There are not many individuals in the industry that can top what Nigel Garbutt knows about fresh produce standards in the UK.
An advocate from the start, he was involved with the first Assured Produce (AP) scheme, which would later join forces with various other assurance groups throughout the food chain in Britain to form the Red Tractor mark, back in the early 1990s, and now chairs GlobalGAP.
GlobalGAP - previously known as EurepGAP - is a private sector body that sets up voluntary standards for the certification of agricultural products around the world. Its criteria is huge: the standard aims to “reassure consumers about how food is produced on the farm by minimising detrimental environment impacts of farming operations, reducing the use of chemical inputs and ensuring a responsible approach to worker health and safety, as well as animal welfare”.
It’s a tall order that was not surprisingly spurred on by retailers, but as of 2001 has been both retailer and producer-led with a 50:50 membership. The organisation’s standard is now implemented on more than 100,000 farms worldwide.
Originally a Safeway man, Garbutt has been involved in GlobalGAP from the word go, when it was established in 1996 due to the industry’s need to bring imported products to the same standards as the UK. “There were so many standards popping up from various supermarkets and it wasn’t making a lot of sense,” explains Garbutt. “In order to harmonise retail and growers on the same level, AP linked up with Kristian Moeller [md of GlobalGAP] and 10 years ago the UK assurance scheme Red Tractor came along. GlobalGAP is behind it as we are with our various other assurances worldwide. Supermarkets now base their own standards on GlobalGAP, although some do have some standards that differ, but it is only at most an additional five per cent and that is the supermarkets’ way of establishing partnerships with growers, which is good because that drives innovation forward.”
Although Garbutt insists that 90 per cent of the various supermarket standards are the same as GlobalGAP and can be audited at the same time, with just a few additional questions for some, he admits that producers still suffer from “audit fatigue”. Now, as part of the new version, producers who consistently show high performance will be rewarded by the reduced audit in future years.
The FPC believes more could still be done to lessen the load on producers though. “Reputable companies have made considerable investment in securing accreditation from GlobalGAP and other product certification schemes, which include independently verified records of pesticide monitoring,” says chief executive Nigel Jenney. “The FPC wants the urgent recognition of such product certification schemes to permit reduced checks on reputable traders already meeting high standards in the context of EC Regulation 669/2009 [high risk products].”
“It’s so much better than it was,” says Garbutt. “Especially when you look back at all the different developments and different standards offer the years, and we have come such a long way. AP and GlobalGAP, as well as the other shared standards around the world, have worked very hard towards harmonisation.”
This much is demonstrated by a 500 plus attendance at GlobalGAP’s 10th annual conference, GlobalGAP Summit 2010. Held in London this week, the event involved 55 expert speakers covering various aspects of Good Agricultural Practice and the launch of the organisation’s fourth version of its Integrated Farm Assurance Standard.
“We took the new version of the standard out on the road to five different continents and gathered feedback from a public consultation with more than 700 people,” explains Garbutt. “We are delighted by the end programme and we have had some good feedback. We have definitely got our best ever version now. Although we will evaluate it every four years now, as opposed to three previously, we can change it in the interim.”
It can take time for producers to get used to new versions of the standard, but Garbutt says that the changes are very transparent and are translated into 22 different languages on the GlobalGAP website. “Producers are given time to implement changes in a transitional period and a lot of the changes originate with them,” he adds.
But Garbutt believes that when it comes to consumer-facing action, assurance schemes like Red Tractor are best. “One consumer-focused assurance cannot work globally,” he says. “Plus, the actual retailers do a good job of communicating with consumers on behalf of the producers. GlobalGAP works on a business-to-business level, but a single identity or brand for consumers would not work -you realise this the more you travel and see the differences in consumers all over the world. We think globally, but act local.”
So how successful is the Red Tractor mark? Independent research looking at food assurance schemes has shown that the Red Tractor mark is now recognised by 55 per cent of consumers. But the general consensus is that there is a long way to go. “While Red Tractor is becoming increasingly meaningful to consumers, there is still a big job for us to do in engaging them with our messages and further raising the level of awareness and understanding of the Red Tractor,” says David Clarke, ceo of Assured Food Standards. “We are really pleased with the progress made by the Red Tractor mark in just a decade. With the support of the country’s leading supermarkets, we now have the Red Tractor mark printed on £10bn worth of UK food and drink products including a number of major household name brands.”
AFS has started to make significant inroads into the foodservice sector and the scheme has also been chosen by the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, which is committed to sourcing Red Tractor food for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“Overall, we are delighted with the success of the Red Tractor mark, which has gained significant ground within a diverse number of sectors and businesses with limited resources,” he adds. “We’re not complacent though and realise there is still much work to be done to ensure that the Red Tractor scheme continues to go from strength to strength in the next 10 years.”
There is no doubt that assurance standards such as the Red Tractor scheme play an important role in giving peace of mind to consumers, retailers, processors and growers, guaranteeing safe food of good quality at affordable prices. Producing crops in accordance with the Red Tractor standards allows growers to easily sell guaranteed quality produce to any supermarket or processor, and at the same time, the scheme ensures that growers do not need to meet the requirements of a whole range of different competing and potentially conflicting commercial standards.
“Application of the principles of integrated crop management (ICM) offers a sustainable, responsible, and profitable approach to horticulture,” says AP’s Liz Kerrigan. “Consumers buying Red Tractor fresh produce can be confident in the safety and integrity of the produce they eat. The major retailers, foodservice outlets and processors operating in the UK all support the scheme because they recognise the integrity of standards are clear and transparent. The independent assessment element of the scheme also provides the grower with the means to demonstrate to the retailer, and ultimately to the consumer, that crops are being grown in full compliance with the published standards.”
Off record, the industry is not so kind. Many say that, although the Red Tractor logo is recognised on the supermarket shelf, few consumers know or care what it means. Insiders are concerned that not enough momentum has been built up. Of course, this kind of opinion is very laissez faire and the NFU’s Philip Hudson is keen to point out that the standard is for the benefit of the industry, and so should be backed by it. “Money is not going to come from the government; they have already invested in the scheme,” he says. “This mark is owned by the industry and needs to be taken seriously by the industry. It needs to be developed by them, because no-one else is going to do it for them.”
Hudson believes that assurance schemes across the board are a positive development for the fresh produce industry, but thinks that more needs to be done to make sure the public knows what the schemes mean. Hudson would like to see the Red Tractor mark become a ‘one-stop shop” facility for consumers. “It should feature in quick decision shopping and act as a short cut for purchasers,” he adds. “There is a lot of further work that needs to go into the mark as growers put a lot of effort into their produce to achieve the standard.”
Obviously, given Garbutt’s beginnings, the Red Tractor scheme is still something that he holds close to his heart. “I look into it from time to time and it seems to be doing well,” he says. “It has definitely done well to achieve the level of consumer recognition it has in such a short space of time.”
“AP needs to make sure it keeps its cutting edge by leading in quality and continuing to refer back to global standards. It mustn’t become insular. You can learn by other countries, improve and continue to make things better.”
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