In this section, the most frequent doubts about the Royal Decree of the Registry of food contracts that citizens and operators have been transferring to AICA and its corresponding response have been compiled.
In case you do not find your doubt here, you can go to cadena@aica.es.
For technical consultations on the application cau.rca@tragsa.es.
These questions are didactic and do not exactly reproduce the precepts of Law 12/2013, of August 2, on measures to improve the functioning of the Food Chain or Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20, which develops the Registry of Food Contracts. Its purpose is informative and therefore, the legal precepts have been summarized and extracted, taking the main doubts and expressing them clearly. It is not legally binding.
It is the one in which one of the parties is obligated against the other to the sale of agricultural or food products, and this is obligated for a certain price, whether it is a sale or a supply on a continuous basis.
Art. 5.f) of Law 12/2013, of 2 August.
The products listed in Annex I to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:6985a220-b291-422c-8e7ce2625a041d0d.0007.01/DOC_5&format=PDF), as well as any other substance or product intended to be ingested by humans or likely to be ingested, whether or not they have been transformed, in whole or in part. It includes beverages, chewing gum and any substance, including water, voluntarily incorporated into the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment.
Art. 5.e) of Law 12/2013, of 2 August.
There is no official model of a food contract, but in article 9.1) of Law 12/2013, on measures to improve the food chain, the minimum elements that must be contained in food contracts are included.
No, it will only be mandatory to enter into written food contracts with primary producers and primary producer groups.
Art 11.bis of Law 12/2013, of 2 August
A natural or legal person whose activity is exercised in agricultural, livestock, forestry or fishing production.
Art 5.d) of Law 12/2013, of 2 August
Grouping of primary producers includes first, second and subsequent cooperative societies, agricultural processing societies and producer organisations with their own legal personality recognised in accordance with Community regulations in the field of the common agricultural policy.
Art 3.2.a) of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes, yes.
Art 5.1 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes, yes.
Art. 4.1.a) of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
No, since the seller would not be considered a primary producer.
Art 5.d) of Law 12/2013, of 2 August
Yes, yes. And it is up to the buyer of raw milk to register the contract in the “Registry of Food Contracts”.
Art. 4.1.b) of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes, yes. And it is up to the integrator to register.
Art. 4.1.c) of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20.
It is that form of food contract in which one of the parties, called integrator, is obliged against the other party, called integrated, to provide all or part of the products, raw materials and inputs necessary for the production object of the contract, as well as, where appropriate, to exercise technical direction and to take charge of the production at the end of the production cycle. For its part, the integrated is obligated against the integrator, to provide the land, spaces and facilities, as well as the complementary means and services that are necessary to complete the production and once it has been obtained, to be delivered to the integrator.
Art 5.g) of Law 12/2013, of 2 August
Yes, yes.
Art 3.3 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
No. No. Only food contracts must be registered. In any case, the object of the contract must correspond to the operation that is actually performed.
Art 11.bis of Law 12/2013, of 2 August.
Access to the electronic application, called “Register of Food Contracts”
is carried out through the website of the Information and Control Agency
Alimentary O.A. www.aica.gob.es
Art 9.2 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes, yes. They are available once the application of the “Register of Contracts” is accessed
Alimentary”. It appears at the bottom right of the page, in the area
Colored in gray.
Yes, yes.
Art 10.3 of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
Yes, yes. You must access the website of the Food Information and Control Agency O.A, www.aica.gob.es And consult all the information related to this service.
In the “RCA Services API” button you can find the form to request access to it and the latest version of the integration manual for developers.
The request for access to the API must be made by buyers who are interested in the registration of food contracts through the API of services and who previously must have completed the registration as buyers in the application.
A maximum of 5 documents weighing a maximum of 5 MB in total can be attached to each load. If the documentation to be registered consists of more documents or files of more weight, it can be registered in parts repeating as many times as the action of “updating contract” is needed.
The operator who buys (buyer).
Art. 4.1.a) of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
The food contract must be signed between seller and buyer in all commercial relations, that is, between the people between whom the transfer of ownership of the agricultural or food product takes place, before the delivery of the product. It must be possible to document the persons among whom such transfer of ownership is made through the corresponding means of proof.
In the event that the seller is a primary producer or a group of producers, the buyer is obliged to enter the relevant contract in the Register of Food Contracts.
Therefore, if there is no transfer of ownership of the product to the intermediary, the contract between the intermediary and the farmer is not mandatory. In that case, it will be the buyer who must register the contract in the Registry of Food Contracts.
Yes, yes.
Art. 4.1.b) of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
The integrator is obliged to register when he/she concludes an integration contract with the producers, called integrated.
Art. 4.1.c) of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
Yes, yes.
No. No. These are not final consumers but entities that are considered to be operators in the agricultural and food chain. They are therefore not excluded from the obligations of formalization and registration of contracts.
Art 5.c) of Law 12/2013, of 2 August
The “Registry of Food Contracts” must register the obligated subjects that are the buyers or in the case of integration contracts the integrators who must subsequently register the food contracts or the integration contracts. There may be two cases:
Art 10 of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
Persons who are authorized, either by the legal representative, in the event that the buyer is a legal person or entity without legal personality or, when the buyer is a natural person, the persons authorized by the latter.
In addition to the legal representative himself or the natural person as indicated in the previous question.
Art 10 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
The natural person who acts in representation, legal or voluntary, of a natural person, legal person or entity without legal personality, and who must be registered in the “Registry of Food Contracts”. It has the power to register and consult the registration of the food contracts of the obligated subject to whom it represents, and authorize other natural persons so that they can register and consult the food contracts of the same obligated subject.
Art. 3.2.b) of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Natural persons who must be registered in the “Registry of Food Contracts” by the legal representative of the obligated subject, or by a natural person who is obligated. They have the power to register and consult the food contracts of said obligated subject.
Art. 3.2.c) of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20
Authorized persons must access with their digital certificate of natural person.
Art 10 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
No. No. The registration obligation is for the operator who buys from a primary producer or a group of primary producers, regardless of the position that the latter occupies in the chain. Primary producers or groups of primary producers will not be able to access the “Register of Food Contracts” either to register contracts with their customers or to consult them.
Art 15 of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
In that case they must register the food contracts and they will have access to the application, being a buyer.
Art 15 of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
Yes, it is possible that a buyer (company) has registered more than one legal representative. The first legal representative who accesses will have to register the buyer (company) and register as the legal representative of the same. Once this is done, the rest of the legal representatives when they access the application with their own legal representative certificate, will be registered and will only have to register as legal representatives of the same, through the “Legal representatives” card.
The new legal representative must access the application with his certificate of legal representation of the entity.
The application will recognize the certificate and, after completing some additional data, will give you access as the legal representative of the buyer to what has already been registered and registered.
The food contracts together with their annexes and supplementary information. In this way, any document that is a necessary and integral part of the food contract and that is related to the elements/clauses agreed in the contract in relation to the obligatory ones that are included in the regulations must be included.
Art. 5.1. Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
No. No. The application “Registration of Food Contracts” does not allow it either.
An annex or supplementary information means any document that accompanies, clarifies or complements the food contract and forms a necessary and integral part of it, by referring to or influencing the determination of any of the minimum elements.
It would be, for example, an annex document referring to the object of the contract, price, payment terms, etc. and they must be registered in the RCA application before the delivery of the product to which they refer.
No. No.
No. No.
If the contract has not been modified, and is still in force, it is not necessary to re-register it.
In the event of changes to the food contract, the registration in the “Register of Food Contracts” must be made before the delivery of the product affected by such changes.
The steps to register a new food contract associated with a producer that has already been registered previously are:
Yes, yes. In the case of modifications of a food contract, the registration in the “Register of Food Contracts” must be made before the delivery of the product affected by such modifications.
Art 6 of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December
Article 12.1 of Law 12/2013, of August 2, on measures to improve the food chain, establishes that “modifications of the contractual conditions established in the food contract are prohibited, unless they are made by mutual agreement of the parties” and that “food contracts must contain the corresponding clauses in which the procedure for their possible modification is foreseen.”
Therefore, to modify the price of the food contract, the modification procedure must have been established in the food contract itself at the time of its formalization, before the delivery of the product object of the contract.
The new conditions agreed in the modification of the food contract will apply to deliveries of the product made from the date of entry into force of said modification.
It should be noted that these modifications, in the same way as food contracts, must be adopted by mutual agreement between the parties, must be signed by both parties, and must be registered in the Register of Food Contracts before the delivery of the product subject to the modification.
To do this, the functionality “update contract” must be used, assigning them to the already registered contract number in question.
Art 11.bis.2. of Law 12/2013, of 2 August.
Art 6 of Royal Decree 1028/2022 of 20 December.
It is not possible.
It is not possible.
It is not possible.
If you detect an error in the registration of a primary producer or in the registration of a contract or supplementary information, as the application does not allow its deletion, then the primary producer must be registered or the correct food contract must be registered.
It is not possible to delete or modify a document already registered in the Register of Food Contracts.
To solve the error, the producer must be registered again with his correct data and the food contract must be registered again by assigning it to the correct NIF through the “new contract” functionality, in which a new contract number will be assigned.
It is not inconvenient for the entity that food contracts associated with a producer with erroneous NIF are registered as long as those that are effectively obliged to register are correctly registered before delivery.
They will not be obliged to register food contracts that are formalized between a cooperative or other associative entity and its partners under the second paragraph of article 8.1 of Law 12/2013, of 2 August.
Cooperative societies and agricultural processing societies shall not be required to register food contracts when they collect raw milk from their members.
Art. 4.2 and 4.3 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20
Yes, yes.
Art 4.1 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes, yes.
Art 4.1 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes
Art 4.1 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
Yes, yes. In cases in which a company buys product from another company that is a primary producer or group of products, and that belongs to the same group as the buyer, it will be mandatory to conclude a food contract that the buyer must register in the “Registry of Food Contracts”.
Art 4.1 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
No. No. It is the obligation of the marketer to do so.
Yes, through the Food Contract Lookup feature of the app, they will only be able to access information relating to their registered food contracts.
Art. 15 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20
No. No.
Art. 15 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of December 20
No. No. The “Food Contract Register” is not a publicly accessible register, but a repository of registered food contracts, subject to confidentiality, so it does not incorporate data and is therefore not able to be used for informational or statistical purposes.
The information contained in the registered food contracts will not be exploited and its disclosure is prohibited.
Art 8 of Royal Decree 1028/2022, of 20 December
When one of the operators is established in Spain and the other is not, it must be expressly indicated in the contract to which legislation the commercial relationship is subject. In the event that it applies Spanish legislation, food contracts must be registered in the same terms as if it were a relationship between two Spanish operators.
Art 2 of Law 12/2013 of 2 August
