Contract to undertake official pesticide residue testing programme in food and infant food for Northern Ireland Government.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a Crown non-departmental public body with specific statutory functions in relation to health and safety.

HSE is an independent regulator of health and safety and has responsibility for delivering a national programme of pesticide residue testing in food on the market (post border) for Northern Ireland. This responsibility is on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs which is part of the Northern Ireland Executive.

The Chemicals Regulation Directorate (CRD) is a Directorate of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and will be responsible for the day-to-day oversight of this work.

The primary aim of CRD is to ensure the safe use of biocides, industrial chemicals, pesticides and detergents to protect the health of people and the environment. CRD is responsible for the regulation of biocides, pesticides, detergents, chemicals as they are regulated by REACH, and duties under the Classification, Labelling and Packaging regime.

Throughout this specification the term HSE will be used to describe the customers need.

The Northern Ireland government are required to undertake a national pesticide residue monitoring programme under Regulation 396/2005 and Regulation 2021/1355 (as they have effect by virtue of the Windsor Framework) to check food on the market for compliance with statutory maximum residue levels and to identify residues that may have arisen from non-authorised use on NI produced food.

The national testing also includes participation in a mandatory EU survey as specified by a specific annual EU regulation. The most recent regulation is Regulation 2023/731 .

Relevant infant food legislation relating to maximum residue levels is applicable in relation to the testing of infant food and formula.

Commission Directive 2006/125/EC of 5 December 2006 on processed cereal-based foods and other baby foods for infants and young children.

Commission Directive 2006/141/EC of 22 December 2006 on infant formulae and follow-on formulae

By law this official testing can only be undertaken by laboratories that:

• are already designated as an official laboratory under the official controls regulations 2017/625 to perform the same functions, including the mandatory EU survey,

and

• are also geographically situated either in Northern Ireland, EU or EEA.

HSE is seeking to put in place a contract from 1 July this year for an official laboratory to undertake the testing of food on the Northern Ireland market for a 3.5 year period. The first period of testing will be for samples collected July to December 2024 (380 samples) and then around 700 samples collected throughout 2025, with an option for HSE to let for an extended for two further calendar years subject to satisfactory performance.

In a full calendar year, the programme typically covers around 560 fruit and vegetable samples (including in some years olive oil), 130 cereal and bread samples and 12 infant or infant formula samples.