UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe

Ready for FoodDrinkEurope's Food Drink Partnership Days?

Over the next few days, Brussels will dive into the key challenges and opportunities shaping Europe’s food systems.

🗓️ 24-27 February
📌 Bump - Policy Experience Space - Rue du Luxembourg 26, Brussels

👉 luma.com/fooddrinkeur...

🔎 Explore our sector’s socio-economic footprint across Europe 👉 unesda.eu/our-industry...

At the same time, we need policies that not only promote fairness across the entire food value chain but also encourage food innovation by removing unjustified regulatory barriers, such as the 30% energy reduction rule limiting the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners.

➡️ Our sector can keep innovating and fostering growth for Europe if clear, coherent and evidence-based policies are in place.

With 500+ production sites across the continent, our sector produces more than 97% of our soft drinks here in Europe, where we support over 1.8 million jobs and generate €242bn in revenues throughout our supply chain.

➡️ Herrljunga Drycker is a key local player driving Europe’s competitiveness, just like the rest of our sector.

Herrljunga Drycker is a Swedish beverage company based in Herrljunga, in the heart of Västra Götalandm, since 1911.

🎥 Watch Johan Branmark, CEO of Herrljunga Drycker, talk about the company’s local roots and its contribution to the competitiveness of Sweden. ⬆️

YouTube video by UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Our Sector Matters: Step into Herrljunga Drycker, a beverage company driving jobs & growth in Sweden

Picture a sector that produces here in Europe, significantly invests and innovates for Europe, supports jobs and drives sustainable growth across the continent. That’s us, the soft drinks sector, and Herrljunga Drycker is just one local example of how we are delivering for Europe.

💡 UNESDA #FridayTip

The 25th Winter Olympics in Milan come to an end this Sunday.

🤔 How well do you know Winter Olympics history? Can you name every host city?

🤓 Take this quiz
👉 www.bbc.com/sport/articl...

This rule is a major hurdle to further sugar reduction & is not in line with public health calls to reduce sugar. It is also not science based.

Our sector stands committed to working hand in hand with the European Commission & other stakeholders to further advance meaningful reformulation efforts.

This will be an important platform to jointly identify barriers that should be removed to support reformulation, such as the 30% energy reduction rule limiting the use of low-/no-calorie sweeteners.

We strongly encourage the European Commission to launch its Food Dialogue on Reformulation with the industry and other relevant stakeholders, as outlined in its Vision for Agriculture and Food.

This is critical to reinforcing consumer confidence in food innovation and creating a supportive policy framework that enables the EU food and drink industry to continue innovating and expanding consumer choice, including low-/no-sugar products.

Policymakers should develop evidence-based policies that further support the use of these safe ingredients, grounded in EFSA’s rigorous safety assessments.

Low-/no-calorie sweeteners, such as sucralose, play a crucial role in achieving public health objectives, including efforts to reduce overweight and obesity.

EFSA has confirmed that sucralose is safe at the established Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of 15 mg/kg body weight per day, based on a thorough review of the available scientific evidence.

IT’S RECONFIRMED BY EFSA: Sucralose is safe.

The European Food Safety Authority has reaffirmed the safety of sucralose, a low/no-calorie sweetener used in many foods and drinks, including soft drinks.

YouTube video by UNESDA - Soft Drinks Europe Time for the EU to accelerate action and deliver for the food and drink industry

Time for the EU to deliver for its food and drink industry.

Watch the video message from our DG Nicholas Hodac to find out more about the key policy enablers our sector is calling on the @ec.europa.eu to create so we can keep investing, innovating and driving jobs & growth for Europe.

Specifically, our sector urges the European Commission to deliver on its good intentions by putting concrete enablers in place that will help us to continue investing, innovating and generating jobs and value for Europe.

🔎 www.euractiv.com/opinion/time...

#OurSectorMatters

Our Director General Nicholas Hodac reflects on this in his new article on @euractiv.com, making it clear that the agri-food needs to see words turned into real action without delay.

It has been one year since the @ec.europa.eu launched the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food.

How far has the Commission come in delivering on it?

✍️ Industry stakeholders are invited to provide their feedback via the consultation portal
👉 www.epbp.org/design-guide...

📣 Deadline extended!

If you're a stakeholder in the PET bottle value chain, don’t miss the chance to submit your feedback to the consultation on the Design for Circularity (DfC) guidelines for PET bottles, launched by the European PET Bottle Platform (EPBP).

It is 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 15 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡.

🔎 Watch the full video and explore our sector’s socio-economic footprint across Europe
👉 unesda.eu/our-industry...

#OurSectorMatters

More than 150 years of supporting local jobs and driving investment and sustainable growth in Slovenia?

Yes, that’s what beverage company Radenska Adriatic has been doing by investing locally and producing soft drinks in Slovenia.

🎥 Discover this local story in the snippet below ⬇️

💡 UNESDA #FridayTip

This #WorldRadioDay, we look back at the radio station that has shaped the history of wireless communication 125 years ago.

🔎 Curious? Discover the story
👉 www.bbc.com/news/article...

Ensuring no advertising & marketing of soft drinks to children The European soft drinks sector acknowledges the need to give particular care to marketing and advertising practices to children by making proportionate commitments. This is reflected in the transpare...

🔎 Read more: unesda.eu/our-prioriti...

According to the latest monitoring carried out by independent auditors, UNESDA corporate members are delivering on this commitment:

📺 98.7% compliance on TV
🖥️ 92.9% compliance on company-owned websites
💙 94.1% compliance on company-owned social media profiles
👍100% compliance on influencer profiles

It’s World Radio Day and, for our sector, that means staying tuned to our no marketing-to-children policy:

➡️ We do NOT market or advertise our soft drinks to children under 13 years of age on radio or any other media channel across Europe, when at least 30% of its audience is composed of children.

✅ Yes: ‘𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒘.’

🤝 Together, we can create a more supportive regulatory environment that strengthens the future, resilience and competitiveness of the entire agri-food sector.

🔎 Read the joint statement
www.fooddrinkeurope.eu/wp-content/u...