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Priority areas

FDF's strategic groups have been created to direct FDF's work around the three key priority areas. For a full overview of how FDF is structured, download FDF's Organisational Chart.

• EU Exit
• Diet and Health
• Industrial Strategy

EU Exit Committee

Leaving the European Union will mean many changes for the United Kingdom's food and drink industry. FDF members have a range of different views on this and will be affected in different ways. The purpose of FDF's EU Exit Committee is to make exiting the EU as positive as possible for member companies. The Committee's focus will be making the EU exit work for the food and drink industry.

Remit

The EU Exit Committee provides a central point for FDF work for exiting the EU. The Committee will shape FDF's overarching strategy and overall positioning on the EU exit and will help to prioritise FDF action.

The Committee will be expected to help FDF develop positions on EU exit with regard to the following areas:

• Trade, tariffs, rules of origin and composition (e.g. Meursing)
• Regulation (from EU to UK, regulatory divergence (EU / intra UK))
• Workforce
• Transitional arrangements
• Ireland

Diet and Health Committee

The aim of our Diet and Health Committee is to promote the UK food industry so Government, consumers and key stakeholders have confidence in our products and actions from a health perspective, see FDF members as socially responsible and understand how all products can fit into a balanced lifestyle.

Much progress has been made in delivering on these commitments, particularly in areas such as responsible marketing, front of pack labelling and product reformulation, where the UK is widely acknowledged to be leading the world. Our members have also been implementing workplace wellbeing schemes that go way beyond the traditional health and safety agenda to focus on the health of their employees.

Key priorities for the Committee include:

• To work constructively with all UK governments to deliver improvements in public health and champion voluntary approaches.
• To promote industry's work to enable consumers to lead healthier lives.
• To contribute to broadening industry engagement on public health by sharing best practice on reformulation, consumer information and health at work.
• To develop clear and direct input to FDF's Executive Committee, with consensus opinion as much as possible.
• To monitor Diet and Health developments across the EU, and where relevant worldwide.

FDF's Nutrition Committee reports to the Diet and Health Committee.

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Industrial Strategy Group

The Industrial Strategy Group has replaced the Competitiveness Steering Group and will provide strategic and proactive leadership on the development and delivery of an Industrial Strategy sector deal for the UK food and drink manufacturing industry.

The Government announced at the end of 2017 that a new Food and Drink Sector Council will be established to secure the UK's position as a global leader in sustainable, affordable, safe and high- quality food and drink.

FDF's Competitiveness team will now be working closely with members and stakeholders on the priorities for the three areas of our sector deal proposal: exports, innovation and skills.

The Group will oversee the ongoing work of key FDF committees, including the Employment and Skills Forum and policy issues including, but not limited to; economic insight; commentary on industry productivity; employment and skills; immigration; trade policy; supply chain fairness and occupational health and safety.

FDF will lead the development of a number of detailed delivery plans for manufacturing through a period of negotiation to further build the case for a joint partnership with key Government departments, partners and academic/ research bodies over the next three to four months.

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