Address by Mr. Noel Treacy T.D.,Minister for Science, Technology and Commerceat the Launch of Irish Standard 343 Conrad International Hotel on Wednesday, 28 June 2000 at 1.30pm

I am delighted to have the opportunity to join you all here today for the launch of Irish Standard 343, "Food Safety Management incorporating HACCP".

We live in a consumer culture. Most citizens today are acutely aware of the environmental, economic and health impacts of their purchases. As customers become increasingly conscious of their role as stakeholders in this society, demands on producers have increased. My Government colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Mr. Joe Walsh T.D., has often pointed out that food production and processing must now be utterly focused on the needs, requirements and desires of the customer.

Consumer demands for quality, safety and tractability at all stages of the food chain are high- and are certain to increase. In response, farmers, processors, distributors and retailers have no choice but to put food safety and quality at the top of their agenda. In essence, this means that food safety systems must be managed with the same care and attention as is given to the financial and commercial aspects of a business, and that food safety must be integrated into the business plan of an enterprise from top management down.

Fortunately, public confidence in the Irish food industry is running high. A recent survey carried out by Agri-Aware, a coalition of interests from across the agri-food sector, found that a considerable percentage of Irish consumers acknowledges that the industry strives for high standards in food quality and safety.

However, there is no room here for complacency. In fact, the high reputation of Irish food, coupled with the increasing level of technology in Irish food processing firms, means that we have now more cause for vigilance than ever before. This is particularly important, given that the food and drink industry is Ireland’s largest indigenous sector, comprising some 700 companies and accounting for annual exports of over IR £5bn.

As food manufacturing and distribution processes become more sophisticated and complex, we have to renew our guard against the risk of hygiene breaches. The stringent quality, hygiene and food safety management systems required for supplying the retail sector in the future need to be monitored more intensely than ever to ensure that high standards are maintained.

Recently there has been a turnaround in the approach to the way food hygiene and safety rules are written. Once regulations were quite prescriptive in that the "do’s" and "don’ts" were set down in exhaustive detail. Now the law lays down objectives which have to be reached, but does not prescribe how to reach those objectives.

Instead the law states that all organisations involved in the food sector must:

• Comply with specific hygiene rules
• Carry out all food related activities in a hygienic way
• Identify what can go wrong to compromise the safety of food
• And set up systems to prevent such a failure taking place.

To help organisations to meet these legal requirements it is recommended that guides to good practice be developed throughout the EU.

The NSAI has been to the forefront in this country in this development and in the publication of sector specific guides as National Standards, which have received acclaim from producers and consumers alike. These have already made a significant contribution to the improvement of food safety here and I want to record my personal appreciation to the NSAI for the tremendous work which it has carried out in this very important area.

The new IS 343 standard is one such guide. Its strength is that it sets down clearly how food safety should be managed and defines the essential elements of successful food safety management. Specifically the standard assists companies in raising their food safety management systems to international best practice levels by:

integrating into a single document all of the legal and voluntary requirements for managing food safety and

defining a nationally agreed template to develop and assess systems for assuring food safety

I very much welcome the launch of this new Standard. I want to congratulate the NSAI for its work on this project and I also want to pay a particular acknowledgement to the working group and its excellent members - many of whom are drawn from the food industry - for the contribution which they have made.

Deepest congratulations and deepest gratitude to you all, for all of your wonderful work.

Thank you very much.