The new European Union packaging regulation threatens to wipe bagged salad from supermarket shelves. But also the baskets of strawberries, the packages of cherry tomatoes, the oranges in the net and even the magnum bottles of wine. This was reported yesterday by Coldiretti, on the opening day of Tuttofood, the agri-food fair that Milan is hosting until Thursday.
As formulated, the proposal for a regulation on packaging presented by the European Commission would therefore impose a farewell to single-use packages for fruit and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kilograms, considered superfluous. If this choice is confirmed, Coldiretti claims, it would open up to a whole series of problems, from sanitation to waste management. Not to mention that the costs for consumers and producers could also increase.
The real boomerang is the one that threatens to hit the so-called fourth range segment, from bagged salads to packaged fruit, which have now entered the daily habits of Italian consumers. According to the latest survey by Unione Italian Food, three quarters of those interviewed buy these products regularly, 38% even do so every week. In the cart, 81% put salads in bags, 40% prefer bowls of salad and 30% choose washed and cut fruit. In 2022, according to NielsenIQ market surveys, the sector’s turnover was almost one billion euros.
The directive would also have effects on the wine sector. As it is written, notes Coldiretti, it would in fact lead to a standardization of bottles and a reduction in their weight, effectively eliminating the magnum format. Furthermore, from 1 January 2030, 10% of alcoholic beverages placed on the market will also have to use packaging inserted in reuse systems and from 1 January 2040 this threshold will have to rise to 25%. For wines, with the exception of sparkling wines, there is a threshold of 5% starting from 1 January 2030 which will rise to 15% by 1 January 2040. A real upheaval which, especially in the case of glass, risks nullifying everything the work done over the years on the recycling front.
In short, as structured, the regulation would in fact affect two of the most exported Made in Italy sectors abroad. If the sales of wine on foreign markets touched the record value of 8 million euros in 2022, those of fruit and vegetables reached 5.7 billion, according to the Coldiretti analysis on Istat data, to which are added another 4, 8 billion of processed fruit and vegetables, the one most exposed to changes in terms of packaging. While sharing the need to ensure greater sustainability of consumption, Coldiretti therefore asks to “correct the current proposal, eliminating the bans for the single use of fruit and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kilos and recalibrate the measures for the wine sector, in order not to jeopardize the quality of the productions and the possibility of choice on the part of consumers”.