Milk sales are flagging across Europe, so the region’s dairy sector is bound to welcome this boost. Euromonitor International’s packaged food data shows that, over the 2009-2015 review period, total volume sales of milk (excluding flavoured milk drinks) declined by 11% in Italy, by 10% in Ireland, Spain and Portugal, and by 8% in France and the Netherlands.

However, perhaps even more worrying from a public health perspective is that sales of fruit and vegetables are also ailing. The organisation’s fresh food data shows that per capita volumes of fresh fruit and vegetables shifted through retail outlets, consumer foodservice outlets and institutions (including schools) declined by 2% in Western Europe over the 2010-2015 review period.

Across Eastern Europe, per capita volumes of fresh fruits plummeted by 20% and fresh vegetables – by 4% over the same period.

Among the EU markets with the most pronounced declines in per capita volumes of both fresh fruit and vegetables were Italy, Spain and the UK. In Italy, per capita sales of fresh fruit fell from 95.3kg in 2010 to 88.8 kg in 2015 and fresh vegetables from 64.9kg to 61kg.

The European Parliament’s policy with regards to how its allocated funds are to be used seems quite clear: local, fresh produce distributed to schools have priorities over processed food, with a particular focus on under-consumed categories. Items with added sugar, salt and fat will only be permitted in cases where this is justifiable. For example, products such as chocolate milk and yoghurt with fruit may still be eligible, but the EU will only contribute funding to these if the milk component makes up at least 90% of the product (75% in exceptional cases), as long as it also meets the established standards with regards to sugar, fat and salt content.

The final version of the European Parliament’s new funding measures and guidelines is expected to be published around April this year.

Source: Euromonitor International