Australia’s food production sector faces “stringent risk management expectations” from insurers and must be prepared to manage multiple areas of risk in their operations, according to global broker Arthur J. Gallagher.

And in a recent report, Gallagher outlined the five key risk areas that insurers expect the country’s food producers to manage.

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“While the overall outlook for the industry is positive, food producers face a number of significant risk challenges,” Gallagher said in its report. “Understanding how to prepare for these, with a focus on prevention, enables food and beverage manufacturers to manage and mitigate these risks – and bounce back after an incident – and is key to achieving business resilience and sustained success.”

According to Gallagher, the five key risk areas are: insurance market and capacity, property, cyber, product recall and food safety, and people and employee risks.

The broker said that businesses in the food production sector should be “prepared for insurers to ask for risk surveys by independent analysts to identify assets and exposures” in these areas.

“They will also want to see plans for risk engineering improvements and will want updates on agreed actions,” said Gallagher. “Unless you provide all the relevant information, insurers may be unwilling to consider becoming involved or to offer renewal, or they could impose limits on their risk.”