Regulatory of the Future: How to Marry Day-to-Day Compliance with Long-Term Advocacy Strategy? What Functional & Leadership Skills are the Best Set for 2022?

Food processing company Regulatory Affairs  (RA) function, in a traditional approach, focused on the compliance of recipes and labels with applicable regulations, particularly in terms of food safety and not misleading consumers. Usually, external contacts were limited to interventions in the case of official controls and occasional participation in technical committees of trade associations.

After 2000, the nutritional aspect of food law has increased, and in recent years, the regulations have included topics related to sustainable development, specific to the food sector. The accelerated pace of innovation processes as well as intensive work on new regulations impose the necessity of greater involvement of the RA function in the innovation processes. It is also necessary to have a greater impact on the new rules, therefore it is becoming more and more important to build substantive relations in the world of science and among opinion leaders.

In-depth knowledge of new subjects is a must as usual. In addition, to meet new challenges, it is necessary to build teams based on additional skills and competences that have not always been promoted among RA experts and managers, e.g. independence in action, creativity and negotiation skills, and these are the features that will contribute to the company's success and the individual development of experts.

Jacek Czarnecki, Head of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs, Nestle Polska