A new guide is aiming to help Irish food businesses to continue to protect and maintain the country's food safety standards.

The Food Safety Incident Management Guide has been launched by Food Drink Ireland (FDI), the Ibec group representing the food and drink sector.

The manufacturer-focused guide provides food businesses with a "practical toolkit" to support planning, performing structured risk assessments, and making swift decisions with confidence.

The free resource, available to all food businesses, reinforces that modern food safety is a critical driver of business resilience and requires a whole-of-business approach.

Food safety guide

Designed as an additional resource to complement established regulations, the document offers structured, step-by-step guidance covering proactive prevention, rapid early-stage response to incidents, and continuous improvement.

The guide has two focus areas:

Prevention: Key regulatory requirements, industry best practices and available external supports to help businesses review and enhance their existing food safety management and risk mitigation systems;
Incident response: Practical guidance on the critical actions and decision-making processes required during a food safety incident.

The guide is being complemented by a dedicated training programme delivered in partnership with Food Drink Ireland Skillnet.

The training covers crisis management preparedness and practical simulation exercises, enabling companies to test and strengthen their incident response capabilities in a realistic environment.

Paul Kelly, director of FDI, said: "Ireland’s food and drink sector is globally renowned for its exceptionally high commitment to safety standards".

"This guide is designed to support leadership teams with practical decision-making tools to treat food safety as a boardroom-level priority, safeguarding consumers, protecting local jobs, and securing business continuity," he said.