Red Tractor might struggle to make friends with standards overhaul

After years of insisting its existing standards were sufficient and compared “extremely favourably” when benchmarked against other global accreditation schemes, Red Tractor used the long-awaited unveiling of its new £1.5m TV ad today to announce it plans to introduce a suite of beefed-up ‘modular standards’.

Detail is currently thin on the ground. But this new range of standards – due to launch next year – will offer a more comprehensive level of Red Tractor accreditation for the first time in areas such as organic food production, enhanced animal welfare and environmentally sustainable production.

It’s what British consumers want, Red Tractor CEO Jim Moseley insisted today, adding the move would create a “flagship for British farming” and a de facto “one-stop shop for assurance”.

Pulling that off, however, will be no easy feat.

Read more: After a series of breaches, can Red Tractor be trusted again?

Red Tractor’s reputation has suffered after a series of food safety and animal welfare breaches at Red Tractor-assured businesses. The scheme plans to address this by introducing a toughened and more risk-based farm inspection programme from November, but it may take some time for its reputation to recover.

And while Moseley stressed the new modular standards weren’t a “land grab” against the likes of the Soil Association and RSPCA Assured and hopes there is scope for “a collaborative approach with other standards”, those organisations are likely to see things rather differently.

That’s not all. Red Tractor may also need to overcome significant opposition from its own producer base.

In particular, there are concerns the decision to take elements of Red Tractor upmarket is, in essence, an admission that the existing base standards aren’t good enough.

Moseley said the “base standards are still extremely good standards” and would remain in place, but one food industry source suggests there is already a “fair amount of confusion” among producers as to why Red Tractor is proposing to introduce enhanced standards instead of “defending the standards we already have”.

That industry insider also hit out at the lack of consultation to what was in effect a “backdoor raising of standards, which will have significant cost implications for some producers”.

Reaction to the proposals from some producers is understood to have been “heated”, with Red Tractor accused of disparaging its own standards while bowing to pressure from animal welfare and environmental campaigners.

It’s early days, of course, but Red Tractor may well face an uphill battle in making a case for this new, enhanced version of its standards.