Soft Normativity for Food Sustainability: An EU Code of Conduct for businesses between collective responsibility and greenwashing

In the last two decades, a plethora of instruments conveying informal normativity strongly entered the EU legislative process to define public values softly enforced for food policy purposes. The Code of Con-duct for food business adopted in 2021 as an integral part of the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy has been the last piece of this normative trend. It relies on some general principles to provide a basis for ethical-and evi-dence-based commitments aimed at achieving a sustainable food system, while guiding market actors in the pursuit of enhanced private-sector accountability. The convergence of ethical and legal principles raises, however, quarrels of legitimacy and responsibility in its mediating between non-negotiable values and marketing strategies. This contribution highlights the merits and pitfalls of the EU Code’s structure and discusses the normative role assigned to it within the EU approach to sustainability dynamics. The analysis posits that a risk remains for the EU Code to being rhetorically legitimized in the name of its purported democratic nature, while primarily pointing to support and strengthen EU food marketplace.