Alongside the EU’s Farm-to-Fork (F2F) strategy, the Commission has issued its long-awaited report into front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FOP), otherwise known as “additional forms of expression and presentation of the nutrition declaration” which provides an overview of different approaches to nutrition labelling across the EU and globally.

The report finds that the use of different FOP schemes in the internal market could result in certain costs for businesses as well as consumer confusion and lack of trust. Therefore, the Commission intends to develop a clear political roadmap towards a single, harmonised labelling scheme and will propose to introduce a mandatory FOP nutrition labelling scheme at EU-level. Despite discussing various models, including Nutri-score, the report does not favour any specific FOP scheme.

The Commission has written to stakeholder organisations to inform that discussions have started with EU member states on the establishment of Maximum Limits (MLs) in foods (MLs discussions have already been finalised for infant foods).

Additionally the Commission has started a review of the benchmark levels for acrylamide which are listed under Regulation (EU) 2018/2157. The review will look at the descriptions of the food categories, potential for lowering of existing values, and may also consider the setting of additional regulatory (benchmark and/or MLs) for food categories not yet covered by the Regulation.

The Commission intends to hold a discussion with EU member states on this topic as part of the next meeting of the working group on industrial and environmental contaminants scheduled for 19 June 2020.

The European Commission unveiled this month the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) to make Europe cleaner and more competitive. This new plan aims to “transform the way products are made and empower consumers to make sustainable choices” according to Frans Timmermans, the Commission’s vice-president in charge of overseeing the European Green Deal.

Packaging will be one of the “Key products value chain” targeted by the plan. Building on the Commission’s objective that all packaging on the EU market has to be reusable or recyclable by 2030, the Commission is planning to reinforce the mandatory essential requirements for packaging and will focus on reducing (over)packaging and packaging waste.

Tighter waste and recycling laws are also central to the CEAP, with new targets due to be presented as part of a broader revision of EU waste rules. The Commission plans to enhance the implementation of the recently adopted requirements for extended producer responsibility schemes (EPR) and propose to harmonise separate waste collection systems. A new EU-wide target on food waste reduction is also mentioned as part of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy.

The European Snacks Association will closely monitor the implementation of this new plan and promote when needed the views of the sector. A number of accompanying documents to the action plan can be found on the Commission’s website here.

The ESA’s 2019 annual activity report is now available for download by clicking here

Building on the new format we developed last year, this report focuses primarily on the key milestones for the association in 2019, also covering briefly the most important issues dealt with in the different working groups.
Printed copies are of course available on demand to the secretariat.

We would like to thank you again for your support and involvement. We look forward to another year of fruitful collaboration to make our industry and your business succeed!

The World Bank published in February a comprehensive report titled “Obesity: Health and Economic Consequences of an Impeding Global Challenge” looking at the health and economic consequences of obesity.

The report identifies regulatory measures for the prevention of overweight and obesity, including strong fiscal measures, warning labels and FOP nutrition labelling, interventions in food systems, marketing and advertising restrictions and interventions “to build awareness of unhealthy ingredients used in food processing”. The report presents case studies of national programmes and policies implemented around the world.

The authors put forward the specific role of the institution and the tools at its disposal to encourage governments to adopt the recommended measures such as “results-based financing instruments as well as investment lending”. Additional resources (infographic, podcast, blog and press release) can be found here.