CHOPRABISCO

With 14,200 employees, the Belgian chocolate, praline, biscuit, and confectionery industry is one of the main sub-sectors of the Belgian food industry, which offers jobs to over 100,000 people. This is 14% of the food industry!

Fevia is closely involved with working up interprofessional agreements and social negotiations, whilst representing the food industry and therefore our sector both at employers’ organisations and in talks with the trade unions at sectoral level.

For several years now, all companies, large and small, have been dealing with the huge challenge of attracting, retaining, and recognising talent.
Along with Fevia, Choprabisco supports its members with advice and guidance in facing the various challenges surrounding jobs and talent, helps them find their way around the complex labour and social security legislation whilst staging training courses and seminars on current issues.
Particularly the technical jobs are much in demand and not easy to fill. Which is why Choprabisco’s administrative body has prioritised “Talent” as a topic in its Strategic Vision for 2030.

This is a long-term effort that begins with today’s youth. Young people need to be encouraged to see the wide number of opportunities in the tastiest industry in the country, both at artisanal and advanced tech level.

The way we go about this in a practical sense is by raising awareness among our membership to take part in Food Tech Talent, to use the dual learning system and to meet students who are taking part in the Food Forward Event.

• Food Tech Talent is a joint scheme set up by Alimento, the food industry’s training institute, and Fevia, that enables youngsters to discover food companies by way of company visits. This is a great opportunity to stand out as a potential employer for your future talented professionals! The latest edition drew 18 companies from the food industry, of which 8 from the Choprabisco industry. Click here to find out more.
• Dual learning is a government-recognised system whereby pupils acquire knowledge and skills at school as well asin the workplace. Dual learning sees you invest in the future of youngsters but above all in the future of your company. Especially as these pupils often stay on to work at the company. Click here to find out more.
  Did you know that the Flemish government pays a bonus if your company trains up a pupil for at least 4 months? Click here to find out more.
• The Food Forward Event that is organised by Fevia, Flanders’ FOOD, Wagralim and Alimento each year, has presentations on tomorrow’s food with a competition for schools whereby students come to present an innovative food product. It is also where food companies can meet future talented professionals as part of a “speed dating” event. Click here to find out more.

We have a wonderful heritage thanks to the work and commitment of he many highly skilled professionals, who managed to make the difference in the past. The Belgian chocolate eco system of the 20th century has delivered strong international brands, inventions, partnerships with schools, expert professionals from the trade, competitions, etc. Now, it all comes down further building up the eco system of the 21st century.

"You cannot build a reputation on what you are going to do. You must do it!" (Henry Ford).
Our mission is and remains to acknowledge and promote the drive and dynamism, the innovative power and sustainability ambitions of Belgian chocolatiers, biscuitiers and confectioners and to help them in continuing to build on the long-standing tradition of excellence, quality, and tradecraft of the industry.

This is why Choprabisco is keen to focus even more on B2B communications to stakeholders. Our new website is the first port of call as the principal source of information for anyone who wants to find out more about Belgian chocolate, pralines, biscuits and confectionery. To train the spotlight on the innovations in our industry, we involve all of our members by highlighting their national or international awards or tokens of recognition for their innovations on our website.

From 21 through 24 April 2024, Choprabisco is participating for the first time in the World Cocoa Conference (https://www.worldcocoaconference.org/) which is being held in Brussels.
This is the biggest event for the worldwide cocoa and chocolate industry and is set to gather over 1,500 stakeholders from up and down the cocoa value chain from every corner of the globe to exchange views and find solutions to advance the sector’s sustainability. Authorities, cocoa farmers, co-operatives, exporters, traders, manufacturers, brands, retailers, (non)-governmental organisations, financial institutions, logistics companies, international aid and development organisations, academics, etc. will all be taking part in this conference.

This event gives Choprabisco an exceptional opportunity to showcase the reputation of our Belgian chocolate, the tradecraft of our Belgian chocolatiers, the economic interest, and the topics of our industry – sustainability, talent, and innovation – to the national as well as the international press. As much as itis a B2B event, given the major press coverage the event is set to draw, many consumers at home and abroad will also be addressed and we can thus make their hearts beat for Belgian chocolate and pralines. This will also reflect positively on the other biscuit and confectionery subsectors.

In 2008, Choprabisco introduced a code of conduct to protect Belgian manufacturers and consumers against foreign producers that wrongfully use the “Belgian chocolate”indication.

There is no specific legislation to protect the “Belgian chocolate” indication, although there is European legislation (FIC Regulation 1169/2011) in place which specifies that the labelling of a food is not allowed to mislead the buyer, in amongst other things in respect of the product’s origin.

Foreign manufacturers that use Belgian chocolate as an ingredient are allowed to refer to Belgian chocolate only by way of the statement “made with Belgian chocolate”.

Click here for the Belgian Chocolate Code.

By analogy with the EU Pledge, a European scheme that comes in response to the legitimate call for responsible advertising aimed at children, in 2012 the Belgian food industry and distribution sectors launched the Belgian Pledge. A self-regulation initiative sees the food industry shouldering the undertaking to substantially drive down the exposure of children to food marketing and food publicity. Over the years, these undertakings have been repeatedly tightened.

In June 2023, the Belgian Pledge was integrated in the New Advertising Code for Food, which means the rules apply to all food companies and food traders that run publicity for their food and drink products on the Belgian market.

The substance of the undertakings too has been tightened anew:

1. No advertising aimed at children under the age of 13, except for products that meet strict nutritional criteria.
   For biscuits, these specific nutritional criteria are: < 10 g saturated fat, < 35 g sugars, < 450 m sodium and > 3 g of fibres per 100 g and < 200 kcal/portion.
2. No advertising for specific products aimed at children under the age of 13, such as chocolate, sweets, ice cream, crisps, softdrinks and jam.
3. No communications to be conducted in primary schools, except at schools where the school’s management team specifically asks for such communications for educational purposes.

Scope of application

The undertakings relate to marketing communications for food and drinks, specifically aimed at audiences that are made up of 30% or more children under the age of 13 across a broad range of media channels.

The Belgian Pledge applies to the following media channels: TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, cinema, online (including influencer marketing, company websites and company profiles on social media), DVDs, direct marketing, product placement, interactive games, apps, outdoor marketing, mobile and sms marketing.

Packaging, in-store, point-of-sale as well as all forms of marketing communications which the company has no direct control over (such as user-generated content) fall outside of the scope of the Belgian Pledge.

Independent complaints processing system

The supervision of compliance with the Belgian Pledge has been assigned to the Belgian Ethical Advertising Practices Jury (JEP).

Where complaints are upheld, the JEP will request the company concerned to amend or pull the advertisement. In addition, the JEP will include the complaint along with its ruling in its annual review report, which is published on the JEP website.