Feature
Standards front and centre as Red Tractor turns 20 In our regular look at the work of Red Tractor Assurance, chief executive Jim Moseley says two decades of progress on food standards must not be overlooked. After nearly three years of debate, confusion and conjecture, the UK has left the EU. It is a major milestone which – one way or another – will have major impact on businesses, consumers, families and individuals. All eyes are now on the trade terms under which goods will move in and out of the UK, and for Red Tractor’s CEO Jim Moseley, it’s an area of huge importance when it comes to food. It seems fitting that at a time when the public is deeply concerned about the standards of British food being undermined in a trade deal, Red Tractor – the body responsible for driving the UK’s world-leading standards of food production – is celebrating its 20th anniversary. “The spotlight has well and truly turned on food, led partly by fears over the inferior standards of animal welfare and food in countries that want to access the UK, but also because we are rightly proud of how food is produced here,” Jim said. “The standards we set that farmers attain have not been set overnight; they are the result of two decades of constant improvement. To give all that up would be criminal.” Protecting consumers from food scares is one of Red Tractor’s reasons for being. Jim explained: “Established in 2000 after a spate of scares which included BSE and outbreaks of salmonella, Red Tractor was created to transform and rebuild trust in British farming and food by improving standards of safety and quality for UK-farmed food. “What we have created is the largest food and farming standards scheme in the UK – we are the industry
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benchmark, with all major supermarkets using our standards as part of their food sourcing and supplier specifications.” The UK is one of the most regulated in the world yet for the past 20 years Red Tractor’s standards have sat even higher than the legal minimum, pushing forward on the issues consumers care about. Responsible use of antibiotics in livestock farming, a fully traceable supply chain and a set of protocols which ensure food safety from farm to plate are three examples. Jim said: “Most consumers would be appalled if the UK’s chicken industry accepted chlorine-washed meat rather than adopting a disease prevention approach to salmonella on farm. The same can be said about permitting growthpromoting hormone injections in beef cattle.” And there is a huge body of evidence to show that the safeguards put in place by Red Tractor really work. YouGov found that eight out of 10 UK adults admit to taking food safety for granted and the latest figures for foodborne illnesses in the UK are currently as low as 1.5%, compared with figures from the US Centre for Disease control and Prevention which show that 17% of people in the USA suffer from foodborne illnesses each year. Jim said: “Time-pressured and price-sensitive consumers will be attracted to cheaper products to save pennies at the checkout, often without realising that someone or something has to pay the price further down the supply chain. This might be a farmer or one of their employees, or an animal. It might even be the environment. “As Red Tractor enters its 20th year we want to show that we hold ourselves to a higher standard and urge all shoppers to do the same by looking for the Red Tractor logo when they buy their food.”
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