Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue signed a statutory instrument from the EU on Friday that will give effect in Irish law to additional price reporting obligations, which aim to improve food market price transparency in the EU.

The enhanced reporting requirements for Ireland will apply to both the meat and dairy sectors.

The new changes will build on existing price reporting obligations to provide more information on prices at each stage of the food supply chain.

At the moment, there is a large amount of information available about farmgate prices, volumes and stocks, and the prices paid by consumers at retail level.

Limited information

However, there is limited information about prices at other stages of the food supply chain - for example, the prices at which processors sell product and the prices at which retailers buy product.

Speaking on the new requirements, Minister McConalogue said: “I am committed to bringing increased market transparency to all elements of the supply chain.

"I believe increased price reporting to be an important tool, along with other initiatives including the unfair trading practices (UTP) legislation and support for producer organisations, in strengthening the position of primary producers, who are key to the success of our sector."

Implementation

In advance of the implementation of these new changes at EU level, the Department has provided additional detailed price reporting on the beef PriceWatch app.

Additionally, as part of the work of the Beef Market Taskforce, Bord Bia has developed a beef market price index model, which is updated weekly on its website.

This index shows the relationship between the Irish beef price and a composite export benchmark price, which reflects the relative importance of key markets for Irish beef, an index of wholesale and retail prices and a by-product market indicator.