IMACE - European Margarine Association

Season's Greetings to all our members, partners, network, friends, and supporters! 🎄✨ A heartfelt thank you for your collaboration and inspiration throughout the year. 🙏💡 Please note that the IMACE Secretariat will be closed from 23 December 2024 until 3 January 2025. 🗓️ We look forward to reconnecting in the new year! 🎉 Warmest regards, The IMACE Team 🤝🌟

A good and easy step to transition towards a more #Sustainable 🌍 & #Healthy 🥗 Food System is consuming more #plantbased 🌱 (e.g. #margarine) than animal-based 🐄 #fats (e.g. #butter) 🧈. It reduces the environmental dietary footprint 🌿 and cuts down on sources of #saturated 🥓 and #trans-fats ⚡ while increasing the intake of #unsaturated fats 🥑. Many Member States' dietary guidelines already explicitly recommend such shift 👇 Hopefully others will follow soon 🙌.

The production of margarine is based on a straightforward process. In principle, it includes few basic ingredients such as vegetable oils 🌻, emulsifier 🧴 and water 💧. The vegetable oils are just like those we can find in any domestic kitchen 🏠, such as linseed oil, sunflower oil 🌻, rapeseed oil 🌿 and soy oil 🌱. On top of those oils, solid tropical oils such as palm 🌴 and coconut 🥥 oil are added to give a more solid texture. Because the oil-water mixture naturally separates, emulsifiers are used in the basic recipe to keep the mix together 🔗. Furthermore, other safe and authorised substances, called additives ✨ may be included in the recipes for technological purposes. These include improving the consistency of the product 🍞, the taste 😋, the colour 🎨, the spreadability 🧈 or even lowering the fat content 🥄. Besides, vitamin E is naturally occurring in the plant and seed oils 🌿. In many margarines, vitamins A and D are also added to help improve the population's nutrient intake as per national guidelines 🥇.

❓Did you know? Margarine 🧈 & spreads are the plant-based 🌱 butter alternative “avant la lettre”. Continuous innovations and recipe 📜 improvements made the current modern margarines the most sustainable plant-based alternative to dairy butter. Plant-based margarine & spreads have a much lower environmental footprint 👣 , a healthy fatty acid profile and are a source of vitamin A & D. Read more: 👉 https://bit.ly/3DjyLtD

📣 IMACE - European Margarine Association acknowledges the #EuropeanCommission proposal to postpone the application of the European Deforestation-free products Regulation (#EUDR) by twelve months. 🌍 IMACE members are fully committed to the objectives of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and its broader goals of promoting sustainable and deforestation-free supply chains. 🌱 (#margarines #spreads) Successful implementation requires adequate preparation across the entire value chain. It is crucial that the European Commission continues to provide further guidance and training to ensure full and timely readiness of all involved stakeholders by the new date of application. 📅 IMACE calls on the European Parliament to swiftly approve the postponement without further amendments. 🏛️ #EUDR, #deforestation, #Sustainability

#IMACE thanks #Assitol for the great hospitality of our Q4/2024 Council meeting, yesterday 23 October 2024, in Rome. That was an enjoyable meeting and look forward to more opportunities to collaborate in the future.

📢 Did you know you can improve the nutritional composition and the #footprint 👣 of bakery 🥐 just by replacing #butter with #margarine 🧈in the recipe 📖

#DYK that you can contribute to conserving our natural resources♻️by making more #sustainable daily food choices😋? ➡️Compared to butter, producing #margarine🧈 and #plantbased spreads🌱 require less: 🧑🌾Land 🔋Energy 💧Water https://bit.ly/3DjyLtD

The new World Health Organization report analyses the progress made in the elimination of TFA ➡️https://lnkd.in/ezCkTH4a 🧈The #margarine sector has pioneered product reformulation by successfully reducing its level of industrial #TFAs to below 2%. ❗️However, animal-based fats contain a high level of ruminant TFAs, varying from 2% to 9%, and is not clearly communicated to consumers. 📢The solution? A dedicated #TFAlabelling informing on both industrial and ruminant TFAs in order to help consumers make healthy food choices!

Imace is pleased with the outcome of the strategic dialogue on the future of EU farming as consensus is reached on the need to develop an EU action plan for plant-based foods! We hope that these recommendations will be translated in concrete policy actions supporting the plant-based food categories creating a real level playing field.