Benefits and costs of EU marketing standards in the cider sector: Results from interviews with stakeholders

The EU marketing standards aim to ensure that the single market is supplied with products of standardised and satisfactory quality, taking into account consumers’ expectations. The standards are based on two main instruments: (i) minimum quality standards – which define the rules that must be respected when marketing agricultural products in the EU; and (ii) optional reserved terms (ORTs) – which consist of voluntary labels introduced to make it easier for producers to communicate the value-adding characteristics or attributes of their products to buyers and consumers. The first EU marketing standards were developed to cover fresh fruits and vegetables in the mid-1960s, and have since expanded to cover numerous agricultural products. Under the farm to fork strategy launched in 2020, the European Commission aims to revise the EU marketing standards to pursue the goal of transitioning towards a more sustainable food system and to make the standards compatible with the needs of stakeholders, preferences of consumers and changes in technologies. Cider is one of the products not covered by the EU marketing standards. The European Commission evaluation of EU marketing standards carried out in 2019 recommended that, despite the absence of EU marketing standards for the cider sector, the possible benefits of establishing such standards should be investigated (Areté and Agra CEAS Consulting, 2019; European Commission, 2020a). The objective of this report is to qualitatively assess the added value of introducing EU marketing standards in the cider sector, and their costs and benefits from socioeconomic, environmental and health perspectives.