The Egalim Act from 2018, supplemented by the Act on Climate and Resilience in 2021, set the goal of offering at least 50% of so-called joint meals in the dishes served in the Czech Republic.
This measure applies from January 1, 2022 for all public mass restaurants (school and university, hospitals, health and social facilities, administrations, etc.) and from January 1, 2024 for private facilities.
Achieving these goals by all communal eating would represent an additional market of almost 2 billion euros for organic farming, according to the government. The certainty of regular sales is crucial for organic products, which in the last two years have seen a decrease in demand from consumers affected by inflation.
But in 2022, according to the latest shopping census, established on the basis of voluntary declarations on the “ma cantine” platform, collective restaurant managers devoted only “27.5% of their purchases to sustainable and sustainable products. quality’, including ‘13% organic’.
It is “in progress”, the ministry says, but still far from the target, mainly due to “ignorance of the law” on the part of the actors.
Ministers, local authorities and facility representatives
This “solutions conference” will bring together the ministers responsible for agriculture (Marc Fesneau and Agnès Pannier-Runacher), their counterparts from the public administration (Stanislas Guerini) and local authorities and the countryside (Dominique Faure) and all stakeholders: representatives of municipalities, schools, hospitals or companies like catering giant Sodexo.
In addition to complying with the law, the government highlights the “major challenge” of achieving targets set not only for farmers, but also in terms of public health and social justice.
To accelerate the movement, the government is working on a charter with major caterers and large businesses to encourage them to commit and register on the ‘my canteen’ platform.