This article aims to explore the consumer perceptions and preferences for sustainability in food production and food labels through interactive workshops conducted in the UK, Ireland, and Denmark. The researchers find that consumers lack necessary information to assess the sustainability of food products. Consumers in this study said that food retailers and producers must take more responsibility for providing public information and awareness campaigns. 

The Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection to the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture has just released an English version of a report on promoting more sustainable food consumption. The report, originally published in 2020 in German, defines policies that integrate consideration of four areas: human health, social aspects, the environment (including climate) and animal welfare. It focuses on designing food environments to support consumers in choosing healthy, sustainable diets.

Europe’s imports of palm oil are decreasing while the region remains a top market for sustainable palm oil, according to this report which is targeted at Europe-based retailers and manufacturers of palm oil products. The report sets out how industry users of palm oil in Europe can strengthen the sustainable palm oil movement globally, including: improving traceability in their supply chains; committing to sustainable sourcing policies; joining a sustainable palm oil initiative; using certification schemes; and joining landscape-based sustainability initiatives.

This paper, co-authored by TABLE community member Hayo van der Werf, discusses which environmental issues, data, methods, formats and so on should be used in the environmental labelling of food in France. The motivation for the paper was to consider how the French government’s recent requirements to introduce environmental food labelling can provide relevant information that is feasible to gather.

This report from Friends of Ocean Action, FishWise, Global Fishing Watch and the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions discusses how seafood providers can use data to avoid illegal, unregulated or unreported fishing. It describes the first phase of the development of a “Supply Chain Risk Tool” that gathers data on fishing fleets and vessels from multiple sources and identifies potential risks.

The UK’s Food Standards Agency has released the results of its “Food and You 2”, a biannual survey of consumer knowledge, attitudes and behaviours related to food safety in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The survey was conducted between April and June 2021, and hence records food behaviours linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This feature in The Guardian newspaper profiles the work of Oritain, a firm that assesses whether the geographical origins of products such as tea, fish, beef, apples, cotton and wool match the claims made on their labels. This is possible because regions often have unique ratios of elements, which can then be detected in the product. The feature discusses how the technology has been used to detect fraud, as well as its limitations with regards to the environmental or social impacts of production.

A pilot of environmental labelling on selected food products is launching in the UK in September 2021. The aim of the pilot is to test consumer responses ahead of a roll-out across the UK and European Union in 2022. The scheme is run by UK non-profit Foundation Earth and supported by supermarkets and food brands including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Co-op Food, Nestlé and Tyson Foods. 

This study explores why people choose to either see or avoid carbon emissions information when choosing a protein source, and the influence that seeing this information has on product choices. The study is based on an online survey where people were asked to make a hypothetical choice between a range of protein sources.