The primary goal of front of pack (FOP) labelling is to help consumers make healthier choices through communication. A secondary goal is to encourage producers to improve the nutritional composition of their products. Evidence has shown that (FOP) labelling can help consumers to make healthier food choices and has been an incentive for producers to improve product composition. As FOP labelling is seen as an important tool to improve food environments for public health purposes, the WHO supports initiatives of governments to implement an FOP labelling system. Based on the experiences of a wide range of countries over many years, possible success factors for such an FOP system have been defined, six of which are discussed in the present paper and used to evaluate the Dutch Choices Programme that was started in 2006. In the course of time a large number of producers joined the programme and the logo was recognised by more than 90 % of the consumers, but by 2016 the Dutch consumer organisation argued on the basis of their own research that a quarter of the consumers did not understand the colour coding of the logo and as a result the Dutch government decided to no longer support this logo and to introduce a nutrition app. The challenge that remains is to find a system that consumers understand well and that still encourages manufacturers of food to improve product composition. New technology-based data collecting initiatives might provide the right tools to develop such a system.
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New consumer awareness is shifting industry towards more sustainable practices, creating a virtuous cycle between producers and consumers enabled by eco-labelling. Eco-labelling informs consumers of specific characteristics of products and has been used to market greener products. Eco-labelling in the food industry has yet been mostly focused on promoting organic farming, limiting the scope to the agricultural stage of the supply chain, while carbon labelling informs on the carbon footprint throughout the life cycle of the product. These labelling strategies help value products in the eyes of the consumer. Because of this, decision makers are motivated to adopt more sustainable models. In the food industry, this has led to important environmental impact improvements at the agricultural stage, while most other stages in the Food Supply Chain (FSC) have continued to be designed inefficiently. The objective of this work is to define a framework showing how carbon labelling can be integrated into the design process of the FSC. For this purpose, the concept of Green Supply Chain Network Design (GSCND) focusing on the strategic decision making for location and allocation of resources and production capacity is developed considering operational, financial and environmental (CO2 emissions) issues along key stages in the product life cycle. A multi-objective optimization strategy implemented by use of a genetic algorithm is applied to a case study on orange juice production. The results show that the consideration of CO2 emission minimization as an objective function during the GSCND process together with techno-economic criteria produces improved FSC environmental performance compared to both organic and conventional orange juice production. Typical results thus highlight the importance that carbon emissions optimization and labelling may have to improve FSC beyond organic labelling. Finally, CO2 emission-oriented labelling could be an important tool to improve the effects eco-labelling has on food product environmental impact going forward.
A global push to reduce the amount of saturated and trans-fatty acids, added salt and sugar in processed food, and to enhance fruit, vegetable and whole grain intake, while limiting energy intake, exists for most populations. Objectives:To redesign the International Choices Program (note: this is unrelated to the US Smart Choices Program), initiallyNetherlands focused, by an international board of scientists to create a generic, global front-of-pack nutrition logo system that helps consumers make healthier food choices and stimulates product reformulation
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Door de toenemende welvaart wordt in Nederland steeds meer buiten de deur gegeten. Tegelijkertijd kampt bijna de helft van de Nederlanders van 18 jaar en ouder met overgewicht. Buitenshuis consumeert men gemiddeld meer calorieën consumeert dan wanneer het eten thuis wordt bereid. Dit draagt bij aan de overgewichtsproblematiek in Nederland. Daarnaast wordt er ook buitenshuis te veel zout, suiker en verzadigd vet geconsumeerd. De huidige trend van minder dierlijk en meer plantaardig biedt goede mogelijkheden hiervoor. Het zou dus veel gezonder kunnen: minder calorieën en betere kwaliteit (minder zout, suiker verzadigd vet, meer plantaardig). Maar hebben koks en catering personeel de tools en mogelijkheden om dit te veranderen? De gezonde keuze de gemakkelijke keuze laten zijn, dat is de opdracht. Hierbij richten we ons met dit project specifiek op het buitenshuis eten, de Foodservice markt, en meer specifiek bedrijfscatering. De volgende onderzoeksvragen staan centraal in dit project: • Welke tools hebben koks en catering personeel nodig om gezondere gerechten te kunnen samenstellen en aan te bieden in bedrijfsrestaurants? • Hoe kunnen de gasten verleid worden? Wat is het effect van nudging interventies zoals bv. menulabelling, standaard optie, portiegroottes, groente als ‘centre of plate’, etc. op het keuzegedrag van gasten in bedrijfsrestaurants? • Evalueren van een Gezonde bedrijfscateringsconcept 2.0 op een ‘real life’ locatie, gebruikmakend van de uitkomsten van de bovenstaande vragen.
TOURBAN objective is to spearhead a transnational and cross-sectoral movement towards tourism sustainability in urban areas across Europe, leveraging SME capacities and skills to uptake best practices and develop innovative solutions that make them both more sustainable and competitive. It will do so by tackling current urban tourism challenges in an era of increasing tourism visitor pressure, acting in European cities such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Kiel, Budapest and Tallinn. To achieve the objective, TOURBAN will share knowledge on sustainability strategies and the advantages of adopting sustainable solutions and practices, including EU/internationally recognised certificates and labels (e.g. EU Eco Label, EMAS) and circular economy models. These will be based on case studies and stories from SMEs and other frontrunners in sustainability.The project will share this practical knowledge through highly interactive training workshops and peer-to-peer sessions. Another core element of the project is cross-sector knowledge exchange and collaboration. In addition, more intensive support services will be delivered so that the tourism SMEs can effectively adopt sustainability strategies and seek additional financing. In this, financial support will be provided on the basis of a selection process under a competitive Call for Proposals launched by the Sustainable Urban Tourism Acceleration Programme. In this action, TOURBAN will engage around 70 SMEs from 7 different countries (NL, ES, DK, HR, DE, HU and EE) in a 12-month programme. To drive successful outcomes, the partnership gathers expertise in a wide range of topics related to tourism sustainability and can draw on years of practical experience in incubation, acceleration and SME developmentPartners:Breda University of Applied Sciences (Breda - The Netherlands), Barcelona Chamber of Commerce (Barcelona - Spain), B. Link Barcelona Strategic Projects (Barcelona - Spain), The Institute for Tourism Research in Northern Europe (Kiel - Germany), Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Tallinn - Estonia), City of Dubrovnik Development Agency (Dubrovnik - Croatia), Creative Business Network (Copenhagen - Denmark), VIMOSZ Hungarian Hospitality Employers’ Association (Budapest - Hungary).
