European Summit Tackles Sustainability Issues

Key sustainability issues facing the food industry will be tackled at the European edition of the Sustainable Foods Summit. The organiser, Ecovia Intelligence, informs that the overarching aim of this Summit, hosted on 1-2 June and for the ninth consecutive year in Amsterdam, is to explore new horizons for eco-labels and sustainability in the food industry.

Discussion topics include creating positive impacts, true cost accounting, distribution hurdles, circular economy, urban farming, traceability in supply chains, sustainability certification schemes, climate-friendly products, social aspects, and smart packaging.

The sustainable Foods Summit is devised for key stakeholders in the food industry who include food and beverage manufacturers, ingredient and raw material suppliers, retailers and distributors, packaging companies, industry organisations and NGOs, certification agencies, academics and researchers, investors and financiers. The 2016 European edition of the Summit brought together over 120 senior executives from the food industry to debate key sustainability issues.

Since 2009, the Sustainable Foods Summit has been covering major developments in the food industry concerning sustainability and and eco-labels, such as Organic, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance. The questions to be asked are: How do organic, fairtrade and other eco-labelling schemes further sustainability? With growing proliferation in labels, what are the prospects for a single sustainability standard for food products? What are the practical application of sustainability metrics? What advances are occurring in sustainable ingredients? What developments are happening in the formulation, production and marketing of sustainable food and beverages?

These and many other issues – for example, environmental footprint, traceability, marketing best-practice, changing consumer behaviour – will be topics addressed in seminars, lectures and panel discussions in the following four sessions spread over two days: Sustainability Update, Food Ingredients for Sustainability, Marketing Best-Practices and Social & Customer Impacts.Click here for the detailed summit programme.

Other venues

The International Foods Summit is a series of summits hosted in the major regions: the Latin American edition will be hosted in São Paulo on 18-19 September; the first Asia-Pacific edition will be held in Singapore on 29-30 November; the next North American edition will take place in San Francisco in January 2018.

Each edition will bring together some of the most influential organisations involved in sustainability and eco-labels in the food industry.