New Food explains: How the FSA’s Future of Food Regulation Programme could reshape industry oversight

England’s food regulatory architecture has evolved far more slowly than the businesses it oversees. Many large manufacturers and retailers now operate across multiple sites, generate sophisticated compliance data and use assurance systems capable of providing a view beyond a single premises inspection.

That request sits at the centre of the FSA’s wider Future of Food Regulation Programme, first set out in March, which also covers enforcement, national and local responsibilities, guidance and the long-term sustainability of the system.

The FSA has described the work as seeking a “step-change” in food regulation. Yet the design remains open, including which businesses could be regulated nationally, what evidence could be used, what enforcement powers would be needed and how the model would be funded. Moving from a regulatory picture built largely through premises-level interventions towards enterprise-level oversight could therefore represent a major shift in how food regulation works for large businesses.

Chris McGarvey, Director in the Regulatory & Compliance team at Walker Morris and former Head of the FSA’s Legal Team, cautions against treating the programme simply as a response to weaknesses in the existing system.

“I wouldn’t actually say the reforms are as much about strengths or weaknesses in the system as they are about simple modernisation. We’ve got a regulatory system for food which has barely changed for many years, at least 50 years. In reality, that system no longer reflects the way many businesses operate.”

Moving from a regulatory picture built largely through premises-level interventions towards enterprise-level oversight could therefore represent a major shift in how food regulation works for large businesses.”

What national regulation could change in practice

Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, around 97 percent of rated establishments have continued to achieve a Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) rating of three, “generally satisfactory”, or above for the past four years, according to the FSA’s latest Annual Local Authority Performance report. Capacity pressures are clearer. By October 2025, more than 39,500 newly registered businesses were awaiting a first food hygiene inspection and around 72,000 scheduled food hygiene interventions remained outstanding, according to the Local Authority Performance Update.

A more risk-based model offers one response: use existing evidence where it is credible and direct scarce regulatory time towards businesses or sites where assurance is weaker.

The FSA has already tested that principle. Its Enterprise Level Regulation proof-of-concept trial involved five large retailers in England from April 2023 to March 2024, while local inspections continued. The FSA had access to more than 10,000 store audits, compared with around 1,500 local authority inspections of participating stores, giving it a much larger body of data from which to identify compliance issues and trends.

But the independent evaluation also exposed a problem any scaled-up model would need to solve: retailers used different food safety systems, creating inconsistencies in the format and standard of data and limiting some analysis.

National regulation could therefore leave physical inspection in place while changing who assembles the overall picture of risk, what evidence feeds into it and where checks add most value.

McGarvey sees “no danger of local physical inspections being discontinued”, arguing that they will “always add value”. The more important issue, he says, is “an honest assessment of the relative efficiency of local inspection”.

The programme’s stakeholder work records similar caution. Local authorities warned against relying solely on corporate data, citing prosecutions against large supermarkets where corporate systems had not been implemented locally, while the agency has stopped describing large businesses as “highly compliant” or “regulation compliant”, recognising that compliance can change.

Manufacturing brings a different data challenge

Enterprise-level oversight may be easier to visualise across a supermarket estate. Manufacturing raises a harder question over whether regulators can interpret the increasingly specialised information generated inside production. The FSA plans to develop the national approach through retail first and then assess how it could apply to large businesses beyond retail, while some businesses and third-party assurance providers have warned that a one-size-fits-all approach would not be viable.

McGarvey uses a modern bakery to illustrate the problem. The same production system might report on ingredient blending, oven temperatures, line speed and energy efficiency. An exception report might relate to energy efficiency or line speed rather than food safety, yet to an untrained eye still appears to warrant investigation on safety grounds. The value of the data depends on whether the person reading it understands the process behind it.

“Manufacturing and production processes are becoming so technical now and sophisticated. The knowledge of technical and production staff in big manufacturers, big food manufacturers, is very specialised.”

McGarvey says the challenge is whether regulatory expertise can keep pace with that specialisation. Food manufacturers, he notes, are investing to keep their technical staff at the forefront of innovation, while “local government and the FSA are not necessarily funded to do the same for their own regulatory staff”.

The model, therefore, needs more than comparable data. It also needs sufficient specialist knowledge to interpret them correctly.

McGarvey also cautions against treating regulatory intervention as the only force driving standards.

“There are a lot of incentives here to high standards. And I think often that’s overlooked. People think the regulatory framework is the only game in town. It’s the only thing which assures quality. And that simply is not the case.”

That matters if greater regulatory weight is placed on business-generated data and third-party assurance.

Compliance could become an evidence question

Many large businesses already generate internal audit, quality and process data. McGarvey argues that, where those information flows are reliable, reusing them could reduce duplication for both business and regulator. He describes the principle as “generate once, use many times”.

The harder question is what happens when internal data cross into regulatory evidence. The programme identifies data ownership, integrity, access, trust and validation as unresolved issues. McGarvey adds another legal complication. Once commercially sensitive information is held by a public regulator, information-access legislation comes into play.

“So, all of that means there’s no guarantee that food safety compliance data shared with a regulator can be kept confidential. That’s always been a worry of businesses that want perhaps to be a bit more open with regulators about their own internal data.”

He suggests possible safeguards, including independent information-escrow arrangements, where a third party would hold the data, or separating data used to generate a regulatory signal from evidence later used for enforcement. One possibility, he says, would be for business data to “generate signals” and guide further investigation without automatically becoming evidence against the business itself.

A more data-rich model would not transfer responsibility for food safety to the regulator. McGarvey stresses that food businesses would remain ultimately responsible for the safety of the food they place on the market.

Responsibility may remain unchanged, but the tools available when compliance breaks down could look different.

People think the regulatory framework is the only game in town. It’s the only thing which assures quality. And that simply is not the case.”

Enforcement could become less binary

One of the programme’s workstreams is a modernised enforcement framework. McGarvey believes a wider civil toolkit could make intervention faster and, in appropriate cases, less adversarial.

Food-law enforcement has traditionally relied heavily on criminal offences, he notes, meaning a prosecution must meet the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A broader civil toolkit could add further options between informal action and criminal prosecution. In civil cases, the standard of proof is generally the balance of probabilities, a lower threshold than the criminal standard. McGarvey believes that could change the dynamic between businesses and regulators.

“Without the threat of the stigma of a prosecution, we might find that many businesses are more cooperative and work with the regulator to improve standards rather than it becoming a big standoff.”

McGarvey does not envisage civil sanctions replacing criminal enforcement. He expects them to provide an additional set of tools, with criminal investigation and prosecution remaining available for serious cases and outcomes monitored for any unintended effect on behaviour.

This remains one possible direction. The FSA has not specified a future toolkit; the programme commits to assessing the current framework and developing options, including testing them for unintended deregulatory consequences.

Funding is similarly unresolved. The programme is also examining options for sustainable funding, including possibilities linked to registration such as licensing, registration fees or a permit to trade. Businesses involved in stakeholder engagement opposed paying simply for the current service and wanted to understand the added value of any new model.

McGarvey expects trade-offs, including the possibility that businesses could be inspected less often but asked to contribute towards the cost of inspection.

Less duplication could save time and management resource, while any new data, assurance or charging requirements could add cost elsewhere.

Preparing for an enterprise-level regulator

There is no final model to implement yet. The FSA’s July economic growth goals say detailed options for a new national approach are due by March 2027, ahead of consultation in 2027. Subject to further policy development, the agency expects primary and secondary legislation to be required.

McGarvey highlights two practical areas businesses can examine before those details are settled: their existing regulatory relationship and whether technical data could be presented externally in a useful form.

One starting point is Primary Authority. Government guidance allows a business to form a legal partnership with a local authority for assured and consistent regulatory advice, particularly where it operates across multiple authority areas or has complex compliance needs. McGarvey sees that relationship as useful experience for a future enterprise-level dialogue.

The next question goes straight to the quality function. McGarvey asks whether internal reports could be shared “with a regulator in their current form”.

His view is that businesses would probably need to produce a version suited to a regulatory audience, potentially redacted or otherwise adapted. As he puts it, “probably the raw internal reports are not going to be terribly helpful”.

That gives businesses something concrete to examine now: how internal data could be represented in a form an external national regulator could use without simply handing over raw internal reporting.

These changes are nothing for responsible food businesses to be worried about. I think they give a great opportunity for food businesses to begin to develop a better and more consistent relationship with one regulator rather than multiple local authorities.”

A related issue is proof at site level. McGarvey argues that third-party audit data may provide useful evidence in some cases, but physical verification will still be needed where there is reason to question whether central controls are being delivered on the ground.

His overall assessment is positive.

“These changes are nothing for responsible food businesses to be worried about,” he says. “I think they give a great opportunity for food businesses to begin to develop a better and more consistent relationship” with one regulator rather than multiple local authorities.

As that relationship matures, McGarvey expects the regulator to become more familiar with the particular risks, challenges and opportunities facing each business. He stresses that “it’s got to be worked out in practice”, but believes the relationship could increasingly resemble that of a “critical friend” as well as a regulator.

Under the Future of Food Regulation Programme, the FSA has yet to decide which large businesses would be regulated nationally, by whom or under what eligibility criteria. Data trust, regulatory expertise and capacity, enforcement, funding, accountability and legislation all remain live questions.

Modernisation may be the motivation. For major food businesses, the eventual effect could be much more fundamental.