Coalition Urged EU to Act on Blue Foods for Food Security

A coalition of Europe’s leading fisheries and aquaculture organizations urged the European Commission to adopt a dedicated Blue Foods Action Plan to tackle food security risks, declining local production, and sustainability challenges. The call, made during an event in Brussels on September 3, came against the backdrop of falling seafood consumption in Europe, rising dependence on imports, and increasing diet-related health concerns.

Industry leaders pointed out that blue foods – such as wild-caught and farmed fish and seafood – not only delivered essential nutrients like omega-3s, vitamins, and minerals but also carried a lower carbon and resource footprint compared to many land-based proteins.

Beyond their nutritional value, they highlighted the sector’s contribution to millions of jobs in rural and coastal communities, emphasizing that Europe’s declining production capacity posed risks to both livelihoods and long-term food security.

Policymakers echoed these concerns, with representatives from the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee stressing that blue foods must form a central pillar of the EU’s Ocean Pact and sustainable food strategy. They underlined that without a strong and coordinated commitment to responsible fisheries and aquaculture, Europe risked undermining its ability to meet local demand, safeguard fair trade conditions, and build resilient, future-oriented food systems.

The Blue Foods Action Plan advocacy addresses a genuine gap in EU food-system strategy - the historical bias toward land-based agriculture policy has left aquatic food systems (wild-caught, farmed) with less coherent policy support. Declining European production combined with rising import dependence creates food-security and trade-balance concerns that broader Ocean Pact frameworks can address.

The lower carbon-and-resource footprint framing for aquatic proteins is analytically important. Well-managed wild-caught fisheries and sustainable aquaculture typically outperform terrestrial livestock on greenhouse-gas, land-use and freshwater metrics; policy support for aquatic food systems can advance both food security and climate goals simultaneously.

For fisheries operators, aquaculture producers, seafood processors, retailers and financial institutions supporting European blue-economy investment, Cognitud's nature-based solutions, supply chain and operations and impact assessment teams help clients evaluate Blue-Foods-Action-Plan-linked opportunities, structure long-term commercial arrangements aligned with sustainable sourcing and Ocean Pact frameworks, and prepare disclosures aligned with CSRD, MSC, ASC, ISSB and jurisdictional blue-economy frameworks.