The strategy developed by the Ministry of Agriculture brings together around 90 planned and existing measures that are intended to make “good food easier for everyone in Germany,” as Özdemir’s ministry announced. The target horizon is 2050. Currently, people who eat or buy food in everyday life are making it difficult to access healthy and sustainable food.
Several goals have been set, including improving communal catering, reducing food waste, and more plant-based and organically produced food. To ensure more varied food in schools and daycare centers, binding standards as well as school kitchens and drinking water dispensers should be promoted, and there should also be binding goals along the food chain to reduce waste. The aim is also to limit advertising of foods high in sugar, fat or salt aimed at children.
The AOK Federal Association welcomed the government’s pursuit of better conditions for healthy eating. The disproportion of too much meat and sugar and too few whole grain products and fruit and vegetables on the plate is “harmful for the climate and for health,” explained the association’s CEO, Carola Reimann.
In many areas, however, the strategy remains “vague” and falls short of the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Nutrition – for example when it comes to subsidies for vegetables, fruit and legumes and the further development of labeling rules. The Citizens’ Assembly on Nutrition is a committee set up by the Bundestag consisting of 160 randomly selected participants who have been discussing questions relating to the topic and developing recommendations since the end of September.
The consumer protection organization Foodwatch spoke of a “good-sounding but largely inconsequential paper”. The strategy contains many noble goals, but hardly any effective measures. For example, it is unclear how the goal of better communal catering is to be achieved in concrete terms. “The states would be responsible for mandatory requirements in schools and daycare centers.”
