One of our focuses of the last years has been the health impact of foods high in fat, sugar, and salt (HFSS foods), which has been linked by consistent scientific evidence to negative health outcomes, including higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), obesity, or poor mental health. This is why SAFE has raised concerns about the need for stricter rules regarding the marketing of these unhealthy foods, especially in food products directly marketed to children, as reflected in our report “HFSS Food Marketing Targeting Children”, which will be distributed at our Annual Conference. Measures taken on the national level in several member states — such as restrictions on TV and online promotions, bans on celebrity endorsements, or product placement in supermarkets — provide a good blueprint for what should be a more comprehensive EU regulation on the marketing of these food products.
Transparency and clarity in food labelling are essential for consumers to be able to make free, informed choices, as stated in the first point of our manifesto for the 2024 European elections.
SAFE has repeatedly voiced concerns that many of the valuable promises of the Farm to Fork strategy, designed to improve consumer protection and the sustainability of our food systems, have been left unfulfilled. Such is the case of the announced regulations on pesticides, the Nature Restoration Law, or the Green Claims Directive, regrettably left hanging when it was set for final approval, and which we hope to be as soon as possible.
For us, any claims, green or other, made by products marketed in Europe must be substantiated on real, independent data. At our Annual Conference, we will address the incorrect use of the term ‘natural’ in food marketing, a widespread practice we uncovered during our field work analysing supermarket products across Europe in 2020, that has led to years of advocacy work.
We believe that food products misleadingly sold as “natural” are in breach of the principles inspiring the current Food Information to Consumers legislation, which stipulates that food information should not mislead consumers about the food’s nature, identity, properties, or composition. This is why SAFE launched its campaign “We Value True Natural” — to inform the consumers about these practices and to call for more specific legislation to protect them. The European Court of Auditors also supports the view that the use of such terminology constitutes misleading product names. This is particularly serious according to the Court, because there is an increasing number of voluntary labels and claims used to advertise products with attractive messages, such as illustrations of fruit, or claims of “natural” or “no additives”.
As the Court, SAFE believes that the European Commission should put an end to these improper and misleading practices.
Consumers demand this, as clearly shown by our survey: only 33% of them believe that all necessary information is provided on food labels and almost 9 in 10 believe that a product containing synthetic ingredients cannot be considered “natural”. These results come from the European Consumer Survey, based on a sample of 1,000 people from each of the 5 biggest EU countries, commissioned by SAFE as a part of our campaign. Our Annual Conference will highlight some of these findings.
Another focus of our work is the promotion of good dietary habits, because of their long-term impact on health. SAFE coordinates the EU4Health-funded Preventia project to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and reduce health inequalities. At our Annual Conference, we will present one of the results of the project: our new food scanning app BiteWatch, a tool to empower consumers to make healthier food choices through better food literacy.
BiteWatch displays nutritional information like levels of salt, sugar, and saturated fat, as well as details on additives, degree of processing, and whether the product is vegan or vegetarian. It offers options allowing consumers to create their dietary profiles and see how well a product aligns with their needs and health goals, through a matching score out of 100%. This app helps users easily discover what’s in their food and make more informed food choices. BiteWatch will be available for iPhone and Android in all EU member states, initially in English, Spanish, French, Dutch and Italian.
Another core activity of SAFE’s work in the last years is food waste reduction, also on the programme of our Annual Conference. Cutting EU food waste by half would feed all 37 million Europeans facing food insecurity. This was the logic behind SAFE’s food distribution network, which supplied 140 people in need with donated food, every week for four years, and the reason why we analysed and compared the legal frameworks and obstacles in the way of food donations, across 26 EU countries and compiled them in our report “Food Donation in the EU: State of Art, Barriers, and Perspectives”.
We will disseminate the results of two EU Horizon-funded projects SAFE is a part of, beginning with ZeroW, which will present practical recommendations for food waste reduction regarding consumers, farmers, urban environments, governance, and short food supply chains, based on the innovations and insights ZeroW developed in different EU countries. SAFE is the coordinator of all activities aimed at designing these policy recommendations.
We will then move on to SISTERS, also designing innovations to reduce food loss and food waste in the main stages of the food value chain, with contributions to primary producers, through a new platform to promote direct, short chain sales, new technological innovations in packaging in the processing and retail stages, and awareness campaigns for retailers and consumers on food loss and food waste. SISTERS will deliver 80 practice abstracts by the end of the project, next year. These innovations have the potential to reduce food loss and waste by 27.4% and CO2 emissions by around 20%.
In September, SAFE welcomed the EU’s first binding food loss and waste reduction targets, to be applied nationally by 31 December 2030. We view this legislation as the basis for more ambitious mandatory targets after 2030 and we are proud of our contribution to the fight against food loss and waste in Europe.
The morning session will conclude with a workshop dedicated to the GI-SMART project, focusing on products with Geographical Indications (GIs). The aim of the project is to make GIs more sustainable, and SAFE’s contribution is to provide the consumer perspective: studying the communication and perception of the sustainability and quality of these products. Through workshops and interactive activities, SAFE is committed to making the value of GIs more visible and recognised by European citizens.
Finally, we will address food contact materials and sustainability in packaging, highlighting our R3PACK project — Reduce, Reuse, Rethink packaging. For years, SAFE has raised concerns about the hazards posed by chemicals contained in food and drink packaging. At R3PACK, we have worked to develop safe, sustainable packaging options.
The main aspects of R3PACK will be addressed, such as plastic substitution through fiber-based packaging, reusable plastic packaging, including the life-cycle assessment (LCA), and future perspectives on sustainable packaging and food contact materials. We will look at the insights from consumers drawn from this three-year project.
Europe’s food system is facing serious challenges in the present European mandate. SAFE’s mission is to identify them and work for the protection of consumers and the environment in EU legislation.
Our Annual Conference will embody that work.
