A year on from the formal establishment of the Agri-Food Regulator or An Rialálaí Agraibhia, CEO Niamh Lenehan said that it has created a “significant engagement programme” with stakeholders.
The Agri-Food Regulator comes under the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Act 2023, with an aim to see compliance and enforcement of unfair trading practices (UTP), and work towards transparency in terms of price and market data.
As 2024 comes to a close, the regulator worked on building its team and website through the year, but also “hit the road running” with its main responsibilities, according to the CEO.
In terms of UTPs, on-site inspections were first initiated this year, with the regulator recently making a prosecution to a meat plant operator due to a breach of a UTP.
The regulator focused on engaging with businesses over how the regulator aims to improve transparency, and targeted the egg sector first to seek to request data impacting upon price and margins.
It was intended that using the data supplied, and supplemented by publicly available information, the regulator would produce a report about price and market data across the egg supply chain.
Only half of the retailers responded to the requests at the time, therefore the board of the regulator requested additional powers in writing to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue.
Seeking extra power for this is still the “goal” of the regulator while it is now also seeking data from the horticulture sector to prepare a report in that area.
Going into 2025, the team is internally working on expanding to reach its full staff criteria of 17 members.
Lenehan also said that the board has also been engaging with businesses to receive up to date information regularly. With building IT infrastructure, the board hopes this will allow for regular reports.