The Food Matters conference in Dublin this week gathered major producers and industry buyers, where they heard about developments in both regulatory and consumer environments.

Pádraig Brennan, chair of the Organic Strategy Forum, and formerly director of meat, food and beverage at Bord Bia, outlined the current legislative framework coming from Europe.

While the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) legislation is already in place, other major ambitions previously on the table have been delayed or shelved.

The deforestation regulation, which aimed to stop imports of goods produced on deforested land was scheduled to be implemented at the end of this year, but has now been delayed by at least 12 months, and faces another vote in the EU parliament.

The revised animal welfare legislation has focused on changes in animal transport, but other elements which were originally part of the programme, such as on-farm welfare, welfare at slaughter plants and animal welfare labelling, are all awaiting proposals, meaning the timeline for any movement there is unclear.

The sustainable use of pesticides regulation was withdrawn following rejection by the EU parliament in November 2023, and was withdrawn as a proposal by the Commission in March of this year.

The commitment to introduce a sustainability labelling framework, which is intended to help consumers make more sustainable food choices, has become bogged down in technicalities, with no clarity on a likely timeframe for introduction.

The proposal for regulations around “green claims” is progressing, with the directive already receiving approval from parliament and the Council. These rules are intended to reduce the number of unsubstantiated green claims on consumer products and will serve to protect shoppers from green-washing.

Brennan said that while the regulatory direction remains clear – even with the renewed focus in Europe on food security – the final ambition and the timeline to get to that remain unclear.

However, he warned that the world’s largest food buyers, whether they be supermarkets or restaurant chains, are intensifying their sustainable food sourcing ambitions.

While EU regulations are the minimum which such companies have to meet in order to do business, they often set their own targets which can significantly exceed either regulations which are in place or even those which remain little more than a proposal. For primary processors, this means that they are subject to their customers’ sustainability targets as well as those that come from Brussels.

Larger buyers are increasingly seeking to decarbonise their value chains which, at a minimum, increases the administrative burden on suppliers.

This coupled with the CSRD legislation which will also add to the reporting burden, means that it is clear that over the coming years demand for data on every aspect of food production is only set to increase.

This reporting burden will fall back on farmers. For them it will matter little whether the data being collected is due to customer demands or increased regulation, what will matter is that they will have to spend more time explaining what they are doing and adapting to new ways of running their business to stay on the right side of whatever new guidelines come their way.