Regulations that will provide the Agri-Food Regulator with additional powers are set to take effect from December 31 this year.

The introduction of the new regulations will provide the regulator with extra powers to compel the provision of price and market information from businesses in circumstances where voluntary requests for such information have not been complied with.

To date, the regulator has been producing reports using publicly-available information.

The enhanced powers relate specifically to the regulator’s price and market analysis function, which is separate from its enforcement role in relation to unfair trading practices (UTPs).

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon announced last December the introduction of the new regulations that will confer these enhanced powers.

Preparatory work

CEO of the Agri-Food Regulator Niamh Lenehan said there has been "significant preparatory work" ahead of the power to compel being operational on the last day of this year.

The regulator has been developing a process and procedure around how the regulations are operationalised, and looking at how the legislation "can be implemented effectively and in a legally-robust way".

"We need certain systems in place in order to facilitate data coming in. There is quite a lot of work that must be done in advance of any data requests going out," Lenehan told Agriland.

"There needs to be lots of research and exploring a sector, identifying what gaps there would be, what data could we possibly obtain that would try and fill that gap.

"Then we have other considerations in terms of commercially-sensitive data. We have to consider the burden on businesses."

Transparency

Lenehan said this is part of the regulator's task in improving transparency of the supply chain.

"Price and market data is only one way that it can increase transparency," she said.

"The regulator has no role in price-setting or interventions in price, it has been asked essentially to provide more information on that value as food and products go along the supply chain.

"It's putting additional information where possible into the public domain on how our food supply chain works."

New legislation

The Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Act 2023 applies across the agri-food supply chain, including supermarkets and large retailers.

However, the new regulations to come into effect at the end of this year will exclude small businesses in recognition of the potential administrative burden such measures could place on them.

For the purposes of these regulations, a small business is defined, in line with EU legislation, as an enterprise that employs fewer than 50 persons and whose annual turnover and/or annual balance sheet total does not exceed €10 million.

The regulator also cannot compel data for an individual product from any business more than once in a 12-month period.

There are also a number of pre-conditions to compelling information.

Additionally, the board of the Agri-Food Regulator has recently approved a proposed roadmap for its price market data analysis team to voluntarily request specific data in two sectors, with staff due to engage shortly with the relevant businesses in the first of the two sectors.

Supplier survey

The regulator today (Wednesday, June 24) released the findings of its second annual supplier survey.

The survey gathered feedback from agri-food suppliers on their experiences of trading with eight specific buyers in the retail and wholesale sectors.

Conducted by Red C Research, the Agri-Food Regulator’s supplier survey covered two main areas - compliance with the Unfair Trading Regulations and other general trading issues.