Assured Food Standards

Assured Food Standards is an organisation that promotes and regulates food quality in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. It licenses the Red Tractor quality mark, a product certification programme that comprises a number of farm assurance schemes for food products, animal feed and fertilizer.

History

The Red Tractor scheme was launched in 2000 by the National Farmers Union of England and Wales, with the logo originally known as the Little Red Tractor, and also the British Farm Standard. It was launched on 13 June 2000.^[1]

Around the time of the launch, the NFU found in a survey that 70% of the public had no idea what type of food their local farmers tended to produce.

In April 2009, Cains Brewery of Liverpool produced the first lager, Cains Export, to be accredited by the Red Tractor. Since June 2010, Carling cans of lager have displayed the logo, as the barley used has been certified.^[2]

Operations

1. Red Tractor is the largest food assurance scheme in the United Kingdom. It claims to ensure the food is traceable, safe to eat and has been produced responsibly.
2. Red Tractor standards cover animal welfare, food safety, traceability and environmental protection.
3. The Union Flag in the Red Tractor logo indicates the food has been farmed, processed and packed in the United Kingdom.
4. Processed Vegetable Growers' Association Red Tractor cover an extensive range of products, including meat and poultry, dairy products, breakfast cereals, and fruit & vegetables.

All stages of food production are independently certified (inspected) to the Red Tractor standards before food can be labelled with the Red Tractor logo.

The Red Tractor Farm Assurance scheme is divided in different sectors:

• Pigs (Assured British Pigs) - 90% of British pig producers
• Dairy (Assured Dairy Farms - former National Dairy Farm Assured Scheme)
• Beef and Lamb
• Fresh produce
• Poultry (Assured Chicken Production. Members of the British Poultry Council will produce poultry meat to the Red Tractor standard, meaning they are kept in more humane surroundings.)
• Crops and sugar beet (Assured Combinable Crops Scheme)

Certification bodies the Red Tractor schemes work with include:

• NSF-CMi in Long Hanborough
• SAI Global in Milton Keynes (a spin off of Standards Australia)
• Northern Ireland Food Chain Certification, in Lisburn
• Product Authentication International

In 2009, around £10 billion of products were sold bearing the logo. A 0.001% royalty fee is charged to bear the logo.

The union flag displayed as part of the Red Tractor logo gives a guarantee that the produce was farmed, processed and packed in the UK. To qualify as "farmed" animals must be born, reared and slaughtered in the UK.^[3] This is in contrast to a simple union flag logo without the Red Tractor which is often used to simply denote UK based processing-a BBC investigation in 2013 revealed that there was a less than 1 per cent chance that a pack of Tesco pork chops labelled as British came from the British Isles.^[4]

2018 animal abuse media reports

On 30 July 2018 The Times published a news story, under the title 'Farm animals tortured under red tractor label', revealing serious abuse of animals at farms that had passed recent inspections by the Assured Food Standards scheme, and that only 1 in every 1000 farms that it certifies receives an unannounced visit from its inspectors.^[5] The Daily Mail on the same date published evidence of the story under the headline 'Horrifying breaches of food standards regulations'.^[6]

See also

• Soil Association - certificates British organic food
• Sugarwise - certificates sugar claims in food and drink
• Food Standards Agency
• Little Red Tractor, a children's cartoon on CBeebies
• United Kingdom Accreditation Service

References

External links

• Red Tractor
• Red Tractor Assurance and Farm and Processor information