FDI Business Monitor Issue 1 2026

The FDI Business Monitor brings you the latest insights into the retail, economic, and consumer trends shaping Ireland’s food and drink sector.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has triggered a sharp spike in global fuel costs, necessitating reactive shifts in government policy. The immediate operational toll of these escalating energy costs was starkly highlighted by April’s nationwide protests, which caused critical disruptions to networks, supply chains, and deliveries across the country. Price fluctuations will inevitably be felt across the entire industry supply chain. While the full impact is not yet clear, and as highlighted in this edition, we can already observe a decrease in overall consumer sentiment to 2023 levels, and an increase in inflation to 3.7%. This edition also includes a tracker of global crude oil prices since 2021, designed to highlight the fluctuations in price in that period.

FDI continues to engage with Government bodies and key stakeholders to ensure that Ireland’s food and drink sector is robustly represented in all policy discussions, actively working to mitigate these internal and external impacts and safeguard our industry’s competitiveness.