Top stories
Your look at Red Tractor's advertising success and AHDB's Medicine Hub
Red Tractor’s “Farmed With Care” advertising campaign has been back on live TV throughout September and has reached over 45 million people in the UK this year, a figure which includes an all-time high of 86% of UK primary shoppers (Data source: The7Stars).
This campaign, which has been on live TV, watch-again services, YouTube and on social media, explains what is behind the logo with a series of compelling facts about the Red Tractor scheme.
Continuing to communicate with consumers about Red Tractor is vital to maintaining their trust in the logo. A comprehensive 2021 study for Red Tractor, involving more than 19,000 UK shoppers, revealed that products featuring the Red Tractor logo – either on their packaging or in supermarket advertisements – elevate consumer perceptions of quality by as much as 20% and boost purchase intent by as much as 13%.
The research compared shoppers’ perceptions of products and supermarket advertising, both with and without the Red Tractor logo. It found the logo improved shoppers' purchase intent across all categories – demonstrating a clear and positive relationship between UK consumers’ understanding of the Red Tractor proposition and the likelihood of them buying your Red Tractor assured products.
The more shoppers know about Red Tractor, the more likely they are to buy products carrying the logo.
The results also underline the important role the Red Tractor logo plays to promote UK agriculture and the quality of the products it offers. For instance, NFU's Back British Farming Day earlier this month called on consumers to support British farmers by "looking for the Red Tractor logo" during their food shop. These efforts help to build and reinforce understanding and trust that products carrying the Red Tractor logo are traceable to UK farms.
Antimicrobial resistance presents potentially grave consequences for human health, and livestock farming must play its part to ensure responsible antibiotic use, while continuing to protect animal health.
With widespread backing from the industry, AHDB has created the Medicine Hub—an online safe and secure platform designed to ensure the responsible use of antibiotics in ruminants by offering an impartial resource for evidence.
As an increasing number of farmers adopt this tool, its capacity to assess and oversee antibiotic usage at a national scale will grow.
The initiative is pivotal in enabling the industry to substantiate its commitment to responsible antibiotic usage to consumers, the supply chain, as well as to global competitors and customers.
This type of system has been in place for years in the British pig sector, which has allowed the industry to show significant improvements on reducing antibiotic use.
Red Tractor is responding to requests from industry to incorporate, as a recommendation, the upload of antibiotic data to Medicine Hub or an equivalent system, which shares data with Medicine Hub.
Farmers already hold farm records on antibiotic use but recording this centrally will provide evidence that the cattle and sheep sectors are some of the lowest users of antibiotics.
CLICK HERE to register for the Medicine Hub