Plant-Based Proteins must be an EU Policy Priority

Starch Europe calls on the European Commission (Commission) to regard the forthcoming EU Protein Strategy as an opportunity for the EU to have a more coherent, ambitious and actionable strategy for furthering the development of the EU plant-based proteins sector.

This Strategy must help fully realise the potential of EU-grown plant proteins, if we hope to not only offer a better variety and diversity of proteins for consumers, but simultaneously increase the resilience of the food system, including through a rules-based international trade system to strengthen food security.

As recently stressed by the European Parliament, in its European Protein Strategy resolution (2023/2015(INI)), developing EU-grown plant-based proteins provides agronomic, environmental, climatic and nutritional benefits which actively contribute to the EU Green Deal goals, an objective also supported by the Council.

We therefore ask the Commission to make both the production (growing) and processing of cereals, starch potatoes and protein crops into plant-protein ingredients for food and feed sectors a priority across all EU policy areas, while ensuring that a full value chain approach is taken.

The European Parliament resolution rightly highlighted that, “(...) sustainable, diversified and domestic protein production must be recognised as a crucial aspect of the EU food and feed system in order to ensure sufficient availability of safe and quality food and feed and to maintain functioning and resilient food supply chains and trade flows;”

The following paper will outline what role EU starch producers can play in achieving that aim, and what is required from EU policy makers to help us get there.