Working with Red Tractor since 2000, we provide industry leading assurance services built on the core value of data integrity; delivering benefits for stakeholders throughout the supply chain.
About Red Tractor
Red Tractor was established in 2000 and has grown to become the UK’s biggest farm and food standards scheme, covering all of animal welfare, food safety, traceability and environmental protection. Red Tractor is run by the food industry to ensure food comes from a trustworthy and safe source with the way food is farmed and prepared regularly checked by independent experts to make sure it meets Red Tractor’s stringent standards.
2001 to 2008: early single scheme adoption of CASI
In 2001, we began working with the early Red Tractor assurance schemes such as Assured Combinable Crops and Assured Produce; using our CASI platform to provide both a data hub and a range of assurance scheme services through sector websites. These schemes were then joined by other sectors such as poultry and pigs.
2009 to 2012: harmonisation of farm assurance
In 2009 Red Tractor began a national programme to harmonise assurance in the major farming sectors: Beef & Lamb, Dairy, Fresh Produce, Combinable Crops & Sugar Beet, Pigs and Poultry. The key aims of the project were to benchmark the scheme standards, provide consistent and robust scheme data across all the sectors and deliver online services via a combined website. Our CASI solution was selected by Red Tractor to achieve this harmonisation.
The CASI system provided a platform for scheme managers and authors to review and update the new harmonised standards and when ready for publication, supported issuing the standards in a range of formats to key stakeholders. We then worked with multiple certification bodies to interface their audit reporting systems with CASI to automate and streamline the upload of audit results. This project also involved developing updated monitoring and reporting services to give Red Tractor the tools to manage the implementation of the new standards with their certification bodies.
2012 to 2015: adoption by supply chain schemes
Following on from harmonisation, our work with Red Tractor has gone from strength to strength. New Red Tractor sectors representing the wider supply chain have joined the original farm schemes in CASI such as livestock markets, livestock transport and meat processing. Data integration and online checking services have been put in place with regulatory bodies such as the Food Standards Agency and local authorities, providing Earned Recognition for Red Tractor members, rewarding good practice and reducing the burden of extra inspections.
2015 to date: building industry and supply chain links
Focus in recent years has been on forging links with industry to support proactive monitoring of assurance in the supply chain. With incidences of food fraud prevalent in the mind of consumers, it is key for Red Tractor and industry to be able to prove due diligence is taking place. As such, we now provide a suite of monitoring services which have been implemented across a wide range of companies from small marketing organisations to UK-wide retailers.
For example, we worked with Hellenic, an I.T. company providing software to abattoirs, to integrate Red Tractor beef assurance checking with their product. This was then implemented for their client, Dawn Meats, in five abattoirs meaning assurance status of each animal is checked live as it is processed. This real-time checking saves costly administration time and prevents costly manual errors and means Dawn Meats are able to meet their customers’ supply chain requirements.
More recently we have worked collaboratively with Red Tractor and Tesco to implement supply chain monitoring for fresh produce suppliers. Following Tesco’s announcement to recognise Red Tractor Fresh Produce standards as equivalent to its Nurture scheme, a requirement arose to give Tesco visibility of their Red Tractor Fresh Produce supply chain. Using our Xure supply chain technology, we engaged organisations supplying fresh produce to Tesco and implemented a system to provide that visibility.
Our long-standing relationship with Red Tractor continues to grow and innovate, with exciting new projects in the pipeline to bring new and upgraded services to Red Tractor, their members and the wider industry.