Farm Assurance

[traineefarmer]

Comply with environmental controls and food hygiene and that is your lot. Do you see car manufacturers being self regulated by quangos funded by a levy on every car sold?

Maybe not compulsory funded quangos like the AHDB and so many other leeches that we have to put up with, but the manufacturing industries do have voluntary QA schemes that they subscibe to. The commonly seen ISO9001 for instance.

 

[Princess Pooper]

Does your inspector ask for worming/parasite treatment records for your cats? I've had to dig out Vet invoices showing wormer/flea tabs for the last few years.

Would love to see them trying to worm or flea our feral cats who are chief mousers and ratters.

 

[Barleymow]

I always ask to see I'd for the pig red tractor and rspca audits

 

[Renaultman]

OOOH Dear. Female

 

[farmerm]

We were early adopters of FA through Fabbl, which became the supermarket's preferred choice for food standards compliance after a period of each of them having their own set of rules and inspectors. At the time we saw it as a good thing as it cut red tape, reduced duplicated inspections and opened more markets to us.

It was never a trap. It was simply what the market dictated. The vast majority of food in this country is sold to the public by just 4 supermarket operators and like it or not THEY are the ones who set quality standards, prices, demand, packaging and pretty much every trend in what the public buys and what our industry produces and how it produces it.

Ignore them if you wish, but please don't blame those of us who did what we could to keep customers and stay in business over the last 20+ years.

You make a good point, those selling direct to supermarkets had to get on board early. Supermarkets where keen so they could shift the legal responsibility away from themselves in the event of a food safety scare. “We only buy product from farm assured and inspected farms...”

 

[neilo]

You make a good point, those selling direct to supermarkets had to get on board early. Supermarkets where keen so they could shift the legal responsibility away from themselves in the event of a food safety scare. “We only buy product from farm assured and inspected farms...”

Can’t really be laid directly at the supermarkets, or do sellers’, door imo. At the time it came in, we used to sell all fatstock live, through Banbury Market. The Mart offered free FABBL inspection back then iirc, so it would have been daft not to get on board, as we were going to get a premium on FA stock.....

 

[farmerm]

Can’t really be laid directly at the supermarkets, or do sellers’, door imo. At the time it came in, we used to sell all fatstock live, through Banbury Market. The Mart offered free FABBL inspection back then iirc, so it would have been daft not to get on board, as we were going to get a premium on FA stock.....

So you got suckered and we all had to follow

 

[neilo]

So you got suckered and we all had to follow

Not at all, I seem to remember we did receive a premium, briefly. When the majority get that premium though, it suddenly becomes a penalty to those that don’t qualify for it.

I stuck with it until I moved here in 2012, when I didn’t bother rejoining as a new business. It didn’t make any difference for lambs sold lw most of the time, but I started to see more times when it did make a difference, so I rejoined 2 years ago. Part of the reason was to allow more flexibility to sell dw too.
Tbh, it’s just a paper exercise to most businesses anyway, as most will already be complying with 90%+ of the requirements, just ma6be not writing it down for the box tickers to read.

 

[primmiemoo]

Blimey, should I have sent in my CV and filled in the application form?

Reading this thread within a thread, there are places that'd be best inspected by drone and enormous tank by any inspector who happens to be inconveniently female.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Can’t really be laid directly at the supermarkets, or do sellers’, door imo. At the time it came in, we used to sell all fatstock live, through Banbury Market. The Mart offered free FABBL inspection back then iirc, so it would have been daft not to get on board, as we were going to get a premium on FA stock.....

For us if our grading / weight was within spec. (and the lamb didn't have a condemned liver) the modest Maunders (Sainsburys) bonus we got more than covered the cost of that simple FA more than 25 yrs ago, and I never worried about at all back then.

 

[kiwi pom]

Got my inspection next week.What have the clueless dribbling Idiots changed since last year, read about rats,anything else?

Perhaps not calling them "clueless dribbling idiots" to their face would be a good start They are after all just doing a job.

 

[kiwi pom]

How are they gonna enforce it?

Why you don't all collectively ring up and tell them to get stuffed I will never know.

Comply with environmental controls and food hygiene and that is your lot. Do you see car manufacturers being self regulated by quangos funded by a levy on every car sold?

Seriously, if it doesn't put money in your pocket, what is the point?

Perhaps its time to get rid of RT? The problem is customers will still demand something, so do you want everyone that may possibly buy whatever you produce to have their own schemes with individual audits, which is something processors often need for their individual customers.
Don't forget farmers are producing food, nowadays there needs to be some kind of effort made to insure everyone's doing things at least half right.
Antibiotic use being a good example of this.
The customers always right, if you want them to buy from you.

 

[neilo]

Blimey, should I have sent in my CV and filled in the application form?

Reading this thread within a thread, there are places that'd be best inspected by drone and enormous tank by any inspector who happens to be inconveniently female.

I took those particular comments as about a particular female inspector in that area, who probably has a ‘reputation’, rather than as a problem with female inspectors in general. Maybe I was wrong?

Surely a job where gender is irrelevant, and where ‘having a point to prove’, Male or female, is a bigger issue. I’m not bothered which gender my inspectors are, but dairy inspections always seemed far less stressful when the inspector was a young filly not long out of college....

 

[primmiemoo]

I took those particular comments as about a particular female inspector in that area, who probably has a ‘reputation’, rather than as a problem with female inspectors in general. Maybe I was wrong?

Surely a job where gender is irrelevant, and where ‘having a point to prove’, Male or female, is a bigger issue. I’m not bothered which gender my inspectors are, but dairy inspections always seemed far less stressful when the inspector was a young filly not long out of college....

The inspectors who've come here over the last umpty years have been firm but fair. When something isn't spot on, they've said, advised, and asked for some evidence of the amended whatever 'twas to be sent.

Only one man was officious. After his inspection here he did relax, though, and apologise for his manner. He'd had inspections where the farmers leaned on him - passive-aggression, by inference (just like stroppy cattle ) - and he'd had to adopt a style.

Maybe we get the inspectors we farmers as a collective set deserve to have?

 

[Renaultman]

Blimey, should I have sent in my CV and filled in the application form?

Reading this thread within a thread, there are places that'd be best inspected by drone and enormous tank by any inspector who happens to be inconveniently female.

It is a thread within a thread

I took those particular comments as about a particular female inspector in that area, who probably has a ‘reputation’, rather than as a problem with female inspectors in general. Maybe I was wrong?

Surely a job where gender is irrelevant, and where ‘having a point to prove’, Male or female, is a bigger issue. I’m not bothered which gender my inspectors are, but dairy inspections always seemed far less stressful when the inspector was a young filly not long out of college....

Absolutely this. Thanks.

 

[primmiemoo]

It is a thread within a thread

Absolutely this. Thanks.

My apologies for over reading, and thanks for the clarification.

 

[neilo]

The inspectors who've come here over the last umpty years have been firm but fair. When something isn't spot on, they've said, advised, and asked for some evidence of the amended whatever 'twas to be sent.

Only one man was officious. After his inspection here he did relax, though, and apologise for his manner. He'd had inspections where the farmers leaned on him - passive-aggression, by inference (just like stroppy cattle ) - and he'd had to adopt a style.

Maybe we get the inspectors we farmers as a collective set deserve to have?

To a point, maybe we do. However, some are just officious little tinpot Hitlers. I remember a Dairy Crest FA inspector that came a couple of times that was infamous for being just that. There were so many complaints about him, or rather his attitude, in the Glos/Worcs area that he ended up getting transferred elsewhere.

 

[Suffolk Serf]

To a point, maybe we do. However, some are just officious little tinpot Hitlers. I remember a Dairy Crest FA inspector that came a couple of times that was infamous for being just that. There were so many complaints about him, or rather his attitude, in the Glos/Worcs area that he ended up getting transferred elsewhere.

Yes, I had an auditor once that insisted on measuring every pig hut, hundreds of them, and counting the pigs in each paddock. He only visited once thankfully.
All they ask now is for a list with all that information on it.

 

[colhonk]

Phew. nearly passed.What a complete Farce this is. went on Red Tractor site, down loaded all the forms to do with arable, spent hours trying to work out exactly what the gobledygook meant,filled in as best as possible,then during the interroga oops inspection a lot of the forms were NOT what the NSR wanted,how the hell am I supposed to know what they want if they do not tell me?.anyway,the inspector non comformed me on a few things,then showed me a booklet that had all the stuff in that was wanted...Why do we not get supplied with this?..so could copy forms and fill them in.then I had done conformed.why do they have to fail you in the first place?One big form I will need to get my agronomist to help fill in, No mention of this form on the red tractor website. Are the NSF making extra question up just for the sake of it? The No F*&^ use union ought to be totaly ashamed of this stupidity but wait,They are making lots of money out of it.Surely this cannot be lawfull,what about conflicting interests.

 

[FarmyStu]

Phew. nearly passed.What a complete Farce this is. went on Red Tractor site, down loaded all the forms to do with arable, spent hours trying to work out exactly what the gobledygook meant,filled in as best as possible,then during the interroga oops inspection a lot of the forms were NOT what the NSR wanted,how the hell am I supposed to know what they want if they do not tell me?.anyway,the inspector non comformed me on a few things,then showed me a booklet that had all the stuff in that was wanted...Why do we not get supplied with this?..so could copy forms and fill them in.then I had done conformed.why do they have to fail you in the first place?One big form I will need to get my agronomist to help fill in, No mention of this form on the red tractor website. Are the NSF making extra question up just for the sake of it? The No F*&^ use union ought to be totaly ashamed of this stupidity but wait,They are making lots of money out of it.Surely this cannot be lawfull,what about conflicting interests.

Sounds like a right pain of an inspection. Exactly what non conformances did you get?