The European Commission adopted the 'Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system' on 20 May 2020, as part of the European Green Deal. This strategy aims to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of the EU food system and facilitate the shift to healthy and sustainable diets. The strategy targets the entire food chain and envisages to further empower consumers through labelling information. A Commission report on front-of-pack nutrition labelling was accompanying the Farm to Fork Strategy in May 2020.

The objective of establishing front-of-pack nutrition labelling is to improve consumers’ understanding of the nutritional value of foods, as well as stimulating food reformulation towards healthier foods and facilitating consumers’ healthier food choices. EU measures in the food information area would reduce market fragmentation and facilitate a harmonised single market with incentives for healthy and sustainable food across the whole EU. The increased harmonisation may be in particular beneficial for SMEs as they would not need to comply anymore with different national labelling schemes (such as the Nutri-Score or the Keyhole) and could apply the same front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme across the EU.

A roadmap was open for feedback from December 2020 to February 2021. A public consultation, opened in December 2021, was open until 7 March 2022. The Commission should adopt its proposal in the fourth quarter of 2022.

References:

• European Commission, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council regarding the use of additional forms of expression and presentation of the nutrition declaration, May 2020
• European Commission, Timeline of Farm to Fork actions, April 2022
• European Commission, Food labelling - revision of rules on information provided to consumers, roadmap
• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the provision of food information to consumers

Further reading:

• European Parliament, EPRS, Nutrition labelling schemes used in Member States, Briefing, July 2020

Author: Tarja Laaninen, Members' Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu