Branded Food & Beverage Service Chains Association

Ensuring access to packaging and guaranteeing the hygiene of premises

25 March 2020 - Firstly, Serving Europe would like to thank the Commission for releasing its Communication on the implementation of the Green Lanes under the Guidelines for border management measures to protect health and ensure the availability of goods and essential services. This is a most constructive clarification.

Meanwhile two more key issues have come to light:

1. Access to Vital Packaging and Packaging Materials


While it is essential to ensure that food supplies can cross borders efficiently and that delivery personnel for both local and cross-border consignments are identified as key workers, without the availability of the appropriate packaging for safely containing, protecting, transporting, presenting and serving food and beverages, the food supply chain will soon be handicapped.

Therefore, we kindly call on the Commission to further clarify with Member States the necessity of classifying packaging and packaging materials as essential sectors in the context of the Covid-19 measures so that production can continue. It is crucial to act now and to continue to act in these vital areas to mitigate the impact of this unprecedented crisis.

2. Guaranteeing the Hygiene of Food Production and Food Service Premises


In a similar way, it is essential to ensure that places where food and drinks are prepared or handled are kept clean to guarantee food hygiene and by extension public health.

Therefore, we once again ask that the Commission intervene on two key aspects. We ask the Commission to further clarify with Member States:
  • the necessity of classifying the production of hygiene supplies (such as soaps, disinfectants, cleaning products and biocidal products) as essential sectors in the context of the Covid-19 measures so that production of these vital products can continue;
  • that cleaning and hygiene maintenance staff and outsourced services, including pest management services, must be classified as essential workers and services;
  • that cleaning and hygiene maintenance activities, including pest control, must be allowed to continue, even if facilities are closed or operating in a reduced manner, notably to ensure the safety of areas where food and drinks are (or will be) prepared, handled or stored or where objects that come into contact with food and drinks (e.g. equipment or packaging) are stored, and this to avoid not only possible spread of Covid-19 but of a range of other potential pathogens.




Pdf version here).



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