
Francesco Montanari
Languages
English, Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish
Competencies
EU food law, food labelling and advertising, novel foods, innovation, sustainability of the agri-food chain and food products, import rules and market access, crisis management, animal health and plant health
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Biography
Dr Francesco Montanari is a lawyer specialised in the agri-food sector with over twenty years of experience and registered at the Bar of Bologna and Lisbon. In this capacity, he advises national and international private clients on how best to comply with EU and national rules relevant to agri-food business activities.
Italian and Portuguese by nationality, Francesco holds a PhD in EU law (2006) from the University of Bologna, during which he investigated the EU approach towards sustainability labelling and certification. He also holds a MSc in Food Consumption Science from the Open University of Lisbon (2021) that he successfully concluded with a thesis on the current regulatory constraints to the uptake of insects as food and feed in the EU, work that became a book published by Springer. Besides his academic studies and production, Francesco has been working at international level on agri-food issues since the beginning of his career, including as Food Policy Advisor at the British Retail Consortium (2006-2009) and as a Legislative officer at the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission (2009-2012). Since 2013 he has been consulting on food law matters in Lisbon besides managing and performing EU studies in the agri-food sector mostly in collaboration with Arcadia International: over the last decade, Francesco successfully completed several EU studies for private and public clients (e.g. ‘Study on low / no alcohol beverages’ for the European Commission, 2023; ‘State of play of sustainability initiatives in the wine appellation sector’ for the European Federation of Origin Wines, 2022; ‘Implementation of EU legislation on on-farm animal welfare. Potential EU added value from the introduction of animal welfare labelling requirements at EU level’ for the European Parliament, 2021). Francesco is also a regular speaker at international and national conferences and events; besides that, he has been training staff of the competent authorities of EU Member States for almost ten years in the context of the Commission’s programme ‘Better Training for Safer Food’ (BTSF). Francesco speaks and writes fluently in English, French, Portuguese and Italian while he has a working knowledge of Spanish.