By Nicholas Hodac, Director General, UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe
The EU has made regulatory simplification a priority, but the food and drink industry is still waiting for its own Action Plan, despite the fact that it is strategic for Europe and it is the largest manufacturing sector in the EU, employing 4.7 million people and purchasing around 70% of all EU farm produce.
Just like other sectors, the European food and drink industry continues to face a complex regulatory environment that limits innovation and growth.
We need more real measures to make it easier for businesses to operate, invest and innovate in Europe.
Strong industries drive innovation, support jobs and bring prosperity for Europe. Our sector, the soft drinks sector, is doing that. We are a European sector, deeply rooted in local communities. We produce our soft drinks in more than 500 plants across Europe. By producing locally, we support more than 1.8 million jobs and generate 242 billion euros in revenue across our European supply chain.
We are also working with thousands of European partners — from farmers to retailers. And we invest in innovation every day.
Advancing packaging circularity
Packaging circularity is a key part of our innovation efforts. Across Europe, our sector has taken a leading role in improving the collection and recycling of our packaging. The latest results make that clear: UNESDA corporate members have already achieved 100% packaging recyclability or are close to it. And, in 2024, 51.7% of the PET used in our bottles was recycled PET.
We remain focused on achieving packaging circularity, but it is essential that the regulatory framework supports this transition, rather than making it more complex and challenging. This is especially clear in the case of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), as the industry is currently facing significant challenges with its timely implementation. There is still considerable legal uncertainty around a number of key PPWR requirements, while compliance deadlines are approaching quickly and industry is unable to take investment decisions with full clarity and confidence. This is why clear and realistic transition periods are crucial and should only start from the adoption of the relevant secondary legislation, rather than from fixed dates set years in advance. As we are seeing with the PPWR, developing secondary legislation is very complex and cannot be delivered fast enough to support industry investments and enable businesses to prepare for compliance.
Our ongoing circularity efforts also mean that we are supporting European recyclers. We help drive demand for recycled material, as we continue to invest significantly in efficient collection and waste management systems that drive packaging circularity, like Deposit Return Systems (DRS). For example, there are currently 17 EU countries with a DRS in place, many of which achieve over 80% collection rates for high-quality recycling. More DRS are on the way in the coming years thanks to the investments made by our members.
We can go even further on circularity. The upcoming EU Circular Economy Act can make a real difference, but only if it sets the right policy enablers. It needs to foster an EU market for secondary raw materials that ensures that, contrary to today, circularity is not more expensive than linear material.
For our sector, there are two key conditions that the EU Circular Economy Act should include:
- First, the EU should prioritise high-quality and closed-loop recycling. This should become the norm for every product. For our sector, it means providing fair access to recycled material to enable bottle-to-bottle and can-to-can recycling and preventing downcycling;
- Second, the EU should address cost disadvantages of recycled materials. This is not achieved by restricting imports or forcing companies to only use EU made recycled PET. Instead, we need to address the high production costs in Europe and use fiscal incentives to make recycled PET more affordable.
Innovating to support balanced diets
In addition to packaging, our sector is also innovating to support balanced diets. For years, we have reformulated our beverages, expanded our beverage portfolio with more no-and low-calorie options and offer small pack sizes to encourage moderate consumption.
Our sector does not need simplistic discriminatory measures, such as soft drinks taxation. We are taking our responsibility and delivering real results: our sector achieved an additional 14% reduction in average added sugars across Europe between 2019 and 2025 (Source: GlobalData). That is well above our 10% reduction target for the same period and builds on decades of accelerated efforts by our sector, which have delivered a 36.3% average sugar reduction across Europe over the last two decades.
Now, there are limitations to how far our sector can go because regulatory barriers remain in place. One key hurdle for our sugar reduction efforts is the 30% energy reduction rule. This rule restricts the use of no-and low-calorie sweeteners if a 30% energy reduction is not achieved. There is no scientific justification for that, and this rule does not exist anywhere else. It should be removed to unleash further reformulation.
My messages to policymakers are clear: turn the EU Circular Economy Act into a real business plan for packaging circularity, and when it comes to health and nutrition shift from a punitive and discriminatory approach based on soft drinks taxation, which is not supported by robust evidence, to an innovation-friendly approach.
The EU can continue counting on our sector’s constructive engagement. Together, we can achieve real progress with policies that are evidence-based, drive innovation and support sustainable growth.
