On The Road
This month we met hundreds of members at Cereals, hosted the Duchess of Edinburgh, and shared our experiences of working positively with government.
Meeting members at Cereals
Red Tractor Combinable Crops & Sugar Beet Chair, Kit Papworth, reflects on a hugely successful time at Cereals earlier this month, where the Red Tractor team spoke to hundreds of farm assured members.
Earned Recognition
Red Tractor was pleased to support the Food Standards Agency receiving delegations from food safety regulators based in Belize, Hondorus, Uganda and Rwanda this week. Head of Operations Philippa Wiltshire introduced Red Tractor explaining what we do and how the relationship with the FSA works.
The delegates then visited John Torrence’s assured dairy farm near Romford where Eleanor Kane, Red Tractor’s Operations Executive together with Duncan Parkinson from NSF talked through the practicalities of assessments and certification.
Philippa explains “The visitors are looking to replicate similar earned recognition arrangements with third party assurance schemes in their own countries.
Red Tractor’s long established relationship with the FSA - what we commonly refer to as earned recognition - is seen as an exemplar by Codex Alimentarius which in 2021 adopted a new set of Principles and Guidelines mirroring the UK arrangements. This is where third party assurance schemes and government agencies use Red Tractor certification in their risk based inspection model therefore reducing the need for our members to face regulatory inspections.
You can read more about the benefits of earned regognition here.
Here is a short video explaining more about how Red Tractor works with regulators to achieve earned recognition agreements.
Red Tractor training days
The Red Tractor team is committed to helping service providers, such as labour providers, pest control experts, and bookkeepers, understand how to demonstrate compliance with standards. Kate Cross, Red Tractor’s Compliance Manager, recently presented on this topic at a training day organised by the Northern Institute of Agricultural Secretaries (IAgSA) in Hexham.
Kate discussed assessors, templates, PDF grain passports, and The Portal. The presentation generated a lot of questions and feedback, both positive and negative, which we will be take into account for future improvements in our systems.
This will ultimately benefit our members and those who work with them by reducing the burden of audits.
Bringing the farm to the city
The Duchess of Edinburgh was in Clapham on Wednesday 14 June to visit Shallowford Farm, a charitable trust hosting a pop-up farm for a week. The event offered first hand farming experiences for children from London schools.
Beef & Lamb sector chair John Dracup, a trustee of the charity, hosted the visit. We supported the event with education exercises with the children and we flew the flag for Red Tractor.
