2015-06 4th EU Specialty Food Ingredients annual Forum on Sustainability in the specialty food ingredients sector

The morning session was open to external speakers and brought together representatives of the European Commission (DG SANTE), of Brewers of Europe, of the Water Footprint Network and of the European Food Information Council (EUFIC). This was the occasion to hear about the European Union’s initiatives to tackle food waste and how the Water FootPrint can help towards global sustainability. Brewers of Europe gave the state of play of the Beer PEF pilot and highlighted the opportunities for the manufacturers of specialty food ingredients. EUFIC reported on the results of a pan-European study on consumer motivation, understanding and use of sustainability labels on food products. The scientific publication is available here. 

EU Specialty Food Ingredients members debated in the afternoon how to address the challenges of sustainability applied to the EU specialty food ingredients industries. Starch Europe presented the approach of the starch industry to LCA & PCRs, a particular case in so that it provides both final products and intermediate products/ingredients, and explained how this fits into the wide range of their ongoing LCA work. DuPont presented the actions of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange SEDEX in matter of responsible sourcing program.

Dr Mikkel Thrane, Chair of the EU Specialty Food Ingredients Sustainability Group and moderator of this year’s Forum, closed this inspiring and insightful day and invited the participants to join the Forum next year in order to continue working together to address the sustainability challenges.