Assured Produce (AP) has responded to pressure from irate UK growers over the “unnecessary” hurdles they are being forced to jump in pursuit of accreditation to sell fruit.
A review of the AP scheme undertaken by the British Independent Fruit Growers’ Association, which is behind the Rolling Back Farm Assurance Schemes Focus Group, in February revealed that there is “widespread dissatisfaction” with the scheme and that it creates “unnecessary burden”.
In the line-by-line review of the AP audit questions, which are intended to address food safety certification, growers expressed displeasure over the level of detail - including close analysis of tree age crop rotation, nursery stock and irrigation techniques - expected from them.
But under new protocols due in April, freshinfo understands that a number of concerns raised regarding duplication and over questioning in AP audits have been addressed.
In response to a strongly worded attack on the scheme from BIFGA chairman John Breach, Gary Taylor, director of Valley Grown Nurseries, who is on the AP panel, said: “I think when you see the new protocols you will be pleased with the outcome of the hard work done behind the scenes by the Working Standards and Members Issues group that I chair. The information that you, along with the rest of the industry, have supplied has been vital in driving the reduction and duplication from AP which they now recognise.”
Taylor pointed to the scheme being de-benchmarked from GlobalGAP as one step towards a streamlined approach, although stressed this would not happen until 2011 and that growers requiring GlobalGAP may have to do a bolt-on audit or the whole thing.
He added: “We will still keep a watching brief on GlobalGAP but we will now have an opportunity to drive our own agenda on food security to something that is more relevant to us as growers.”
The new protocols will be numbered differently, include pre-written forms for growers and are “more user-friendly”, although Taylor admitted that a number of challenges remained ahead.
Breach said in his letter to AP Scheme chairman Mark Tatchell that: “BIFGA remains committed to the production of safe food. However, we remain opposed to all unnecessary ‘box ticking’ by ‘clipboarders’, and to the ‘double standards’ practised by some retailers, particularly regarding the ‘self-selection’ sale of unwrapped fresh produce, and the sale of products (such as peanuts), which have been ‘banned’ from packhouse staff rooms.”
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