E.6. Round Table: Who’s watching the food giants? The EU case for laws holding companies to account for what they sell
Abstract
Walking into any supermarket in Bilbao, Brussels or Budapest, the shelves tell the same story. Ultra-processed foods dominate. Ready-made meals are packed with salt, sugar and saturated fat. Fresh, affordable, healthy options are harder to find and afford. Across urban and rural Europe alike, unhealthy food environments reflect the commercial determinants of health, weak accountability for large food companies, and policy approaches that have relied too heavily on voluntary commitments. This is a climate story as much as a health story: the foods driving diet-related NCDs are the same foods driving deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and the erosion of resilient food systems. Addressing both demands the same structural intervention. The objective of this roundtable is to steer a practical, evidence-based discussion on how EU policy instruments can make food companies accountable for the health and sustainability of the products they produce, market and sell - whether through mandatory standards for ready-made meal composition, public procurement conditionality, or portfolio-level marketing restrictions tied to nutrient profiling. This roundtable brings together Fern, SAFE, EUPHA and EPHA, spanning public health professionals, consumer protection and environmental advocacy, not to revisit the diagnosis, but to build a shared evidence-based agenda for EU action on food industry accountability. SAFE will present findings on HFSS food marketing targeting children. EPHA will examine evidence on the failure of voluntary measures. EUPHA will present findings from its review of accountability measures in food, health and sustainability policies. Fern will add cross-sectoral insights linking food actor accountability to climate, biodiversity and resilient food systems. Together, the four organisations create a strong evidence base for a facilitated debate with interactive voting exercises on which EU-level instruments are most feasible. The session is designed to stimulate debate and leave participants with concrete, evidence-based policy options and a path towards a consolidated civil society position.
Key messages: • Voluntary food industry pledges are insufficient; civil society needs a united position on binding EU accountability measures for health, sustainability and equity.
• Health, environment and consumer organisations are joining forces to identify which EU measures civil society and academia can jointly prioritise and advocate for.
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BibTeX
@article{eupha2026round,
title = {{E.6. Round Table: Who’s watching the food giants? The EU case for laws holding companies to account for what they sell}},
author = {EUPHA, Fern, Safe Food Advocacy, EPHA and Julian Hein and Milka Sokolovic},
journal = {The European Journal of Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.333},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.333},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - E.6. Round Table: Who’s watching the food giants? The EU case for laws holding companies to account for what they sell
AU - EUPHA, Fern, Safe Food Advocacy, EPHA
AU - Julian Hein
AU - Milka Sokolovic
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - The European Journal of Public Health
DO - 10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.333
UR - https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.333
AB - Walking into any supermarket in Bilbao, Brussels or Budapest, the shelves tell the same story. Ultra-processed foods dominate. Ready-made meals are packed with salt, sugar and saturated fat. Fresh, affordable, healthy options are harder to find and afford. Across urban and rural Europe alike, unhealthy food environments reflect the commercial determinants of health, weak accountability for large food companies, and policy approaches that have relied too heavily on voluntary commitments. This is a climate story as much as a health story: the foods driving diet-related NCDs are the same foods driving deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and the erosion of resilient food systems. Addressing both demands the same structural intervention. The objective of this roundtable is to steer a practical, evidence-based discussion on how EU policy instruments can make food companies accountable for the health and sustainability of the products they produce, market and sell - whether through mandatory standards for ready-made meal composition, public procurement conditionality, or portfolio-level marketing restrictions tied to nutrient profiling. This roundtable brings together Fern, SAFE, EUPHA and EPHA, spanning public health professionals, consumer protection and environmental advocacy, not to revisit the diagnosis, but to build a shared evidence-based agenda for EU action on food industry accountability. SAFE will present findings on HFSS food marketing targeting children. EPHA will examine evidence on the failure of voluntary measures. EUPHA will present findings from its review of accountability measures in food, health and sustainability policies. Fern will add cross-sectoral insights linking food actor accountability to climate, biodiversity and resilient food systems. Together, the four organisations create a strong evidence base for a facilitated debate with interactive voting exercises on which EU-level instruments are most feasible. The session is designed to stimulate debate and leave participants with concrete, evidence-based policy options and a path towards a consolidated civil society position. Key messages: • Voluntary food industry pledges are insufficient; civil society needs a united position on binding EU accountability measures for health, sustainability and equity. • Health, environment and consumer organisations are joining forces to identify which EU measures civil society and academia can jointly prioritise and advocate for.
SN - 1101-1262
SN - 1464-360X
ER -