News
20 May 2020

SNE welcomes the publication today of the European Commission Farm to Fork strategy

Brussels, 20th May 2020: SNE welcomes the publication today of the European Commission Farm to Fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system.

Specialised Nutrition Europe (SNE), the voice of the specialised nutrition industry in Europe, is committed to addressing today’s global challenges and improving European consumers’ health and environment. We therefore welcome the ‘Farm to Fork Strategy’, and we are pleased to acknowledge that this Farm to Fork strategy is putting health at the core of European policies: for healthy people, healthy societies and a healthy planet.

We also welcome the European ambition to develop “policies that help raise standards globally”. This will help to ensure sustainability is achieved across the entire value chain, and will also ensure a level-playing field for European manufacturers.

Our sector is providing foods to consumers with specific nutritional needs, including to the most vulnerable ones such as infants, young children and people with medical conditions. We have always made a top priority to deliver safe and high-quality nutritious food complying with particularly strict standards.

Beyond this, our sector is well-placed in the development of industry practices and initiatives to ensure the sustainability of specialised nutrition products. As examples, and without compromising high safety and quality standards, companies under SNE umbrella are increasingly favouring locally sourced ingredients, are more and more using alternatives to chemical pesticides and are growingly making use of sustainable packaging. They are also purchasing gradually more organically farmed and processed raw materials and are investing to minimise the use of resources (including the re-use of water and energy on production sites or to achieve/ tend to a zero-waste facility).

SNE President Prof. Udo Herz explains: “Our sector is also at the forefront of innovation in nutritional science. This is a pre-requisite to respond to the specific nutritional needs of consumers, as well as to maintain our ranking as the 3rd biggest agri-food exporter in Europe. We are committed to the continued development of innovative solutions to offer more sustainable products to consumers while guaranteeing high quality and safety standards”,

We look forward to working together with European decision-makers and stakeholders to facilitate the transition to a sustainable and healthy Europe, to ensure the technical feasibility of the proposed measures and to guarantee that the proposed measures are answering to the set goals, i.e. “respond positively to Europeans’ aspirations for healthy, equitable and environmentally-friendly food”, without compromising food safety.

For more information on our contribution to the European Green Deal, please consult our position HERE.

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