With one-tenth of the Irish population obese and one-third overweight, there is plenty of scope for improving people's diet, Dr Paddy Wall, chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, told a conference yesterday.
Addressing the Bord Glas fresh produce conference in Dublin, Dr Wall said junk food was being aggressively marketed to children and adults and there were opportunities in the fruit-and-vegetable sector to promote quality food.
Eating habits were changing dramatically, he said, and those who believed Ireland would not follow American trends where 15 per cent of all food consumed was eaten in cars - so called "dashboard dining" - were wrong.
"Supermarket chains are leading the way in business on a global basis and now I see they are moving into the oil business by forming alliances with garages which are going into the food business," said Dr Wall.
He praised Bord Glas for leading Irish producers into a new quality-assurance scheme, EN45011. This would be demanded by supermarket chains as a quality mark for the food they buy.
Mr Michael Maloney, chief executive of Bord Glas, said it was hoped the horticulture industry, worth £414 million in retail terms, would be the first industry in Ireland to have the EN45011 quality-assurance standard which is internationally recognised and independently validated.
Commenting on new research on consumer trends delivered to the conference by Ms Karen Hall, of MRBI, he said 43 per cent of Irish people eat out at least once a week and a further 44 per cent order in a take-away meal.
These figures showed the food service market was a key growth area. This had been predicted to rise by 3 per cent a year in the EU for the next decade, he said.
Mr Aidan Ryan, chairman of the Irish Farmers' Association's horticultural committee, said the mushroom industry, which was the success story of Irish horticulture, was bedevilled by increased labour costs, labour shortages, regulations and a recovering Dutch sector.
"It is now surviving largely because of a beneficial currency differential. Exits from the industry are alarming but are masked by new entrants. Where there were 40 mushroom farms in Wexford 21 years ago, only 12 remain," he said.
The chronic labour shortage had been made more difficult in recent times by the delay in processing work permits for non-EU citizens. There was now a time lag of 52 working days to have a permit processed and this was unacceptable, he said.
There are 40,000 people employed in the horticultural sector in the Republic and with farm-gate output of £271 million, it is now larger than the sheep, pig, poultry and cereal sectors of Irish agriculture.