Concerned about Red Tractor collapse.

[Pigless]

I await the legal action from RT in the New Year....

But WTH would we want Oz oats... ??? Bizarre.

Unfortunately it looks as if red tractor UK no longer have the funds to protect their own brand

 

[Jackov Altraids]

I can't wait. Each mill will want its own assurance scheme, so will each maltster and brewer and supermarket and candlestick maker. Why don't we have one assurance scheme that covers everything? Oh ..hang on...

That was one of the main principles for starting RT [allegedly], to avoid multiple schemes, but it has failed.
Most buyers already have 'bolt-ons' because they want to say they have 'even higher standards'.
It has continually been stated by RT that they want to keep raising standards which in practice means trying to meet every retailers demands which fuels the race for increased costs and evermore standards with no extra returns for the producer and ever diminishing 'improvements' from the extra requirements.

As others have explained very well, RT actually removes market forces from assurance which makes every producer worse off.

 

[steveR]

Unfortunately it looks as if red tractor UK no longer have the funds to protect their own brand

Shock Horror!!

 

[ollie989898]

That was one of the main principles for starting RT [allegedly], to avoid multiple schemes, but it has failed.
Most buyers already have 'bolt-ons' because they want to say they have 'even higher standards'.
It has continually been stated by RT that they want to keep raising standards which in practice means trying to meet every retailers demands which fuels the race for increased costs and evermore standards with no extra returns for the producer and ever diminishing 'improvements' from the extra requirements.

As others have explained very well, RT actually removes market forces from assurance which makes every producer worse off.

What they said was:

'a single unifying brand the industry could unite under to to bolster consumer confidence in an ever more complex marketplace'.


What they actually meant was:

'this is a monopoly, suck it up, precious'.

 

[ollie989898]

Unfortunately it looks as if red tractor UK no longer have the funds to protect their own brand

The ironic thing is that their fudging brand is so lame the only people who know anything about it are you guys who are paying for it.

The consumer doesn't know what the fudge it means. Why would they care? Ah red tractor. I see. A tractor that is red. Got it. Does it indicate an ethical purchase? A sustainable purchase? A vegan purchase? Is it palm oil free? What is it? British produced product? Does it indicate sustainable forestry or fishing? Fish meal free? Soya free? It's generic to the point of obscurity. It is not unique to a particular retailer either, unlike Tesco's finest or the like which they cleverly use to charge a premium for something.

And yes, if a consumer has to google your brand to work out what the heck it is all about that brand has failed.

 

[chipchap]

Rt has over 1 million in the bank so the loss is 250000 in funding will not sink them unless they do nothing about the loss of income

cereal grains that go to ethanol need to be proven sustainable source

if this was only available from the merchant that supplies them then the merchant would have suppliers over a barrel

supermarkets will also need a system of checking farms
they have a system for checking their own supermarkets which each manager has to comply with
spot inspections when their reputation is on the line the inspectors are strict on adherence

we may find that with out red tractor the inspection companies out source to the merchants and super markets with the farmer paying to be on the approved supplier list ( super markets already use this type of system with suppliers )

This is exactly why farmers are leaving the supermarket supply chain in droves.
Speaking for myself I would much rather trade with small family businesses that I can “look in the eye of”, and do just that when I can.

 

[Pigless]

The ironic thing is that their fudging brand is so lame the only people who know anything about it are you guys who are paying for it.

The consumer doesn't know what the fudge it means. Why would they care? Ah red tractor. I see. A tractor that is red. Got it. Does it indicate an ethical purchase? A sustainable purchase? A vegan purchase? Is it palm oil free? What is it? British produced product? Does it indicate sustainable forestry or fishing? Fish meal free? Soya free? It's generic to the point of obscurity. It is not unique to a particular retailer either, unlike Tesco's finest or the like which they cleverly use to charge a premium for something.

It means it's an Australian grain product . If it's not a protected name, it should be dumped immediately and not waste any more money on it

 

[ollie989898]

This is exactly why farmers are leaving the supermarket supply chain in droves.
Speaking for myself I would much rather trade with small family businesses that I can “look in the eye of”, and do just that when I can.

Supermarkets specify what they want. Some of them have very exacting standards, as many of their salad, spud and dairy producers will no doubt tell you. Some of them are quite specific in what they want. I know for a fact Waitrose are very much involved at farm level when it comes to their milk suppliers and even insist on producers having a long term plan and investment schedule. In return for all this hoop hopping they of course pay no doubt handsome premiums for their milk, which of course they then market as being the ethical and best choice for their consumers.

But all of this is largely secondary to the main crux of my argument in that supplying product to Waitrose or another supermarket is entirely voluntary. A business can weigh up the their own cost: benefit decisions and work out if the additional work is worth the extra dollar. Red tractor, meanwhile, is an additional cost placed on the industry that is basically involuntary and does not offer any premium because everyone has it and yet no retailer has worked out how to squeeze so much as a penny extra margin out of it.

What is more, RT adds a burden to the UK marketplace that is borne by UK based suppliers and yet imported product is brought into the country and sold in serious tonne and pound volumes without any RT sticker. The conclusion then is that the UK marketplace has been hooped into a scheme which is basically self-flagellation for producers that achieves nothing.

 

[BuskhillFarm]

We have Defra, Darera and whatever else government departments that “actually” check up on animal welfare, and any notifiable diseases.
Please tell me what benefit do these supermarket led, money making paper trails add to UK farming??

Oh and I’m not just a farmer I used to work in an un/popular quality assurance scheme!

 

[Hindsight]

I await the legal action from RT in the New Year....

But WTH would we want Oz oats... ??? Bizarre.

Possibly because as a consumer of oats those Aussie oats look to be being retailed for 66.5 pence per 100 grammes. This afternoon I did the Morrisons shop. In which I purchased a 1 kg bag of their cheap oats at 75pence for 1 kg. So are they a premium brand well marketed at almost ten times the price of cheapest UK sourced oats. Any more detail of the retailer - health shop etc. As here is your answer I expect. I drive a Sunderland bus (Quashui) but I gather any folk drive cars from other countries that cost far more. So a UK farmer might not want Aussie oats here but a cute upmarket retailer may have a client base that doesn't shop in the basement bargain section of Morrisons, like me.

Thoughts?

 

[principal skinner]

If RT folded tonight I bet by the end of the week I could sell ‘self assured’ milling wheat into a mill in this country
£100 to the air ambulance if I couldn’t

 

[thorpe]

Goes to Glanbia to be turned in to Mozzarella (& whey for milk powder by a third party) and then in turn to Pizza Hut, Papa Johns and Dominoes as well as some supermarket own brand pizzas

I don’t think there is any dairy contract that doesn’t as a bare minimum have a requirement to be RT assured

how can you turn cows milk into mozzarella? could that be a trading standards issue?

 

[principal skinner]

I can't wait. Each mill will want its own assurance scheme, so will each maltster and brewer and supermarket and candlestick maker. Why don't we have one assurance scheme that covers everything? Oh ..hang on...

official line or personal?

 

[steveR]

Possibly because as a consumer of oats those Aussie oats look to be being retailed for 66.5 pence per 100 grammes. This afternoon I did the Morrisons shop. In which I purchased a 1 kg bag of their cheap oats at 75pence for 1 kg. So are they a premium brand well marketed at almost ten times the price of cheapest UK sourced oats. Any more detail of the retailer - health shop etc. As here is your answer I expect. I drive a Sunderland bus (Quashui) but I gather any folk drive cars from other countries that cost far more. So a UK farmer might not want Aussie oats here but a cute upmarket retailer may have a client base that doesn't shop in the basement bargain section of Morrisons, like me.

Thoughts?

You are right....

 

[Cowabunga]

Red tractor claim they run as a not for profit organisation.

now they have a £250k hole in there budget to fill

at a £250k loss per year they haven’t long for this world unless they under go some changes PDQ.

They’ll probably just raise their fee to farmers for the inspection by £25 a shot and charge 10p each for stickers. The stickers along should cover the loss of AHDB funding.

 

[principal skinner]

This year I have made a point of asking walkers on the farm what they know about red tractor, most shop on price or brand and will never look for the red tractor symbol, over 70% at a guess said they would look for a Union Jack and had no idea what the little red tractor stood for

 

[Jimdog1]

If every buyer of UK produce has its own scheme then there will be a market for assurance, they will be competing for suppliers. Mill A needs suppliers that meet its requirements, it will have to attract enough that sign up to that standard, otherwise it faces possibly running out of supplies. Thus in order to guarantee its supplies it will either have to offer a premium price, or lower regulatory standards to attract them from Mill B's scheme. As opposed to RT whereby it gets the standards for free because the growers have nowhere else to go.

Its to farmers advantage for there to be multiple competing assurance standards, mills and processors cannot have all farmers as potential suppliers as they can with RT (and thus each farmer is competing purely against his neighbour on price). So there is competition on both sides, farmers on price, processors on price and the severity of their standards. The RT monopoly benefits only the processors, thats why they are fighting so hard to keep it a monopoly.

So instead of one scheme have 20 schemes? What kind of madness is that? Produce food legally and if the processor, supermarket or indeed the producer want their own USP such as free range or forage only or zero microbial then so be it. We want less red tape not more. I have more than one customer I don't need more assurance schemes!

 

[Jimdog1]

I'm glad I am not alone in my thinking.

Madness.

 

[Jimdog1]

Th

I can't wait. Each mill will want its own assurance scheme, so will each maltster and brewer and supermarket and candlestick maker. Why don't we have one assurance scheme that covers everything? Oh ..hang on...

The assurance scheme we have needs to wind its neck in before it it has a mass resignation of members. It brings zero benefits, zero increased margin for the member, has minimal relevance to the general public.

 

[principal skinner]

So instead of one scheme have 20 schemes? What kind of madness is that? Produce food legally and if the processor, supermarket or indeed the producer want their own USP such as free range or forage only or zero microbial then so be it. We want less red tape not more. I have more than one customer I don't need more assurance schemes!

If the buyer want the product assured, they pay for it.