Some tourism companies must sign written contracts with their food suppliers when they purchase from primary producers and register them on the Register of Agrifood Contracts of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
The Food Supply Chain Law (LCA) applies to hospitality and food service businesses whose revenues exceed €10 million and to accommodation services companies whose revenues exceed €50 million.
While the law provides the same obligations for these companies as for all other food chain operators, in practice these obligations are limited in the tourism and hotels sector to relationships for procurement or purchase of supplies from food suppliers, since the LCA does not apply to the sale of products to end customers or where payment is made in cash.
The obligations established by the LCA notably include the requirement to execute a written contract between the food supplier and the purchaser (in this case, the tourism or food service company), with the minimum content stipulated in the law. The price must also be established by the parties prior to delivery of the product and it must be equal to or greater than the actual cost of production (where the supplier is the primary producer) or equal to or greater than the cost incurred by the supplier (where it is another operator in the chain).
Following the entry into force of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20, 2022, implementing the Register of Agrifood Contracts, as from June 30, 2023 all contracts executed between the indicated companies in the tourism sector and a supplier that is a primary producer or forms part of a grouping of primary producers (fruit and vegetable producers’ organizations or OPFH, agricultural cooperatives and agricultural processing companies) must be registered on the register.
It is a confidential digital public register that may only be accessed by the Food Information and Control Agency (AICA) and the competent autonomous community government authorities in order to carry out the pertinent checks within the scope of their powers (such as tasks relating to audit and inspection activities).
Companies in the tourism sector, in their capacity as purchasers, are required to register such contracts before delivering products purchased from primary producers or groupings of such producers, together with the schedules and supplementary information to the contract and the subsequent order or purchase forms, if they specify content that the LCA considers mandatory for the contract (such as price, characteristics of the product, etc.).
It should be noted that multiple operators in the food chain are already handling the registration of contracts and order and purchase forms on a daily basis. Given that they must be registered before the product is delivered, specific automated or electronic systems and procedures are often used to facilitate the task.
The LCA also lays down rules on infringements and penalties, defining the failure to register contracts, schedules, etc. on the register under the terms and conditions set forth in the law and the regulations as an infringement.
