Consultation by Red Tractor now closed

Launched in January, the Red Tractor scheme ran an eight-week review of new proposals for scheme’s six sectors – beef and lamb, poultry, pigs, dairy, fresh produce and combinable crops and sugar beet.

The scheme routinely reviews its standards every three to four years across all sectors to ensure members farm in a way that meets the expectations of consumers and market requirements as simply as possible.

The proposals were developed with significant input from experts across the food chain – farming organisations, farmers, vets, processors, retailers and foodservice operators, over a 12-month period of research which studied consumer trends, reviewed the latest science and evidence, as well as benchmarked the scheme against competitors and industry best practice.

More than 3,000 pieces of feedback have been received from across the Red Tractor food chain, in the form of meetings, written questions, emails, phone calls and answers to the consultation survey. During the consultation, the Red Tractor team attended around 60 member and stakeholder meetings with around 2,000 people in attendance. 750 comprehensive consultation responses have been submitted.

The consultation, which closed on 5 March, will now go back to the Technical Advisory Committees to reach a consensus on outcomes. The structure of the review adheres to the gold standard recommendations of the British Standards Institute – committee, consultation, and consensus. The final proposition will be published in the summer, ahead of implementation in November.