Food industry

Forum for a Better Functioning Food Supply Chain

The European Commission set up a High Level Forum for a Better Functioning Food Supply Chain composed mainly of representatives of selected Member States, of European companies dealing with food production, processing or distribution, of professional associations and of non-governmental organisations representing the citizens' expectations. Vice-President Tajani is leading this exercise together with his fellow Commissioners in charge of Internal Market and Services, Health and Consumer Protection and Agriculture and Rural development.

<><>Acting as a tool for competitiveness activities, the Forum's mandate is to follow:

the recommendations of the High Level Group on the Competitiveness of the Agro-Food Industry
the implementation of the initiatives proposed by the Commission in its Communication "A better functioning food supply chain in Europe" (COM (2009) 591)
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The legal basis for the Forum is the Commission Decision of 30 July 2010 setting up the High Level Forum for a Better Functioning Food Supply Chain (2010/C210/03)

The Commission Decision provides for a three-tier structure for this initiative, namely:

the High Level Forum which will report according to the Forum's mandate;
the Sherpa group mirroring the membership of the Forum, whose role is to prepare the discussions, position papers and to recommend actions and/or policy measures to the High Level Forum;
the working groups, or expert platforms, which will focus on flagship issues requiring a specific expertise, and where the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders - whether represented or not in the High Level Forum - is encouraged, in order to impulse a bottom-up process.

Through these expert platforms, the forum focuses on business-to-business contractual relations, the Food Prices Monitoring Tool, competitiveness in the agro-food industry and agro-logistics.

Membership

The membership of the forum is available in the Commission's register of expert groups.

Furthermore, the Commission has invited the President of the European Parliament to designate a Member of the European Parliament to participate in the Forum.

Timetable

The Forum has a two-year mandate ending 31 December 2012. For the dates of the meetings and workshops organised in this context, we invite you to consult the CIRCA dedicated pages :

The minutes of the meetings of the High Level Forum are available below :

16/11/2010 Launch Meeting [58 KB]
29/11/2011 Second Meeting : Mid-term report [30 KB]
- B2B Platform
  - Mid-term report [23 KB]
  - Vertical relationships in the Food Supply Chain : Principles of Good Practices [89 KB]
- Expert Platform on the competitiveness of the agro-food industry
  - Mid-term report [23 KB]
  - A sectoral approach to CSR to tackle societal issues in the food supply chain [42 KB]
  - Report on Food Labelling Practices [36 KB]
- Expert Platform on the European Food Prices Monitoring Tool
  - Mid-term report [78 KB]