EU Must Not Leave Nuance and Cultural Diversity Out of Its Emerging Food Agenda

In the build-up to the new European Commission, food and nutrition policy is rising up the EU agenda, with key member-states outlining their visions under a 'Team Europe' banner. To mark World Food Day, the Hungarian EU Council Presidency is hosting the InfoPoint Conference on 16 October, a high-level event that will see leading policymakers from across the bloc address the unhealthy diets driving Europe's obesity crisis.

As President of the Hungarian Permanent Representation to the EU, Dr Katalin Freier will present the Council's upcoming conclusions on food and nutrition, while the United Nations FAO will lead a vital discussion on 'nutrition-sensitive agriculture.' What's more, as the reigning host of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, France will share its objectives for advancing the global fight against malnutrition at next March's Nutrition for Growth Paris 2025 Summit.

In progressing this renewed agri-food agenda, Brussels will need to incorporate a strong dose of nuance and recognise the bloc's cultural diversity in its attempts to build a healthier and more sustainable food system.

EU's Dubious Plant-Based Nutrition Venture

In recent years, the EU has increasingly focused on enhancing its food systems' sustainability through plant-based diets, with the Commission embedding this nutritional goal in its 'Farm to Fork' strategy.

In June 2023, the EU executive's Group of Scientific Advisors published an opinion paper, "Towards Sustainable Food Consumption," at the request of Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, which concluded that "for most Europeans, diets should be more plant-based as they are often too high in meat and dairy products, which have much higher environmental footprints than plant-based foods." Beyond sustainability, the study also portrays plant-based nutrition as a healthier alternative to animal protein-rich diets.

EU and national decision-makers have seemingly taken these recommendations to heart, with plant-based diets gaining a stronger place in national nutritional guidelines, much to the chagrin of the bloc's meat and dairy producers. Defending the EU livestock industry, Copa Cogeca president Christiane Lambert has decried Brussels's top-down imposition of this nutritional shift, asserting that the "prescribers of these diets have underestimated the need and desire for high-protein foods, offered by animal proteins," as well as the diversity of dietary needs based on cultural traditions and physical activity.

Interestingly, this debate flared up during the Paris 2024 Olympics, where athlete delegations from countries including Germany and Britain bemoaned the sustainability-driven Games's lack of animal protein-based food-key for muscular repair and recovery. More recently, France has once again found itself at the centre of this debate, with the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) 4 October ruling rejecting France's domestic ban on marketing plant-based meat alternatives with animal food names like "steak" or "filet."

Nutrition Labels Making the Same Mistakes

Amid this rise of plant-based foods in Europe, Euractiv has astutely reported that "cultural differences among countries continue to stand in the way of an EU-wide consensus on sustainable and healthy diets"—a fundamental reality equally displayed by the EU's nutrition label file.

In a similar vein to the ECJ ruling, the Commission's harmonised nutrition label proposal reflects the EU's systematic, unnecessary overreach into national agri-food affairs, as well as its utter disregard for the bloc's culinary diversity. Ironically, given the country's world-renowned gastronomic culture and leading role in the fight against enforced plant-based diets, the most poorly designed of the labelling systems under consideration, Nutri-Score, comes from France.

With its simplistic, colour-coded grading system and fundamentally deficient algorithm, Nutri-Score continues to mislead consumers and penalise food products at the heart of Europe's gastronomic heritage. While Nutri-Score has always given unfairly harsh scores on the protected designation of origin (PDO) foods like French cheese and Spanish cured meats—whose sodium and fat contents are blindly punished by the algorithm despite their rich micro nutritional content and cultural importance—its latest iteration has even demoted natural dairy products like whole milk and yoghurt.

This alteration of its ever-changing algorithm has prompted major European agri-food companies, such as Danone, Lactalis, and Bjorg, to drop the Nutri-Score label from their products, with these giants joining a growing alliance of local producers and European governments in disavowing the system. Initially led by member states such as Hungary, Cyprus, and Czechia, the anti-Nutri-Score camp has recently welcomed Portugal, while former stalwart Switzerland could soon follow suit due to the label's impact on local farmers and questionable capacity to guide consumers to healthy, balanced and nutritious diets.

With France's own National Agency for Food Safety (l'ANSES) confirming this last point in its evaluation of the system's updated algorithm, the Commission must now come to its senses on Nutri-Score and the ill-advised notion of harmonised nutrition labelling.

Planting Seeds of a Brighter Future

Moving forward, the EU agri-food industry urgently requires a more balanced and pragmatic policy approach. Instead of pushing misguided nutritional initiatives, policymakers should focus on empowering farmers to adopt sustainable practices that benefit both the environment and local communities. This means promoting local food production and supporting short food supply chains, including through urban and peri-urban farming, which cut carbon emissions while bolstering regional economies.

In this effort, livestock and dairy farmers must not be unfairly penalised nor blindly pitted against plant-based foods. These sectors play an integral role in Europe's agricultural landscape and offer vital sources of nutrition. Rather than imposing a top-down system disconnected from the diverse culinary traditions across EU member-states, the focus should be on encouraging balanced, nutrient-rich diets that respect local cultures while pairing healthy eating with active lifestyles.

As such, the EU should also invest in community sports infrastructure, provide technical support for grassroots initiatives, and create spaces for outdoor physical activity. Crucially, additional funding for cycling paths, public parks, and sports facilities would not only improve health but also cultivate stronger, more connected communities across Europe.

As the EU strengthens its focus on food and nutrition, success will depend on recognising the rich cultural and gastronomic diversity within its member-states. Addressing the obesity crisis and malnutrition requires not just policy changes but a deep understanding of Europe's varied traditions and food systems. By embracing this complexity, the EU can build a healthier, more resilient food system—one that unites its citizens in the pursuit of shared goals while respecting the unique identities that shape Europe's future.