Advocacy for Sustainable, Inclusive, Healthy and Safe Food Systems
SAFE’s work in Food4Inclusion contributes directly to several key policy areas of the EU, including:
A sustainable just transition and the promotion of sustainable consumption
- The Farm‑to‑Fork Strategy
- Food safety and public health, including advocacy for integrating nutrition into a One Health approach
- Food loss and waste reduction
- Food labelling and packaging regulations
Advocacy on Food Distribution
In 2023, 9.5% of people in the European Union could not afford a meal with meat, fish, or a vegetarian equivalent every second day. This marks an increase from 8.3% in 2022. While most EU Member States have laws or guidelines to support food donations, their scope and effectiveness vary significantly. Only a few countries, such as Romania, Italy, and France, allow direct food donations. In many others, primary producers face complex administrative procedures, and donations are often restricted to specific categories of food.
As a result, large quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables never reach consumers, contributing to both food waste and higher prices, especially in disadvantaged regions. Across the EU, important gaps remain, including the absence of a comprehensive legal framework, unclear food safety requirements for donated food, and limited coordination among the actors involved. Addressing these shortcomings is essential for strengthening food donation systems, reducing waste, and improving food security.
Safe released a report on food donations in the EU, highlighting barriers and opportunities.
SAFE wrote a position paper on food donation in the EU.
Food waste
SAFE’s advocacy efforts to combat food waste cover aspects such as:
- the urgent need to recover surplus food
- barriers to food donation within current EU waste policies
- waste‑reduction targets under the Farm to Fork Strategy
- ways to prevent food loss at every stage of the food supply chain
We welcomed the first mandatory food waste reduction targets.
To find out more about SAFE’s past campaigns on Food Waste under the LIFE Programme, click here.
Healthy Meal
Food insecurity is increasing across Europe. As the cost of living rises, many families are forced to change their eating habits, often choosing cheaper and less nutritious options. Many also reduce social activities such as eating out, which can further isolate households already under financial pressure.
Healthy Meal was created to respond to these challenges. The project brings together a network of restaurants that offer healthy, nutritious, and sustainably prepared meals at affordable prices for disadvantaged families. It is currently active in Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Lithuania, Italy, and Romania.
Healthy Meal has also developed a Digital Platform that distributes food vouchers and connects beneficiaries with restaurants participating in the Healthy Meal Solidarity Restaurants Network. This approach provides a scalable model that can be integrated into wider social welfare programmes. By improving access to nutritious meals, supporting local businesses, the project helps reduce food insecurity and prevent food loss and waste.
Advocacy for standardised, transparent, and truthful food labelling practices
Food labelling is often misleading. In late 2020, SAFE looked at the labels of food products in several EU countries, finding that most claims of “natural” written on the packaging weren’t justified.
SAFE then conducted a survey to understand how consumers perceive the information shown on food labels, focusing on the term “natural”. The findings revealed a strong demand for greater transparency.
89% of respondents said they want clearer labelling about the presence of natural ingredients, and 86% want better information about non‑natural ingredients such as chemical, artificial, or synthetic substances. Also, 86% said they are more likely to buy a product if it clearly states that its ingredients are natural.
When asked whether national, European, and international authorities should introduce regulations to improve the transparency of food labels, 89% of respondents answered “yes.”
Current EU rules on nutrition labelling do not reflect the positive nutrients found in many foods, nor do they address emerging scientific evidence on the potential risks linked to ultra‑processed foods. This gap has encouraged multiple nutrition labelling systems to appear across the EU, creating confusion and making it harder for consumers to make informed, healthy choices. The European Commission has also recognised that the absence of harmonised rules complicates cross‑border food purchases and reduces clarity for consumers.
SAFE’s advocacy work promotes legislative changes to bring about clearer, more reliable food labelling across Europe.
Find out more about our survey and our campaign on natural claims.
Advocacy for stricter legislation on unhealthy food advertising of high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt (HFSS) and ultra-processed foods (UPFs)
A central part of SAFE’s mission is to support populations at risk, especially children, by improving access to healthy food and preventing diet‑related diseases. This is done through nutrition education, and clearer, more consumer‑friendly information on food products. The overconsumption of unhealthy foods affects children and low‑income households most severely, including single‑parent families and migrant communities with limited support networks. Creating healthy food environments is essential to breaking cycles of poor nutrition and reducing the risk of serious, long‑term health conditions.
SAFE has published a detailed report on the aggressive marketing of unhealthy foods, particularly HFSS products (high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar) targeted at children, calling for EU-wide legislation restricting these practices.
Advocacy for living wage that covers the cost of a healthy diet
Ensuring that workers earn a living wage that covers the cost of a healthy diet is a key measure for reducing food insecurity and promoting social equity. However, in many EU countries, wages do not keep pace with the rising cost of nutritious food, leaving vulnerable groups increasingly exposed. According to the European Commission (2022), 33 million people in the EU cannot afford a quality meal every two days, highlighting an urgent need for ambitious and coordinated policy action.
The European Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages (2022/204) sets a common framework for fair wage levels, but it does not explicitly consider the cost of a healthy diet. At the same time, recent domestic and external policy developments across Europe have contributed to declining household purchasing power and rising production costs. This combination creates a harmful cycle: reduced purchasing capacity, pressure on producers to keep prices low, and an increasing number of low‑income families. Many of these households are forced to rely on low‑cost, low‑quality foods, often ultra‑processed products, worsening health inequalities linked to poor nutrition.
Regularly monitoring the cost of living is essential for shaping wage policies that ensure access to nutritious food. Such measures are crucial for breaking the cycle of food poverty and align directly with the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR).
SAFE calls for measures to support the purchasing power of Europeans. We wrote a position paper on household purchasing power, inflation and unfair practices.
