Morning, Thursday, 6th March 2025
Online
This conference will examine the future of food regulation in the UK, focusing on food safety, border controls, and the evolving role of the Food Standards Agency.
It will be an opportunity to assess priorities and strategic options for addressing challenges highlighted in the FSA and FSS’s annual report Our Food. Areas for discussion include the way forward for tackling shortages of food safety professionals, alleviating pressures on hygiene and safety control systems, and overcoming financial and skills challenges faced by local authorities.
Stakeholders and policymakers will consider the FSA’s proposed changes to the food safety system, with discussion on implications for larger businesses in areas such as submitting data for monitoring purposes and moving towards a national-level regulatory framework. We expect discussion on the impact of these proposals for businesses, regulators, and the effectiveness of food safety oversight.
The agenda also includes a focus on issues around UK border controls and the impact on trade from regulatory barriers, including delays in implementing aspects of the Windsor Framework and ongoing issues at the Northern Ireland border. Attendees will explore options for reducing non-tariff barriers to trade that disproportionately affect the agri-food industry.
In light of government plans to pursue a veterinary agreement with the EU to prevent the need for border checks, delegates will discuss the potential benefits of such an agreement and its implications for UK-EU relations and trade.
The relationship between food standards and trade will also be discussed, including potential implications of the UK’s ongoing trade talks, and government ambitions for supporting economic growth. Delegates will consider how challenges might be resolved such as the pursuit of trade deals with countries outside the EU impacting the UK’s ability to align with EU agri-food regulatory policies, looking at the extent of acceptable regulatory divergence and the balance between seeking international trade agreements and maintaining high domestic food standards.
Further discussion is expected on the impact on the UK agri-food sector and consumers of free trade agreements with partners, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and Australia and New Zealand. Delegates will consider how domestic regulatory activity will be informed by international standards and the future role of the FSA in modernising processes, increasing regulatory efficiency, and freeing up capacity post-Brexit.
Overall, areas for discussion include:
- regulator priorities: maintaining food safety standards - addressing shortages of professionals - strengthening resources in local areas - approaches to maintaining public trust
- proposed changes: evaluating FSA’s plan for national oversight - implications of data monitoring for large businesses - impact on local authorities - ensuring effective food safety monitoring
- modernised regulation: assessing the FSA’s role going forward - updating processes - increasing regulatory efficiency - leveraging technology for oversight
- food crime: implications of a changing landscape - tackling insider threats - food system integrity - inter-agency collaboration - protecting high-risk commodities such as meat and olive oil
- border control: examining Windsor Framework delays - options for addressing impacts on GB-NI trade - prospects for reducing non-tariff barriers - balancing compliance with trade facilitation
- veterinary agreement: priorities for achieving potential benefits - future for border checks - regulatory standards alignment - enhancing UK-EU trade relations more widely
- established trade partners: strategy for US and EU trade deals - assessing impact on food standards - options for managing regulatory divergence - priorities for supporting economic growth
- new trade deals: key issues for food standards and trade - addressing wider stakeholder concerns - protecting domestic standards and producers - evaluating risks of some importing products
- food insecurity: tackling rising concerns and challenges - improving access to safe, affordable food - addressing household and sector economic pressures - strategies to support vulnerable groups
- policy and economics: assessing impact on the agri-food sector and policy options for support - ensuring food safety doesn’t mitigate growth - balancing reforms with economic priorities
All delegates will be able to contribute to the output of the conference, which will be shared with parliamentary, ministerial, departmental and regulatory offices, and more widely. This includes the full proceedings and additional articles submitted by delegates. As well as key stakeholders, those due to attend include officials from Defra; FSA; FSS; and DAFM, ROI.
