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3.3 EU guidelines on food certification

To ensure healthy, accessible and sustainable nutrition for Europeans, the EU has established Guidelines
on best practices for voluntary certification schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs . Although
1
some certification schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs concern compliance with mandatory
standards, these guidelines deal specifically with voluntary certification schemes. These are designed to
ensure certain levels of quality in terms of taste, colour and smell as well as, for example, environmental
factors, animal welfare and fair trade. The guidelines aim to make these voluntary certification schemes
more effective:

• indicating best practices;
• clarifying the requirements of the schemes;
• increasing market opportunities and reducing costs for farmers and producers;
• protecting the responsibility and reputation of wholesalers and retailers concerning the product and
label claims;
• providing consumers with reliable and trustworthy information about the product;
• ensuring compliance with EU internal market rules, in particular about anti-competitive behaviour.

The guidelines indicate that while schemes may be developed by expert groups, they should be structured
in such a way as to encourage the participation of all interested parties, i.e. producers, farmers, public
authorities, interest groups and customers.

The schemes should have the following characteristics:

• certification must be carried out by an independent body;
• regular inspections of scheme participants should be carried out, adopting clear criteria and checklists;
• thresholds for penalties should be determined with clear procedures for dealing with non-compliance;
• feedback mechanisms must be in place, with continued participation in future development.

The EU will work with non-member countries and international actors to support a global move towards
sustainable food systems, including by proposing mandatory harmonised nutrition labelling on the front of
the pack and developing a sustainable food labelling framework covering the nutritional, climate,
environmental and social aspects of food products

Also, €10 billion will be allocated under Horizon Europe to invest in R&I related to food, the bio-economy,
natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, aquaculture and the environment. CAP farm advisory services and
the Farm Sustainability Data Network will be essential to assist farmers in moving towards a more
“sustainable” agriculture. A sustainable food labelling framework will facilitate consumer choice and
ensure a competitive advantage for European farmers.

1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/?uri=legissum:030301_1