IT'S 2010. You pick up a pre-packed bag of tomatoes in the supermarket, take them over to a computer terminal and swipe a scanner over the barcode. On the screen in front of you appears a woman, smiling proudly in front of rows of tomato plants in a field somewhere in southern Spain. That's where your tomatoes came from. She's the farmer who grew them; when you swiped the barcode, you logged onto her page on the website run by a local producers' co-op.
"Click on a few options, and you have details of how the tomatoes were grown, including exact types and doses of chemicals applied. Then comes the bit you're most interested in: a statement by an independent auditor that they were produced in accordance with the latest integrated crop management (ICM) standards. So you buy in confidence."
That's the future of food retailing as recently portrayed, somewhat idealistically, in Tomorrow - Global Environment Business magazine. ICM is already a reality and centres on reduced use of chemicals in farming. It has been embraced by one British supermarket giant, Sainburys, primarily due to consumer concerns about pesticides. Its success, manifest in widespread use, will depend on ensuring independent auditing.
Equally, the future of the Irish food industry will depend on the extent to which independence is introduced to food monitoring. Independence generates credibility, confidence and product success. A tussle between agricultural/producer interests and consumer interests over where the balance lies is ongoing in almost all EU States.
The grand battle is taking place within the European Commission. Scientific committees for human and animal health have been transferred to the directorate of consumer affairs. Some £400 million is being allocated this year for new food safety measures, including product quality control and audit office based in Ireland. Yet consumer groups fear that much of the real power still rests with agriculture.
Ireland will have to decide how it balances food and agriculture when a programme for government is carved out after the election. A commitment to a beef quality assurance scheme, set to be the most stringent within the EU, is sending the right signals.
As the man who introduced traceability to his supermarkets years before people realised its full significance, Superquinn owner Feargal Quinn is well placed to comment on the concept and on how confidence may be restored.
Regaining confidence in food, he says, is done by asking `in whose interest is any action being taken?' at EU and national level. Confidence needs to be driven by customer interest. Customers will no longer tolerate any solution which suggests that producers are the people to monitor the industry.
More and more, the person nearest the customer, the retailer, will have to provide assurances on food. Traceability in Quinn's case involves posting up names, addresses and often photographs of farmers whose meat is on sale. This requires Superquinn inspection of farms. While this can never be 100 per cent foolproof, it goes a long way towards assuring customers of quality. His second confidence strategy is to forge partnerships with fresh food suppliers, pursuing long-term relationships with agreed quality goals.
He is not the only one impressed by the new Food Safety Authority (FSA). The Centre for Food Policy at Thames Valley University examined how Britain should establish its own version. Many aspects of the FSA, it says, should be taken on board. "Its credibility got off to a good start by excluding industry interests, despite the formidably powerful and successful Irish food processing sector." The study approves of the FSA's ability to expose offending agencies or food businesses, its penalty system and powers to seize unfit food.
IRELAND'S new ideals of independent and thorough food safety checks appear genuine, according to Dr Patrick Wall, an Irish-born consultant epidemiologist at the Communicable Diseases Surveillance Centre in London. "The whole of the EU is watching what Ireland is doing, because it excluded industry completely (from the FSA). The thinking is that it's going to get it right."
The FSA is crucial to such a large food exporting country, that is also heavily dependent on tourism. "A little mismanagement in the past" by a minority of producers/processors is forgiven but the absence of a national disease surveillance centre, including a reference laboratory capable of identifying all strains of food-borne pathogen, are obvious shortcomings, he says likewise, a failure to adopt the EU directive 93-43 governing food hygiene and safety.
Just as independent food monitoring is the key to restoring consumer confidence, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems are vital to ensure food safety. Soon it will be mandatory for all food businesses.
It is a meticulous approach to analysing potential hazards in food operations. Critical control points are monitored and remedial action, specified in advance, is taken if conditions at any point are not within safe limits.
Irish processors saw the writing on the wall and "cannot get enough of HACCP", according to Dr Vivion Tarrant of the National Food Centre in Dublin, which introduced the US-developed concept to Ireland. The NFC has its own risk-analysis unit supporting industry and has enhanced the credibility factor by setting up a database on the residue status of Irish foods. Manufacturers submit their products for analysis.
"You're not going to go into the market saying we have no antibiotics in our milk or no Ivermectin in our salmon but when the hard question comes, a manufacturer can point to up-to-date independent research which confirms quality," Dr Tarrant explains.
With in-built food safety systems and a new consistency in food quality, he says Ireland's food industry is set for a performance that will put the performance of the Celtic Tiger so far in the shade.
