The Freshfel Europe - Working Group on Promotion recently met with the Commission services in charge of agricultural promotion policy.
The Association firmly argued in favour of further developing EU promotional activities for the consumption of fruits and vegetables, both on the internal market and in third countries. The meeting was organised in the framework of the review by the Commission and EU member states of the functioning of the EU promotional policy for agricultural products.
Dr Laurence Swan, Chairman of the Working Group, said that “the importance of eating lots of fruits and vegetables can hardly be overestimated. Science increasingly supports the need for people to increase their intake of fruits and vegetables”.
National health agencies, industry representatives and international organisations, including WHO and FAO, are stepping up actions to boost fruit and vegetable consumption around the globe. Recent research undertaken by Freshfel indicates, however, that the per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables in Europe is generally stagnating, or even decreasing in certain member states.
According to Swan: “There is a need today more than ever to design a coherent and efficient European promotion policy to stimulate fresh produce consumption.” In its meeting with the Commission, Freshfel advocated an increase in the expenditure for the promotion of fruits and vegetables in view of the beneficial effects of their consumption on Europeans’ health.
In a report adopted by the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in May 2004, the WHO underlined that “low fruit and vegetable intake is among the top 10 risk factors contributing to attributable mortality”.
According to the WHO: “Fruits and vegetables as part of the daily diet could help prevent major non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers. Eating a variety of vegetables and fruits clearly ensures an adequate intake of most micronutrients, dietary fibres and a host of essential non-nutrient substances.’ A FAO / WHO expert report on ‘Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases’ released earlier this year recommends an intake of a daily minimum of 400-500g of fruits and vegetables to prevent chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
According to FAO, there is a continuous need to develop strategies to change people’s behaviour towards adopting healthy diets and lifestyles. An important argument in favour of stepping up promotional activities for the consumption of fruits and vegetables is the important role these activities can play in countering the European - and worldwide - increasing trends towards obesity.
All sources indicate that obesity in Europe is rising at an alarming pace. According to the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), obesity presents the “biggest single European public health challenge of the 21th century”. According to the same source, at least 205 million EU citizens are affected by obesity. In many countries now significantly more than half the adult population is overweight and up to 30 per cent of adults are clinically obese.
The prevalence among children is rising significantly with as many as one in four affected in some regions. Obesity conveys increased risks of a range of chronic disorders, (including hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, psychosocial problems, asthma, osteo-arthritis, ...), and therefore poses an enormous burden upon Europe’s public health systems. The costs of obesity have been estimated at up to eight per cent of overall health budgets - to be added to the economic losses due to a shorter-lived and less productive workforce. On a more general basis, the costs of our increasingly unhealthy population may jeopardise future social security budgets across the EU.
The inadequate intake of fresh fruits and vegetables has been identified as one of the main causes behind the recent obesity epidemic, both within Europe and worldwide. In a recent speech at the European Food Law Conference, Health Commissioner David Byrne noted that “everyone agrees that there is a serious problem. Up to now there has been much wringing of hands but precious little in the way of positive action”.
Freshfel argues that maintaining or, preferably, boosting funds dedicated to the promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption would constitute an excellent way to actively counter the obesity epidemic. Despite the international recognition of the many benefits linked to eating lots of fruits and vegetables, a number of specificities of the European fresh produce sector hinder operators in developing promotional activities.
Firstly, the sector is characterised by a high degree of fragmentation of the market between operators.
Secondly, the small profit margins that are prevalent in the sector at grower/distributor level make it extremely difficult for individual operators to set up promotion activities for their products.
Thirdly, fruits and vegetables have to compete directly with easy-access of convenience snacks that enjoy higher profit margins and thus larger promotional budgets. As such, EU - co-funded promotional campaigns for fruits and vegetables constitute an indispensable tool for the sector to stand up to the marketing power of its main competitors.
To show that promotional activities can actually make a difference in the way consumers, and especially children, behave, Swan presented the ‘Food Dudes’ project implemented in Ireland and the UK. This project is an example of a highly successful promotional campaign for fruits and vegetables, with immediate and long-lasting effects on the consumption pattern of young children.
A further discussion on the ‘Food Dudes’ with the Commission is planned for the Working Group’s next meeting, in October.
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