powrót do Aktualności
On 6 August 2026, the Polish Senate adopted without amendments the Act amending the Act on the Commercial Quality of Agricultural and Food Products and certain other acts. This marks the completion of the parliamentary stage of one of the most significant reforms in recent years concerning the powers of the Agricultural and Food Quality Inspection (IJHARS). The Act will now be submitted to the President of the Republic of Poland.
The Sejm adopted the Act on 17 July 2026, and the Senate approved it without any amendments.
If signed by the President and published in the Journal of Laws, the Act will, as a general rule, enter into force 14 days after its publication.
The scope of the reform goes significantly beyond merely adapting Polish legislation to new EU rules on marketing standards. In practice, the Act introduces new instruments for combating food fraud, significantly expands IJHARS’ powers to supervise food information provided online, strengthens border control mechanisms and enhances cooperation between the Inspection and law enforcement authorities.
One of the most important changes is the introduction of a new Article 39k into the Act on Commercial Quality, establishing criminal liability for a specific form of food adulteration. Under the new provision, any person who, for the purpose of obtaining a financial benefit, places adulterated agricultural and food products on the market will be subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to one year. Where the offence concerns adulterated agricultural and food products of significant value, the offender may be subject to imprisonment for up to three years. This distinction is important: not every case of adulteration will automatically constitute the criminal offence of food fraud. Criminal liability will require an additional element to be established – namely, that the person acted for the purpose of obtaining a financial benefit. According to the explanatory memorandum, this intentional element is intended to distinguish the criminal offence from infringements subject to administrative liability. The legislator linked this change, among other things, to the findings of a European Commission assessment of the functioning of the Polish system for combating food fraud. It was concluded that the existing legal framework did not sufficiently enable authorities to distinguish deliberate food fraud from more common cases of adulteration or to ensure an adequate level of protection of consumers’ economic interests and the integrity of the agri-food market. The Act also introduces mechanisms intended to prevent the same natural person from being punished twice for the same conduct under both administrative and criminal law. In certain circumstances, the initiation of criminal proceedings will prevent the initiation of administrative penalty proceedings or lead to their suspension, while a final criminal conviction will result in the discontinuation of the administrative proceedings.
The definition of an “adulterated agricultural and food product” will also be amended.
A product may be considered adulterated where, among other things, it:
– lacks labelling required under commercial quality legislation,
– has a composition that does not comply with commercial quality requirements,
– bears a name that is contrary to the applicable rules or is untrue,
– contains false information concerning, among other things, its origin, use-by date or date of minimum durability, net quantity, quality class, variety or commercial type,
– has been modified, including through changes to its labelling, in a manner concealing its actual composition or other characteristics, where such changes materially infringe the interests of final consumers.
A particularly important change is the inclusion within the definition of products entirely lacking the required labelling. According to the explanatory memorandum, the current definition does not cover such products, even though the complete absence of labelling may constitute a more serious infringement than certain individual labelling irregularities.
A particularly important change for food businesses concerns information provided to consumers outside the physical product label. The Act introduces a separate procedure for supervising information relating to the commercial quality of agricultural and food products made available, among other places, on websites, in online shops, advertising brochures and leaflets. A provincial inspector will be able to initiate, ex officio, an explanatory procedure where there are reasonable grounds to suspect an infringement of the rules governing the scope or manner in which such information is made available. Importantly, this procedure may be initiated without a prior conventional inspection of the business operator. If an infringement is identified, the provincial inspector will be able, by administrative decision, to order that the infringement cease by requiring:
– amendment of the information made available within a specified period, or
– publication of a correction in a specified manner and within a specified period.
In practice, this creates a new instrument allowing IJHARS to intervene directly in relation to online marketing and sales communications concerning food, rather than limiting supervision to the information physically present on product packaging.
The new rules also address the practical difficulty of identifying operators selling food online.
During the explanatory procedure, IJHARS will be able to request information from an entity processing the data of a seller operating via a website in order to identify that seller, including the seller’s name and surname, address and place of residence, or company name, registered office and address.
The entity holding such data will be required to provide it in writing and free of charge. The explanatory memorandum additionally indicates that IJHARS is to be able to obtain identifying information in order to establish the entity potentially responsible for an infringement and effectively serve it with the decision initiating the explanatory procedure. The change may be particularly important for sales conducted through electronic platforms, marketplaces and other online food sales channels.
IJHARS’ powers regarding food imported into Poland will also be significantly expanded. The Inspection will be able to carry out, ex officio or at the request of customs authorities, commercial quality controls also in relation to products that are normally not included on the list of goods subject to mandatory border controls, as well as consignments imported in quantities below the minimum thresholds triggering mandatory control, where there is a reasonable suspicion that they do not meet commercial quality requirements. The explanatory memorandum expressly refers to situations in which products are falsely declared as not being food or are imported in quantities slightly below the thresholds triggering mandatory IJHARS control. The scale of the change may be significant. The regulatory impact assessment estimates that the number of border controls may increase by at least approximately 8,000 per year. Together with inspections resulting from new e-commerce and food fraud tasks, the total number of IJHARS inspections may increase by approximately 9,600 per year.
The Act also introduces mandatory fees for activities carried out by IJHARS during border controls. The fees will apply to controls of products imported from non-EU countries, excluding EFTA countries that are parties to the European Economic Area Agreement. An important change is that importers will bear the cost of border controls irrespective of whether any irregularities are identified during the inspection. According to the explanatory memorandum, the costs will take the form of a fixed fee.
The new statutory tasks of IJHARS will also include cooperation with authorities conducting proceedings concerning offences, fiscal offences and criminal offences, as well as authorities responsible for detecting and prosecuting offenders. The purpose is to facilitate more effective information exchange in cases involving food fraud. The detailed arrangements for cooperation between the Chief Inspector and the relevant authorities may be specified in formal cooperation agreements. These changes are directly connected with the introduction of criminal liability for food fraud. Until now, IJHARS has operated primarily as an administrative authority supervising commercial quality. Following the entry into force of the new legislation, the findings of IJHARS may much more frequently serve as the basis for criminal proceedings concerning deliberate fraud on the food market.
Educational and information activities relating to the commercial quality of agricultural and food products will also become an express statutory task of IJHARS. According to the explanatory memorandum, the existing rules do not provide a sufficient legal basis for the Inspection to conduct broader educational activities. The new regulation is intended to enable activities aimed at both consumers and food producers.
The Act also changes the rules governing the use of the “Poznaj Dobrą Żywność” (PDŻ – “Discover Good Food”) quality mark. The possibility of using the PDŻ mark directly by virtue of the Act for products manufactured under certain EU and national food quality schemes will be removed. According to the explanatory memorandum, under the current system the minister responsible for agricultural markets does not have complete information about all products using the mark on that basis. The change is intended to ensure a more consistent meaning of the PDŻ mark and more effective supervision over its use. A lengthy transitional period has nevertheless been provided. Products previously bearing the PDŻ mark under the existing rules will be allowed to remain on the market for two years from the date on which the Act enters into force.
A substantial part of the Act also adapts Polish legislation to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2429 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/2430 concerning marketing standards for the fruit and vegetable sector, certain processed fruit and vegetable products and bananas.
The Act specifies, among other things, the powers of provincial inspectors in relation to conformity checks, authorisations for traders and controls of products withdrawn from the market.
In certain cases, derogations are also provided for with a view to, among other objectives, reducing food waste and limiting administrative burdens.
It is worth clarifying information appearing in public communications suggesting a more lenient approach towards minor infringements.
The Act provides for the possibility of refraining from imposing an administrative financial penalty where the harmfulness of the conduct is low, the scope of the infringement is limited, or no significant irregularities have previously been identified in the activities of the business operator.
The decision to refrain from imposing a financial penalty will be taken by the Chief Inspector or the relevant provincial inspector.
This is therefore not a general rule under which every infringement committed by a farmer or small producer will automatically result merely in a “warning”. The authority will still be required to assess the circumstances and seriousness of the specific infringement.
From the perspective of food businesses, the key change is that IJHARS supervision will clearly extend beyond conventional controls of products and their labelling.
Following the entry into force of the new provisions, businesses should pay particular attention to:
– compliance of information presented in online stores, on product pages and in other marketing materials,
– the possibility of rapid IJHARS intervention in relation to online content,
– increased risk of controls concerning food imported from third countries,
– new costs associated with border controls,
– the possibility that intentional adulteration carried out for financial gain may constitute a criminal offence, rather than merely an administrative infringement,
– significantly greater information exchange between IJHARS and law enforcement authorities.
The reform is also supported by substantial additional public funding. For the years 2026–2037, the maximum state budget expenditure allocated to implementing the new tasks has been set at PLN 209.13 million. The explanatory memorandum provides for an increase in the number of inspections, additional laboratory testing and expenditure related to IJHARS information and educational activities.
The reform is therefore not merely a technical amendment to the Act on Commercial Quality. It represents a significant expansion of the food market supervision model, particularly in relation to online sales, imports and the fight against intentional food fraud.
Following the Senate’s adoption of the Act without amendments, the parliamentary procedure has been completed. The Act will now be submitted to the President of the Republic of Poland and, once signed and published, will generally enter into force 14 days after publication.
