Sustainability in the Food Sector Becomes a Competitive Requirement

When we talk about sustainability in the food sector, we often think of organic products, short supply chains, recyclable packaging, or environmental claims aimed at the end consumer. These are all important aspects, but today they only reveal part of the transformation underway.

For many Italian agri-food companies, especially those that export, sustainability is becoming something much more concrete: a requirement demanded by customers, foreign markets, large-scale retail trade, multinational food companies, and some major international buyers.

In other words, sustainability is no longer just a reputational choice. It is becoming a competitive factor.

This is particularly true for the Italian food sector, which has a strong export vocation. Many Italian products are sold in European markets where ESG requirements are already highly advanced: Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Northern Europe.

The result is simple: even companies that don’t have direct ESG reporting obligations may find themselves having to respond to environmental questionnaires, carbon footprint requests, packaging criteria, or traceability requirements imposed by their customers.

What is sustainability in the food sector?

Sustainability in the food sector concerns the entire product life cycle: from agricultural production to industrial processing, from logistics to packaging, from distribution to consumption and waste management.

In the food industry, environmental impacts can arise at many different stages: agricultural production, livestock farming, water consumption, fertilizers, energy used in factories, refrigeration, transportation, packaging, and food waste.

For this reason, talking about food sustainability isn’t just about whether a product is “green” or not. It means understanding its impacts, where they occur, and how they can be credibly reduced.

This step is especially crucial for B2B companies. Increasingly, it’s not the end consumer who requests detailed information, but the customer further down the supply chain: a supermarket chain, a multinational food company, a foreign distributor, an importer, or a restaurant group.

Why sustainability is strategic for the Italian agri-food sector

Italian agri-food is one of the most recognizable sectors of Made in Italy. Wine, pasta, preserves, cheeses, coffee, baked goods, oils, cured meats, and local specialties are present on international markets and represent an economic and reputational asset for the country.

This force, however, also exposes Italian companies to new demands.

The European countries to which many companies export are often markets with more mature environmental criteria. Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the Nordic countries, for example, are markets where large buyers, retailers, and public or semi-public operators are increasingly integrating ESG criteria into their purchasing policies.

Even among Ollum’s customers in the food sector, these requests often come from buyers, distributors, multinationals and foreign customers who ask for data on emissions, packaging, supply chain and environmental performance.

For an Italian food SME, this can translate into very practical questions : have you calculated your emissions? Do you have a CO₂ reduction plan? Do you know the impact of your packaging? Do you have data on your suppliers? Can you provide information on the traceability of raw materials?

The point is that sustainability, for many food companies, will come first as a commercial request rather than as a regulatory obligation.

A company may not be directly obliged to publish a sustainability report or set climate targets, but it may still receive these requests from a larger customer that needs to report its emissions, reduce supply chain impacts or comply with an international sustainable procurement policy.

Who asks for ESG data from food suppliers?

When we talk about sustainability in the food industry, we often immediately think of large-scale retail trade. Large-scale retail trade is certainly a key player, but it’s not the only one .

Environmental requests to suppliers can also come from multinational food companies, fast food chains, foreign distributors, importers, food service operators, and public or semi-public buyers.

Large food companies have structured ESG strategies and climate objectives that also involve the supply chain. This is because, in the food sector, a significant portion of impacts are not necessarily located in the parent company’s plants, but upstream: agricultural raw materials, livestock, ingredients, packaging, and logistics.

An often overlooked aspect also concerns the world of fast food and organized catering. Even operators that are not commonly associated with sustainability are introducing climate objectives and ESG criteria into their supply chains. This means that producers of meat, bread, sauces, dairy products, vegetables, packaging, ingredients, and logistics services may be required to provide environmental data .

Another interesting case concerns the Nordic countries, where some alcoholic beverages are sold through public monopolies. This is a particularly relevant issue for Italian wine : in these markets, packaging, transportation, and the product’s climate footprint can be considered in the selection and commercial positioning criteria.

Carbon footprint and Scope 3 in the food sector

One of the most important issues for agri-food sustainability is the measurement of emissions.

Large companies, especially those subject to ESG reporting or committed to climate goals, must monitor not only direct emissions but also indirect emissions from their value chains. This is where Scope 3 comes in .

In the food sector, Scope 3 emissions can include production of agricultural raw materials, livestock, fertilizers, purchased ingredients, packaging, upstream and downstream transportation, distribution, use and end-of-life of products.

This makes the topic particularly sensitive. A food company may have relatively low internal energy consumption, but significant impacts on the agricultural supply chain, packaging, or logistics.

For this reason, many customers are starting to ask suppliers for more precise emissions data. This doesn’t always mean complex climate targets or formal validations. Often, the first step is much more concrete: collecting data, understanding where the main impacts are generated, and building a reliable basis for responding to customers.

For many companies in the food sector, therefore, the first step may be calculating the company’s carbon footprint , useful for measuring direct and indirect emissions, identifying the most critical areas and preparing for the climate demands of customers, buyers and foreign markets.

This step is important because it allows us to distinguish between declared sustainability and demonstrable sustainability. In a B2B context, it’s not enough to simply claim to be environmentally conscious: we need to be able to document it with data, clear calculation boundaries, and recognized methodologies.

Sustainable food packaging: the second major front

Sustainable food packaging is one of the hottest topics in the food sector.

In the food sector, however, packaging must be treated with care. It’s not just waste to be reduced: it’s also a fundamental tool for protecting the product, ensuring food safety, extending shelf life, reducing waste, and facilitating transportation.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to “eliminate packaging”, but to design it better.

Sustainable food packaging must combine material reduction, recyclability, recycled content where possible, food safety, product protection, compatibility with collection and recycling chains, and a reduction in the climate footprint.

This issue will become even more important with the new European Regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste (PPWR). For the food sector, the implications are significant: packages, trays, plastic films, bottles, cartons, labels, secondary packaging, and transport packaging will be increasingly evaluated not only for their functionality, but also for their environmental performance.

A particularly interesting case is that of wine. The glass bottle is part of the product’s identity, but it can also account for a significant portion of the climate impact, especially when it’s very heavy and destined for export. In Nordic markets, for example, the issue of packaging with a lower carbon footprint is already very real for alcoholic beverages.

For Italian food and wine companies, this means that packaging will increasingly need to be approached as a strategic choice, not just an aesthetic or commercial one.

Raw materials, traceability and new regulations

Another important front concerns raw materials.

In the food sector, many environmental impacts are linked to the origin of ingredients: land use, deforestation, biodiversity, water consumption, agricultural practices, transportation, and processing.

Some supply chains are already particularly exposed. This is the case, for example, for coffee, cocoa, soy, palm oil, beef and beef products, raw materials affected by the European Regulation against Deforestation (EUDR ).

For Italian food, the issue may concern roasters, chocolate producers, confectionery companies, cream and snack producers, companies that use soy derivatives, or companies that import non-EU ingredients.

Here too, the issue isn’t just regulatory. The direction is broader: companies will need to increasingly understand the origin of their raw materials and be able to document their supply chains.

In a different way, CBAM can also have an indirect impact on some supply chains , for example when imported fertilizers or other emissions-intensive agricultural inputs are used. For many food companies, this may not be the first ESG priority, but it signals a clear trend: the sustainability of the final product will increasingly depend on what happens upstream.

Sustainability as a business passport

Sustainability in the food sector is no longer a secondary issue. For many Italian companies, it is becoming a prerequisite for remaining competitive, especially in foreign markets.

Large-scale retail trade, multinationals, fast food chains, public buyers, Nordic monopolies, and international distributors are transferring increasingly precise requirements regarding emissions, packaging, raw materials, and traceability throughout the supply chain.

For Italian food, this represents a challenge, but also an opportunity.

Companies that can measure their impacts, document their performance, and build credible improvement paths will be able to strengthen their position in the most advanced markets.

Those who continue to treat sustainability solely as a communication tool risk being unprepared to meet customer demands.

In the food industry, sustainability is no longer just a value to be talked about. It’s increasingly a requirement to be demonstrated.

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(Featured image by Conor Brown via Unsplash)

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First published in ESG NEWS. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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