Food and feed are excluded from the EU passport rule

A carton of manuka honey needs no digital product passport, and nothing coming will change that. European Union (EU) law puts food and animal feed outside the regulation that creates the passport, by name.

That regulation is the [Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation](/what-is-the-espr/) (ESPR), and no other EU passport law reaches food either.

Warning: the exclusion stops at the food. It does not cover the bottle, the label or the carton, and it does not cover your other product lines.

A separate regulation covers those. Its duties fall on the operator that places the packaging on the EU market, which is your importer. The pack still has to comply, and you are the one who specifies it.

The ecodesign exclusion sits in one article, and it is not a delay

The ESPR is Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, and it came into force in July 2024. Its Article 1(2) puts food and feed outside the full regulation. No later ESPR rule can reach an excluded product.

The ESPR does not define food itself. It takes the meaning from the EU general food law, and that meaning includes drink. So wine, beer, juice and bottled water are food, and the exclusion covers them.

What ESPR Article 1(2) excludes gives the full list, the quoted definition of food, and the products that people incorrectly believe are excluded. Wine, beer and spirits answers the drinks question. The Official Journal holds the ESPR text.

Feed is excluded as a separate item, not as a type of food

Article 1(2) names feed as a separate item from food. So an animal feed product sits outside the ESPR, and its food status makes no difference.

This site has not confirmed where the ESPR gets its definition of feed. If your product could count as food or as feed, ask your EU buyer which classification it uses. Put the answer in the contract. See agreeing data duties.

No other EU passport law reaches food or feed

The ESPR is one of five EU laws that create a digital product passport. Four others create one for a named sector. None of those four covers a food or a feed product.

The sources behind this site record no passport duty for food or feed in any EU instrument. See batteries, toys, detergents and construction products.

So you can stop monitoring the ecodesign programme. Monitor the packaging rule instead.

Your packaging is a separate product, and it is not excluded

Because the bottle, the closure, the label and the carton are separate physical goods in EU law, the food exclusion ends at the food.

Packaging has its own rule, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, which applies from 12 August 2026. No passport duty for packaging is confirmed.

Two things are. Packaging must carry a material label from 12 August 2028 at the earliest, and a producer must register. Both duties fall on your importer, and neither falls on you. See packaging.

The exclusion covers the product, not the company

Write "this product is outside ESPR scope". Never write "this exporter is outside ESPR scope".

A company that sells manuka honey and also sells woollen goods holds one excluded product and one product that a later rule may cover. Check each product line on its own. Check a new line when you add it.

The ecodesign regulation cannot reach your food, and a packaging regulation reaches the bottle

1. Stop planning for an ecodesign passport. No ESPR rule can reach food or feed.
2. Ask your EU importer which packaging duties it carries, because most of them sit with it.
3. Answer a buyer data request from the records you already hold.
4. Find out where your product data lives, and who owns it.

A European buyer can make product data a condition of sale with no law behind the request. That is the route by which these demands reach New Zealand. Step 4 is the real work, and it holds its value even if no rule ever reaches your product.

Does my New Zealand food product need one gives the New Zealand answer in full. See also first steps for a New Zealand exporter.