Building a healthy, sustainable, and just EU food system: a multi-stakeholder EU Policy Action Brief guided by EAT-Lancet science

The 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission provides a comprehensive global scientific evaluation and vision for healthier, more sustainable and more just food systems. This EU Policy Action Brief translates that science into concrete policy priorities for the European food system. It was produced by 90+ food system actors from across the EU and supported by a consortium of science and civil society organisations: EAT, Physicians Association for Nutrition, BirdLife, Convene, Fern, FEAST 2030 and The Protein Project.

These 90+ organisations span the entire value chain and come together in six Communities for Action: farmers, consumers, public health actors, cities, retail and manufacturers, and food services. Together they developed recommendations for concrete policy unlocks, ranging from EU-wide guidance on protein diversification strategies and protein split targets, closing gaps in midstream processing infrastructure, stronger advisory services and farmer-to-farmer learning, and import standards aligned with EU requirements.

To implement these policies, all communities and contributing organisations are calling on the EU institutions to set the direction, deliver it coherently and keep the communities at the table.

The science is in place, and so is the willingness across the value chain to move forward. What is missing is political alignment. With major EU policy and budget files now in negotiation, the window to act is open.