Engagement on EU legislative Framework for Sustainable Food Systems

 EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents encour­ages the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion to keep the momen­tum on sus­tain­able food sys­tems 

EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents, the voice of the Euro­pean spe­cial­ty food ingre­di­ents indus­try, notes that the Frame­work for Sus­tain­able Food Sys­tems (FSFS) leg­isla­tive pro­pos­al is not includ­ed in the 2024 Euro­pean Com­mis­sion work­ing pro­gramme pub­lished on 17th Octo­ber. EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents empha­sis­es that even with the cur­rent Euro­pean Com­mis­sion not propos­ing an FSFS, the food indus­try con­tin­ues on its path towards build­ing more sus­tain­able and resilient food sys­tems as it clear­ly sees the advan­tages of the FSFS and sup­ports its aims. 

EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents calls for con­tin­u­ous insti­tu­tion­al engage­ment towards a ripe EU leg­isla­tive frame­work that sup­ports indus­try to con­tribute to a more inno­v­a­tive and sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-based sus­tain­able food sys­tem. 

To this end, EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents also recalls that the pro­pos­al’s core objec­tive was to pro­mote pol­i­cy coher­ence at the EU and nation­al lev­el, and main­stream, at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el, sus­tain­abil­i­ty in all food-relat­ed poli­cies strength­en­ing the resilience of food sys­tems. 

As a trade asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing the inter­ests of a high­ly inno­v­a­tive indus­try, EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents has, as part of its mis­sion, to ensure recog­ni­tion of the impor­tance of inno­va­tion and of the role of spe­cial­ty ingre­di­ents in sus­tain­able diets and food sup­ply chains, as well as their con­tri­bu­tion to food waste pre­ven­tion. Thus, it advo­cates for a sci­en­tif­ic risk-based approach to all mea­sures that the EU Com­mis­sion intends to com­plete by the cur­rent man­date and in the future as they impact the via­bil­i­ty and com­pet­i­tive­ness of the EU food indus­try. 

“We con­sid­er a con­ducive reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work essen­tial to inno­va­tion, devel­op­ment and time­ly access to mar­ket,” says Geert Maes­mans, Pres­i­dent of EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents. “These ele­ments are crit­i­cal dri­vers for the tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able food sys­tems, from pri­ma­ry pro­duc­tion to con­sump­tion and, in our opin­ion, will help achieve the EU’s envi­ron­men­tal, social and eco­nom­ic objec­tives. There­fore, an EU-com­mon, sci­ence-based frame­work is cru­cial.” 

While acknowl­edg­ing that there is ‘no one size fits all’ solu­tion, Geert Maes­mans goes on to say that the impor­tance of increas­ing the resilience of the EU sup­ply chain and fos­ter­ing con­struc­tive inter­ac­tions with the food indus­try can­not be neglect­ed, includ­ing when devel­op­ing the sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion which is cru­cial to suc­cess­ful­ly accom­pa­ny the EU food indus­try in the Sus­tain­able Food Sys­tems jour­ney, as well as in pro­vid­ing the instru­ments to react and swift­ly adjust to social changes and mar­ket cri­sis. 

EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents is also keen to help the EU leg­is­la­tors estab­lish clear, ambi­tious, real­is­tic and mea­sur­able objec­tives and roadmaps that will enable food sup­ply chain stake­hold­ers to devel­op their own plans with a clear direc­tion on the road towards a Fed­er­a­tion of Euro­pean Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents Indus­tries Avenue de Ter­vuren 13 A – Box 7 – 1040 Brus­sels Phone: + 32 2 736 53 54 – info@specialtyfoodingredients.eu – www.specialtyfoodingredients.eu © EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents 2023 This pub­li­ca­tion is strict­ly reserved to mem­bers. Dis­tri­b­u­tion to any oth­er nat­ur­al or legal per­son with­out pri­or per­mis­sion from the author is an infringe­ment of copy­right. 

“In con­clu­sion, EU Spe­cial­ty Food Ingre­di­ents hopes that putting on hold the Frame­work Leg­is­la­tion will trans­late into an occa­sion to fur­ther reflect on the leg­isla­tive mea­sures to suc­ceed in the EU’s ambi­tions towards a sus­tain­able, inno­v­a­tive and resilient EU food sys­tem, and it aims that this time will be con­struc­tive­ly used to give the oppor­tu­ni­ty to the EU food sup­ply stake­hold­ers to be more involved into the leg­isla­tive draft­ing of the frame­work pro­pos­al and the sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion,” says Geert Maes­mans. 

We thank the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion for the oppor­tu­ni­ties we have had to exchange and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to do so.