European Retail Round Table

The European Retail Round Table was a Brussels-based association that brought together the chief executives of major European retail groups to engage with EU institutions on single market, competition, sustainability and supply-chain issues. It merged into EuroCommerce in November 2019 and ceased operations in 2020.

History

ERRT was active by 1999 and was based at Square de Meeûs 35, Brussels. Its policy work addressed the European single market for retail, including digital and cross-border issues, as set out in a 2015 position paper to the European Commission.
In 1999 ERRT convened a GMO working group and, in consultation with EuroCommerce, issued a discussion paper on GMOs in food setting out retailers’ views on labelling and risk communication. The paper supported an EU-wide labelling regime, a very low threshold for adventitious presence, validated testing methods, and segregation/traceability along the supply chain; it also reported several large retailers removing GM ingredients from own-brand products in response to consumer concerns.
ERRT was a founding association behind The Supply Chain Initiative, promoting fair-trading practices across the food supply chain; worked with the Commission and EuroCommerce on the Retail Forum for Sustainability and the Retailers’ Environmental Action Programme ; and acted as secretariat to the Timber Retail Coalition, which advocated EU rules on legally and responsibly sourced timber. Under the Retail Forum for Sustainability, ERRT coordinated the voluntary Retail Agreement on Waste and published a 2016 report summarising signatories’ actions to prevent and reduce waste across operations and supply chains.
On 7 November 2019, ERRT and EuroCommerce announced that they would merge their activities, with ERRT's functions integrated into EuroCommerce; ERRT ceased operations in 2020.