The Foodservice Equipment Association (FEA) and the European Federation of Catering Equipment Manufacturers (EFCEM) have joined other business organisations in the UK and the EU to call for a mutual recognition agreement on product conformity assessments in order to reduce barriers to trade.

Conformity assessment is the process of verifying that a product, service, process, or system meets specified requirements, such as standards or regulations. Since the UK left the European Union there hasn’t been a unified approach to conformity assessment with our European neighbours. This means that commercial kitchen equipment suppliers on both sides are increasingly facing costs to have equipment tested and recognised against UK criteria, and then facing those costs again to have their equipment tested against the European criteria, which is often very similar.

Business organisations from the UK and EU met in February 2025 to discuss practical measures that could be enacted to reduce the technical barriers to UK-EU trade. Recognising the shared challenges faced by industries in both areas, a mutual recognition agreement was identified as a sensible outcome of further discussions between the parties.

An agreement of this nature would be mutually beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly, increased stability of regulatory environments would bring confidence to investors and enable scalability. Secondly, avoiding duplicative conformity assessments would reduce costs for businesses, helping growth of exports. Finally, greater availability of assessment bodies for UK and EU businesses would help build capacity and increase competitiveness.

The common goal of industry on both sides of the issue is to achieve efficient market access while reducing bureaucratic hurdles as much as possible.

The importance of ensuring UK-EU trade operates as smoothly as possible has been highlighted recently with the introduction by Donald Trump of trade tariffs on goods being exported to the United States, which has raised the spectre of costs rising to unsustainable amounts.

This deal could be either delivered alongside other measures focussed on industry, or as a standalone mini deal outside of the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement. An agreement on selected sectors could be made initially, and then scaled up over time. This would be easy to accomplish as UKAS is assessed to the same standards as EU accreditation bodies, being signatories to the multilateral agreement concerning European co-operation for accreditation. This facilitates the technical recognition of equivalence of accredited conformity assessment.

This effort comes ahead of the EU-UK leader summit scheduled for May 19^th, and this statement is part of FEA’s ongoing work with its European peer organisations to ensure that the voices of its members are heard during decisions about legislation that affects them.

“Reducing unnecessary barriers to trade is a huge priority for many FEA members and the foodservice equipment industry as a whole,” says John Cunningham, chief executive of FEA. “We are proud to join this effort to call on the UK and EU to pursue the goal of reaching an agreement on mutual recognition of conformity. It is a fully achievable and practical measure that will help to deepen the trading relationship between the UK and EU member states.”

The Foodservice Equipment Association (FEA)is the independent, authoritative voice of the foodservice equipment industry, representing nearly 200 companies who supply, service and maintain all types of commercial catering equipment - from utensils to full kitchen schemes.  For more information on FEA visit www.fea.org.uk 

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John Cunningham, FEA chief executive: 020 7793 3030

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