how the savoury snacks industry is navigating the challenges to reformulating products and delivering more nutritious offerings to consumers. Check out the video interviews here and here.

The ESA’s 2021 annual activity report is now available for download here.

The report focuses primarily on the key milestones for the association in 2021 and briefly covers the most important issues dealt with in the different working groups. As in previous reports, we have made it neat and concise for you and our stakeholders to read through!

The European Snacks Association (ESA) has co-signed a cross-industry position paper calling upon European legislators to provide a progressive and forward-looking definition of packaging recyclability. The paper has been shared with key representatives of the European Commission working on the revision of the Packaging & Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD) which will be published in Q1 2022 before undergoing the usual legislative process.

The Commission wants to push forward measures to prevent packaging waste on the one hand; and promote the reuse, recycling, and other forms of recovering of packaging waste on the other hand. In this context, the question of the definition of recyclability is a critical one for flexible packaging. A narrowed definition could result in most flexible packaging not being considered as recyclable.

In order to improve the circularity of this type of packaging and incentivise innovation, the letter calls for a forward-looking definition of recyclability. The paper also advocates for the CEFLEX design for recycling guidelines for flexible packaging to be referenced in the PPWD.

The Code of Conduct for Responsible Business and Marketing Practices is one of the first deliverables of the Farm to Fork Strategy and an integral part of its action plan. It sets out the actions that the actors ‘between the farm and the fork’, such as food processors, food service operators and retailers, can voluntarily commit to undertake to tangibly improve and communicate their sustainability performance. You can find here the final version of the Code.

ESA has been involved in this process since the beginning of the process and actively took part in one of the three thematic sessions (Promoting consumption patterns for healthy and sustainable diets). Building on this work and with a view to further demonstrate the sector’s ambition to contribute to the transition towards more sustainable food systems, the ESA Board approved the signature of the Code at its meeting of 15 June. The Code will be formally launched during a high-level “celebratory” event on Monday 5 July.

The secretariat has identified with the help of members several aspirational commitments inspired by the Code’s objectives and will ask for members’ inputs on a yearly basis to produce the mandatory monitoring report, reflecting what members have achieved and illustrated by concrete examples.