Food Drink Ireland (FDI) has called on the Irish Government and the European Commission to ensure that food regulation remains a top priority throughout Brexit negotiations.
FDI, the Ibec group representing Ireland’s food and drink sector, said that any new EU-UK arrangement must ‘aim to minimise the potential for regulatory divergence, which would increase costs and create barriers to trade’.
Risk Factors
Speaking at the FDI Brexit Regulatory Conference in Dublin, FDI director Paul Kelly said, “Regulatory divergence as a result of Brexit is a significant risk factor that Irish food and drink companies must plan for.
“EU food safety legislation and compliance by food business operators underpins consumer confidence as the standards are the highest in the world. However, Brexit brings a significant risk of regulatory divergence, and with that comes the likelihood of different and potentially lower standards. This will serve to increase costs and complexity of doing business."
The importance of maintaining equivalent standards on food safety, animal health and welfare, and the environment post-Brexit was also raised at the conference.
Maintaining Standards
Dr Pamela Byrne, CEO of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) was the keynote speaker at the conference.
“Protection of consumers’ health and interests needs to be a central focus of the upcoming negotiations," she said. "The maintenance of high standards of food safety are key to providing assurances to consumers that their food is safe and that the industry is complying with European law which is the legal framework that we will continue to enforce."
“The FSAI recognises the concerns from the industry and has put Brexit on the agenda of all future engagements with industry to facilitate information exchange. We will also strengthen our relationships with key regulatory stakeholders in the UK to share concerns and explore opportunities that will allow us to protect consumers from a food safety, integrity and authenticity perspective."
Single Market
FDI also emphasised the importance of protecting the EU single market.
Closing the conference, FDI's Paul Kelly said, "The EU single market is an engine of food and drink export growth and must be protected from attempts to renationalise it."
"Mandatory country of origin labelling initiatives, by some member states, of dairy and processed meat products for example, are extremely damaging to the future of the single market and the future growth of our industry.”
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
