BENCH MARK: The Red Tractor logo that consumers can look for as an informative source on traceability of UK meat products.
CONSUMERS can have confidence in the traceability of assured fresh meat products, claim meat industry leaders.
Between Saturday 16 February and ending on Monday 18 February of 2013 meat industry bodies are taking out half page adverts in daily and Sunday newspapers highlighting the Red Tractor logo and Quality Standard Mark (QSM) assurance labels. The Red Tractor logo and QSM stand for the traceability and provenance of fresh beef, lamb, pork and bacon.
The joint initiative featuring EBLEX, the organisation for the British beef and sheep industry, and the pig industry body, BPEX, is to instill consumer confidence in assured fresh meat products.
The meat bodies claim that despite the ongoing scandal of mis-labelling of beef products containing horse meat, demand for fresh meat has remained robust and consumers are looking for assurance marks on meat products.
A Kantar poll revealed that 20 per cent of consumers have indicated that they would buy more fresh meat and 13 per cent would buy more locally sourced meat.
The Red Tractor logo food assurance scheme covers standards such as safety, hygiene, animal welfare and the environment amongst other things. It was launched by Tony Blair on 13 June 2000.
The label certifies that has been produced to independently inspected standards right across the food chain from farm to pack. It has a statement of origin in the flag device, it is protected by trademark and only approved packers can use the logo.
60,000 inspections are carried out annually to ensure standards are maintained.
There are 78,000 Red Tractor farmers in the UK and sell their food to one of 350 Red Tractor packers licensed to use the Red Tractor on their packaging. Food companies of all sizes, from a family run salad grower to large dairy processors, use the mark.
It emerged on Friday evening that following several days of comprehensive testing of 2,501 beef-based products by the Food Standards Agency, only 29 tested positive for horse DNA. This happened to be just over one per cent of products.
Lancashire County Council found out its ready-made cottage pies containing beef tested positive too at 45 of its schools in the county.
The FSA say there is nothing about horse meat which makes it any more or less safe than other meat products and the meat products were supplied to the retailers by approved establishments.
Under existing legislation, retailers are responsible for the food safety of their food and their accuracy of their labelling. This was confirmed by Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary earlier on Friday 14 February.
The FSA doesn’t have its own laboratory. Supermarket giants do their own testing through independent laboratories and sharing the test results with the agency.
Speaking to the BBC Anne MacIntosh MP, chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs parliamentary select committee, said a massive exercise was needed to find out where the original source of the contamination entered the food chain.
She also said it was imperative that the Food Standards Agency talked with its counterparts in Ireland, Norway, Holland and all other countries in the EU that have been affected by the horse meat scandal.
Ms Macintosh said: “It is so widespread. Even a country like Norway with very strict health and safety legislation and food labelling laws has been caught up in the scandal. Supermarkets need to have the trust of their consumers. They need to talk their suppliers and processors, go back to their supply chain and find out at what point the contamination entered. It is still not clear why the contamination took place.”
In a recent parliamentary debate on the horse meat scandal, there were many calls by Liberal Democrat and Tory MPs to support British farmers and ancillary businesses like butchers and bakers to combat the damage being done to the meat industry by the scandal, but hardly any similar interventions by Labour MPs.
David Clarke, CEO of Red Tractor Assurance said: “We have followed the developments with interest over the past three or four weeks and we are encouraged that no Red Tractor products have been implicated. Nevertheless we are writing to Red Tractor licensees to remind them of their responsibilities and the rules which underpin the Red Tractor logo.
“We have made it clear that the only beef used in Red Tractor labelled products must be from farms certified in the Red Tractor scheme. We are also warning them to take every care to ensure that the only animal protein contained in a meat product should be that which is listed on the label. It is the licensee’s responsibility to avoid any contamination from proteins foreign to the product.
“Any deviation from these rules will result in the licensee being removed from the Red Tractor scheme.
“Consumers have embraced the Red Tractor Assurance Scheme in recent weeks. They are reassured that the independent inspections delivered by Red Tractor, more than 60,000 inspections each year on UK farms and in UK factories, gives an assurance of proper standards throughout the supply chain.”
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