THE SIAL FOR CHANGE 2026 COMPETITION

The first European award celebrating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the food sector that excel in sustainability and innovation. Initiated by FoodDrinkEurope, the award highlights companies building a more sustainable, resilient, and innovative food future, while providing valuable visibility to decision-makers, buyers, and key players across Europe’s food industry.

FoodDrinkEurope represents the European food and drink industry. It promotes policies, initiatives, and actions that enable companies to produce food that is safe, delicious, and sustainable, while contributing to a thriving economy and healthier diets for all. Based in Brussels, FoodDrinkEurope works closely with EU institutions, coordinates the expertise of hundreds of specialists, and represents the industry on key issues such as food safety, environmental sustainability, nutrition, competitiveness, and innovation. By facilitating dialogue between industry stakeholders, policymakers, and other parties, it helps shape more resilient and responsible food systems in Europe.javascript:void(0);

The European Commission is the EU’s main institution responsible for defining and implementing policies. The Commission facilitated the launch in 2021 of the EU ‘Code of Conduct on Responsible Food Business and Marketing Practices’, also named as the ‘Agri-Food Code’, a voluntary initiative led by food industry actors. The Commission oversees its implementation and governance, aiming to accelerate the transition toward more sustainable, competitive, and responsible practices across the food chain. The Commission has put in place the EU Agri-Food Platform. To encourage wider SME participation, the Commission supports the award dedicated to start-ups and SMEs in the SIAL For Change competition.

To combine its knowledge of the food industry with the CSR expertise of an acknowledged name, SIAL is joining forces with the CSR consultancy Hyssop, tasked both with compiling the award’s specifications and assessing the entries as an independent third party.

Hyssop is not one for idle talk, and prefers pumped-up action to pompous rhetoric. In practice, Hyssop is a tight-knit team of technical experts dealing in CSR, brand strategy and responsible communication. A collective that can support companies in their sustainable transformation, globally and in alignment with their business. Hyssop currently advises companies of all sizes, from L’Oreal to Jeff de Bruges, Protifly or Guerlain. For the French Biodiversity Agency, Hyssop has evaluated 74 biodiversity roadmap, a large proportion of which were in the food sector.

Harnessing its 20 years of experience in support of initiatives that include CSR audits and action plans, responsible purchasing policies, biodiversity roadmaps, stakeholder dialogue, content platforms and internal engagement programmes, Hyssop accompanies responsible organisations in search of the best way forward.