Labelling to be a challenge for next Commission, says consumers representative

*This article is part of a series of interviews on the expectations of all segments of the food supply chain regarding the EU’s agrifood policy for the next mandate.

Taking up pending legislation on agrifood issues will require “political courage” in the next legislature, Agustín Reyna, the newly appointed director general of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), told Euractiv. 

The head of BEUC, an umbrella group for 44 consumer organisations from 31 countries, said the next European Commission will have to deal with the “unfinished business” of the previous executive on food sustainability and tackle “resistance to change” across the supply chain.  

“There is a consumer demand for more sustainable food systems,” said Reyna, who urged the EU to do more to meet these expectations because “the market is not”.  

The starting point, he said, was the Green Deal’s Farm to Fork strategy, which was put together as the bloc’s flagship policy for more environmentally-friendly food but has failed to deliver on several promises. 

Reyna regretted that the current EU executive did not table key elements of the strategy, such as a food systems law and a mandatory bloc-wide nutritional labelling. 

“We are waiting for it,” he said, warning that the increased weight of right-wing parties in the new European Parliament could complicate matters.  

“I am not sure we will get the push that we need [from the Parliament],” he added, pointing to past resistance from conservative groups to speeding up the green transition.  

Difficult compromise

The EU executive’s pledge to harmonise nutritional food labelling across the bloc has been one of the missing pieces of the Farm to Fork strategy and is high on BEUC’s list of priorities for the next mandate.  

A 2020 Commission study found that Nutri-score – a colour-coded scheme that ranks foods according to their nutritional value – was the best placed candidate to inspire the EU-wide model, but no proposal has been made.  

Reyna said European consumers need such a system, but the traffic light label faces strong opposition from several member states.  

Another open debate at the EU level is the labelling of alcoholic drinks, with two expected proposals on nutritional information and health warnings also failing to get off the ground

While the alcohol industry sees digital labels as a good solution for providing consumer information, Reyna warned of the drawbacks of QR codes. 

“Imagine yourself going to a supermarket and scanning every single product,” he said, adding that unpacking information through websites takes more time and could be difficult for those without a smartphone or digital skills.  

Another open question is the possible extension of mandatory origin labelling to more foodstuffs, as a group of EU countries recently asked the European Commission to come up with a proposal on the matter. 

The EU currently only requires origin labelling for certain products, such as eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables, honey, olive oil, and certain types of meat.   

Reyna backed the member states’ push, saying that at least meat and milk used as ingredients in processed foods should be included in such a proposal. 

Re-shaping the food chain 

The alleged unfair distribution of costs and benefits in the food chain was one of the key themes in the wave of farmers’ protests across the bloc earlier this year, a concern that BEUC says is shared by consumers.  

“Different actors in supply chains (…) take a bigger slice of the cake and that means that costs are being passed on to consumers, leading to very high prices on the supermarket shelves.” 

Reyna acknowledged that it may be difficult to pinpoint which actors – food producers, processors, retailers or logistics – are to blame for excessive profits but urged the EU to look at margins and tackle concentration in the sector.  

“[Companies] gain a lot of political power (…) there is a lot of resistance to change the way they operate [and] that creates a very difficult landscape to navigate in the next Commission,” he said.  

Hopes on 

The goal of having more sustainable food systems, Reyna said, will be a key challenge in the coming years because “the transition will cost money”. 

For him, the issue must be at the heart of the Commission’s “strategic dialogue”, an initiative bringing together agri-food stakeholders and due to deliver conclusions by the end of the summer.  

“[It] is already a very good signal from the Commission to bring everybody to the table,” Reyna said, adding that the big question is how the dialogue will be translated into action in the next mandate. 

For BEUC, the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy should be revised to prevent subsidies from going to the most polluting activities.  

Reyna said the EU needs to do more to structure markets and influence price formation in a way that favours the most sustainable options.  

But “that requires a lot of political courage”.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Zoran Radosavljevic] 

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