Following review and consultation with the Head of Regulation from the Consumer & Competition Protection Commission (CCPC) it is the position of ICOS that the Consumer Protection Act 2007 (Grocery Goods Undertakings) Regulations 2016 (“the Regulations”) do not apply to ANY of our co-operative members in relation to training obligations or compliance statements.

The CCPC have confirmed that the Regulations apply to “a grocery goods undertaking engaged in the retail or wholesale of grocery goods in the State that has, or is a member of a group of related undertakings that has, an annual worldwide turnover of more than €50 million”.

It is understood that the €50m threshold on turnover applies to the ‘food or drink’ aspect of the wider ‘grocery’ sales (‘food or drink’ and ‘grocery’ being defined in the Regulations and the originating consumer protection legislation) of the business and not its entire turnover and as such excludes ALL of our member organisations.

The 2016 Regulations only apply to retailers and wholesalers, in that the Regulations apply to the sale of “food or drink for human consumption” and do not apply to any other type of grocery goods. However, the definition of “food or drink” is quite wide and includes, for example, additives, ingredients or processing aids.

The Regulations do not apply to garden plants/bulbs nor do they apply to the supply of raw materials in the agriculture sector to processors (e.g. supply of milk to creameries) or the supply of animal feed.

Support in relation to training in this new legislation is available through our training division “ICOS Skillnet”, where members still wish to avail of this. Please note that this support is only available until the implementation deadline of 31 July 2016.

Should any of our members require more information in regards to this legislation, please feel free to contact James Doyle – Legal and Governance Executive on james.doyle@icos.ie or on 01 676-4783.

For support in relation to training on this legislation, please contact ICOS Skillnet on 01 6131348 or email Billy Goodburn at billy.goodburn@icos.ie