What makes Red Tractor certified British food and drink traceable?

Whenever you buy and enjoy food and drink that’s certified to Red Tractor standards, you’re tucking into something that’s always British, and traceable, safe, and farmed with care. Looking at the first pillar of our three-part promise, what do we mean when we talk about food traceability?

You might not know that relying on spotting the Union Jack on packs is not a cast iron guarantee that the product originated in the UK.

The Union Jack incorporated into the Red Tractor logo shows that food has come from British farms and is processed and packed in the UK, the tick represents rigorous checks at each step of the certified food supply chain and the heart means it’s carefully farmed.

Our assurance scheme covers not just farms, but the entire British food supply chain. This means the Red Tractor logo can only be used on food that has been grown, reared, transported, stored, and packed to the required standards as defined by our rules.

Here’s an example of what we cover using the nation’s favourite meat, chicken. Our scheme encompasses the food’s entire journey, from assured breeder farms, hatcheries handling eggs and producing chicks, right through to the chicken you buy.

We carry out rigorous checks to verify that each step in the supply chain is certified – this includes all licensed food processing sites, as well as farms.

Licensees are essentially food businesses we approve and license so they can make a Red Tractor claim on food and drink products. By claim, we mean they’re using their Red Tractor license as a selling point either to other food businesses or as a selling point direct to shoppers and diners.

These checks happen every day, with our inspectors randomly selecting, without prior notice, products which carry a Red Tractor claim at a licensee’s site and tracing the production journey through the supply chain to the British farms they originally came from.

Here’s our senior technical manager Joanna King to explain more.

This is how you can be certain that in looking for the Red Tractor logo, you’re buying genuinely British food that’s traceable, safe and farmed with care. To find out more, visit our website.