Assured Food Standards

Assured Food Standards is a United Kingdom company which 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. The scheme is subject to frequent media scrutiny because of the systematic and routine animal abuse that happens at Red Tractor assured farms.

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.

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 2005, the organisation kept its Red Tractor quality mark, but was renamed from "British Farm Standard" to the "Assured Food Standards". The company is limited by guarantee and permitted to operate without the word "limited" in its company name.

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.

Operations

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

Processed Vegetable Growers' Association Red Tractor cover an extensive range of products, including meat and poultry, dairy products, breakfast cereals, and fruit and vegetables.

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, based in Lisburn
* Product Authentication International

In 2009, around £10 billion of products were sold bearing the logo. A 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 United Kingdom. To qualify as "farmed", animals must be born, reared and slaughtered in the UK. 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.

Environmental limitations

The mark does not offer any guarantee the products have been produced in an environmentally sustainable way. The scheme's website notes that farmers only use products like pesticides and fertilisers if this is "absolutely necessary" for crop health.

In July 2022, a joint investigation by The Guardian and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism tested several Red Tractor approved pork products including joints, chops and mince. Ten percent were found to be infected with enterococci bacteria "that has showed resistance to a “last resort” antibiotic used to treat serious illnesses in humans".

Animal abuse

From 2018 onwards, the scheme has been subject to increased media scrutiny after multiple organisations captured routine animal abuse happening at Red Tractor assured farms. In July 2018 several UK media publications revealed serious cases of animal abuses at several farms that had passed recent inspections by the Assured Food Standards scheme.

In June 2019, three poultry farms in Lincolnshire belonging to Moy Park were found to be keeping animals in "utterly dismal conditions" where chicken carcasses were left to rot in sheds holding up to 30,000 birds. The farms, which supply meat to major British supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury's, were all certified under the Red Tractor scheme.

In August 2019, Hogwood Farm in Warwickshire was suspended from the Red Tractor scheme after videos obtained by animal rights charity Viva! emerged showing "terrified pigs struck with metal riding crops and hand tools" and "dead pigs dumped into rotting piles". Tesco suspended their relationship with the farm.

In August 2020 a pig farm in Leicestershire was dropped from the Red Tractor scheme after undercover footage showed sick pigs being left to die, painful conditions that had been left untreated and others with acute malnutrition.

In September 2020, an investigation into a chicken farm that supplied Tesco found fast growing birds that were in chronic pain and others that could barely stand up. Avara Foods, which owns the farm, said an internal investigation was carried out which "didn't highlight any welfare concerns".

In March 2021, Dispatches (TV programme) went undercover at a Moy Park chicken site. They found birds with "horrific injuries" and guidance issued to kill chicks deemed "lame" or "too small". Over 4000 chicks died or were culled during the 11 days of filming.

In May 2021, a Red Tractor certified pig farm in Aberdeenshire was suspended after secretly filmed videos showed piglets deemed too small or too weak for the abattoir being hammered to death by farm workers or being swung against a concrete floor to be killed.

In June 2021, footage was filmed at a pig farm in Yorkshire showing dying pigs left to rot among living and workers kicking animals too crippled to stand. The farm was removed from the Red Tractor schema and dropped by Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons.

In July 2021, secret cameras captured chickens that had died of thirst and dead birds left to rot at three Red Tractor approved sites. The chickens were being supplied for major British retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury, Lidl and KFC.

In October 2021, the animal rights charity Viva! found "dead and wounded" turkeys amongst living ones at a farm that supplies Sainsbury's.

In late 2021, undercover footage was shot on a Red Tractor assured farm by the BBC
...