Overview of food regulation and legislation
An overview of the laws, regulations, codes of practice and guidance for running a food business.
There are a number of laws, codes of practice and guidance documents that regulate foodstuffs. These cover all parts of the food production and distribution chain, including:
- production
- processing
- packaging and labelling
- importing
- distribution
- retailing and catering
The Food Standards Act 1999
The gives the Food Standards Agency (FSA) its functions and powers. The FSA aims to protect public health and consumers' interests. They also aim to ensure food businesses are not burdened by excessive or unclear regulations.
General food law
The main pieces of UK and European Union (EU) general food legislation are:
- the , which provides the framework for food legislation in Northern Ireland and creates offences in relation to safety, quality and labelling
- the , which creates general principles and requirements of food law
- the
- the
- the , under which EU food law is transposed into national legislation
There are also several key which introduce hygiene requirements for those food businesses placing food materials into animal feed, as well as regulations that set out allergen labelling requirements.
Under current operating arrangements for Northern Ireland, food products placed on the NI market will continue to follow EU rules. From Autumn 2023, the Windsor Framework will allow GB standards for public health, marketing (including labelling) and organics to apply for pre-packed retail goods moved via a new NI retail movement scheme and placed on the NI market. Therefore, goods moving via this route containing GB standard products will be able to be placed on the NI market.
Responsibilities for food businesses
The main responsibilities for food businesses under the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 are:
- to ensure you do not include anything in food, remove anything from food, or treat food in any way that would damage the health of people eating it
- to ensure that the food you serve or sell is of the nature, substance or quality consumers would expect
- to ensure that food is labelled, advertised and presented in a way that is not false or misleading
The main responsibilities for food businesses under the General Food Law Regulation are:
- to ensure food is not unsafe (harmful to health or unfit for humans to eat)
- to ensure that labelling, advertising and presentation of food does not mislead consumers
- to be able to identify your suppliers - and the businesses you have supplied to - and produce this information on demand, ie traceability
- to withdraw unsafe food from the market and inform the authorities of this
- record-keeping
Where the unsafe food may have reached the consumer, the food business operator must inform the consumers of the reason for the withdrawal and, if necessary, recall from consumers unsafe food already supplied to them when other measures are not sufficient to achieve a high level of health protection.
Food hygiene legislation affects all food businesses. Core EU food hygiene regulations cover:
- hygiene of foodstuffs and general hygiene requirements for all food businesses
- food businesses dealing with products of animal origin
- products of animal origin intended for human consumption
- verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare
Animal feed regulations
The main responsibilities for food businesses (placing food materials into the feed chain) under regulation on feed hygiene are:
- to ensure feed is produced according to a permanent written procedure based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles
- to provide materials intended for use in animal feed to registered feed business operators
- to be registered as a feed business operator