Don’t moan about the audits and inspections retailers and regulators make you jump through - they are key to ensuring consumer trust.
That was the message to meat suppliers from Tesco group technical director Tim Smith this week, as he set out key lessons the retailer had learned from the horsemeat scandal.
Speaking at the conference of the British Meat Processors’ Association on Wednesday, Smith said he was struck by delegates’ complaints about “the onerous natures of the regime,” “the fee structure” and other regulatory issues and customer requests.
“Frankly, don’t moan about it would be my advice to you,” Smith said. “It is a very powerful and very key part of the confidence that consumers knowingly or unknowingly have in the food supply chain.
“It’s really important that you see what we do, what you do and what the FSA does as part of the same solution.”
Because consumer trust was so important, Tesco was a big supporter of third-party quality and assurance schemes such as the Red Tractor and Freedom Foods, Smith said. But, he added, one of the big lessons from Horsegate was that trust in the Tesco brand was greater. “It’s a truth we discovered around the time of the horsemeat crisis: that customers recognise and trust the Tesco brand even more.”
In terms of which words or logos customers wanted to see on food packaging, “the word Tesco was sufficient for most of them most of the time,” Smith claimed.
He also stressed the continuing importance of testing and sampling food products to ensure authenticity.
“Testing is a relatively inefficient intervention, but it is still the best intervention to convince ourselves and others that what we’ve done has worked,” he said. “And customers expect it to happen.”
