Chafea: international marketing for today’s agri-food industry

If your main objective is to promote your agri-food products within the EU and overseas, but you are looking for some funds, Chafea may be a good option for you. It will not only help you with the necessary funds, but it will also aim to increase awareness and recognition for high quality agro-products, a fundamental stage to build an effective and strategic long-term growth. Let’s have a closer look at this major’s agency impacts on today’s agri-food industry.

Chafea is the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency. Established by the European Commission and based in Luxembourg, it is one of the six executive agencies of the European Union. Originally founded under the Barroso I Commission in 2005, as the ‘Public Health Executive Agency’; it has expanded during almost ten years four engaging programs and become in December 2014: Chafea.

Chafea has four major programmes:

–   The Consumer programme is helping citizens to fully enjoy their consumer rights in the single market.

–   The Health programme strives to continuously improve the citizens’ health and increase sustainability of health systems.

–  The Agriculture programme is promoting EU agricultural products at an international level.

–   The better training for a Safer Food programme is ensuring a high level of food safety and promoting a harmonized approach in the food industry.

This article will especially focus on the third programme: the promotion of agricultural products.

A promoting mission

Chafea’s mission is to promote European agricultural products throughout the world and within the EU. Each year two calls for proposals are published for simple and multi programmes, covering a wide range of issues, from general campaigns on healthy eating to specific market sectors. Beneficiaries can receive up to 80% EU funding for their promotion campaigns in the internal market or in third countries.

Chafea’s five main objectives are to:

–  Increase awareness of the merits of Union agricultural products and of the high standards applicable to the production methods in the Union.

–  Increase the competitiveness and consumption of Union agricultural products and certain food products and to raise their profile both inside and outside the Union.

–   Increase the awareness and recognition of Union quality schemes.

–  Increase the market share of Union agricultural products and certain food products, specifically focusing on those markets in third countries that have the highest growth potential.

–   Restore normal market conditions in the event of serious market disturbance, loss of consumer confidence or other specific problems.

Chafea’s process is represented in the diagram below. Combining 5 different steps and lasting over 1 year, Chafea’s process is quite complex. Starting in January with the publication of the calls for proposals, institutions will then have four months to submit their projects, by following the guidelines. During a period of maximum 6 months, the agency will evaluate each submissions and decide to approve or reject them. If the institution’s project has been selected and approved by Chafea, a period of maximum 3 months will follow to ensure that everything is correct and will end up by the signature of the contract for a simple or a grant for agreement for multi. The promotion will begin to start after 1 year.

Eligibility conditions

Only applicants from entities established in EU Member States are eligible. The proposing organization shall have the necessary technical, financial and professional resources to carry the programme effectively.

–   Trade or inter-trade organizations, established in a Member State and representative of the Sector or sectors concerned in that member state.

–  Trade or inter-trade organizations of the union representative of the sector or sectors concerned at union level.

–  Producer organizations or associations of producer organizations.

–  Agri-food sector bodies the objective and activity of which is to provide information on, and to promote, agricultural products which have been entrusted, by the member state concerned, with a clearly defined public service mission in this area, those bodies must have been legally established in the member state.

Targeted products

They are some different kinds of products that can be eligible for Chafea:

–    The following processed products: beer, chocolate and derived products, bread, pastry, cakes, confectionery, biscuits and other baker’s wares, beverages made from plant extracts, pasta, salt, natural gums and resins, mustard paste, sweetcorn, cotton.

–     The spirit drinks with a protected geographical indication.

–    The wine with designation of origin or protected geographical indication status and wine carrying an indication of the wine grape variety; in the case of simple programmes, wine shall be associated to one or several other products

–    The fisheries products if associated to one or several products.

Atlas supports Chafea

Since 2010, Atlas Marketing Studio has been collaborating with Chafea. This company’s team is committed to help organizations find international partners for their proposals, as well as, to support them by providing the technical know-how to elaborate winning proposals. If the institution will get approval, Atlas Marketing Studio will ensure to promote the institution during 3 years.

Thanks to Atlas’ hard work, in 2019 the approval rate for the submission of new institutions to Chafea has been 100%.

If you like this article, you will also be interested by knowing the bigest difficulties of Chafea. Do not hesitate to check out our Linkedin group dedicated to Chafea.