Red tractor audit

[SilliamWhale]

Surely the rt is a quick and relatively pain free way of sort of policing this rather than have the government involved!?

Why would the government want or need to get involved above and beyond their legal remit?

 

[Grass And Grain]

Why would the government want or need to get involved above and beyond their legal remit?

Think RT has got so ingrained into some folks' minds, they think it's necessary, when in fact our produce is perfectly legal and wholesome.

Let's look at the coal face of food handling and retailing @Against_the_grain - the supermarkets.

Which independent assurance scheme checks the supermarkets? They'll be inspected by local authority food safety officers and rated 0-5, just as farms are inspected by local authorities. But are they independently assured?

These retailers want us to be independently RT audited, yet sometimes score a food hygiene rating of 1 at their own stores.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Think RT has got so ingrained into some folks' minds, they think it's necessary, when in fact our produce is perfectly legal and wholesome.

Let's look at the coal face of food handling and retailing @Against_the_grain - the supermarkets.

Which independent assurance scheme checks the supermarkets? They'll be inspected by local authority food safety officers and rated 0-5, just as farms are inspected by local authorities. But are they independently assured?

These retailers want us to be independently RT audited, yet sometimes score a food hygiene rating of 1 at their own stores.

As I've said before Red Tractor are crooks, AIC and NFU are corrupt and AHDB are useless.

 

[DrWazzock]

The whole thing has parallels with Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.
Invent a problem that doesn’t exist and use it to justify an invasion of your business. Well we don’t and never did need liberating from dodgy moisture meters. But of course if we don’t comply with their every demand they won’t let us sell anything by stitching up all our markets. RT is the biggest anti competitive scam ever foisted on U.K. agriculture.

 

[tullah]

The whole thing has parallels with Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.
Invent a problem that doesn’t exist and use it to justify an invasion of your business. Well we don’t and never did need liberating from dodgy moisture meters. But of course if we don’t comply with their every demand they won’t let us sell anything by stitching up all our markets. RT is the biggest anti competitive scam ever foisted on U.K. agriculture.

Farmers will soon have a voice and numbers with which to deal with this scam once and for all. The British Farming Union has just sprung up and is very much in its infancy gathering members as we speak.
Together we will destroy RT and get back to spending our time farming and producing food that the people want, and not this tickboxed rubbish that carries a fake label of authenticity.

 

[Vader]

.

I get one of those check samples linked in a post above. Always tallies nicely with my own meter ( within 0.1-0.2 % ), and that on a hired grain drier.
Most strangely, it varies enormously ( 2% sometimes ) when I send samples to merchants.

I agree it's important to calibrate the meter, but I can do it all on my own without RT breathing down my neck.
I do wonder what the point is though, when my calibrated meter varies so much against merchants.

The whole thing stinks from top to bottom.

2 load to 1 merchant got knock for over 16%..
Rest of bin 14.4% to another merchant...

 

[Vader]

I really don't get the whole negativity towards red tractor. Yes there are a lot of pointless question/tickboxes but on the whole it provides a standard for produce. I dread to think gow bad some farms would be without it.

If they bad then grain gets rejected.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Sorry are you saying you want a load by load audit?! A wooly annual inspection is a pretty good comorimise

It would be different if the trade was contributing to the process. But no, as usual, it's paid for by the farmer.

I'm sure you have good terms of employment, sensible hours, a pension and maybe a company car to go with it.

The expectation that farmers will carry on investing, assuming all the risk and working long hours to feather bed the likes of you and the supermarkets is wearing a bit thin. You are biting the hand that feeds in case you haven't realised.

 

[Vader]

Surely the rt is a quick and relatively pain free way of sort of policing this rather than have the government involved!?

We still get local council inpections on the cattle and feed mixing so what did rt achieve?

 

[Grass And Grain]

As I've said before Red Tractor are crooks, AIC and NFU are corrupt and AHDB are useless.

Said in a previous post, AIC can't make independent decisions when running the UFAS scheme. This has been demonstrated by their reasoning for not allowing anything other than FA for UK grain - "no demand for UK gatekeeper grain, and too costly".

So their reasoning isn't based on feed safety. I'd say it was 'cos they (all the cost club) don't want to see RT/SQC lose members, and mills are happy getting RT grain for free.

If AIC decision had been based on feed safety, and they're perfectly happy with GK imports, then they should be even happier with GK UK grain. Think that really puts them in a bad light. It demonstrates to me it's not about feed safety, it's about shackling farmers to what some describe as a protection racket, and mills feathering their own nests.

Have NFU done anything about it? Not a thing. They continue to force farmers to pay up to their own RT scheme, knowing full well imports access our markets with no farm assurance.

It doesn't matter if no-one ever uses UK GK, the disgrace is the option isn't available to us. Available to our own farmers. The same farmers to whom mills owe their livelihoods.

The more I think about it, the more I'm of the view your quoted text isn't far off the mark.

We must be determined to do something about this, and disrupt the way UK famers are unnecessarily suppressed.

 

[Grass And Grain]

We still get local council inpections on the cattle and feed mixing so what did rt achieve?

Ahh, a government inspection to ensure the food produced is grown/raised to legislative standards. Not dissimilar to the food hygiene inspection the supermarkets get to ensure they are handling food correctly.

So that should be it. Job done.

But we've got a Red Tractor who've convinced everyone the mark is imperative, and ensure their salaries keep rolling in. They've even put up their fee by a massive % amount (33% iirc).

 

[davidroberts30]

We still get local council inpections on the cattle and feed mixing so what did rt achieve?

And I get the buyers coming doing their own audits here for beef

 

[Barleymow]

I had a discussion work with RT at cereals today ime currently paid up till end of October direct debit cancelled, once out of membership can't call it assured even though was while I grew it Graindex also said would be a problem to sell it ,yet rt says its voluntary. If I sent it onto central store wouldn't matter If I left whole scheme is a con

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I had a discussion work with RT at cereals today ime currently paid up till end of October direct debit cancelled, once out of membership can't call it assured even though was while I grew it Graindex also said would be a problem to sell it ,yet rt says its voluntary. If I sent it onto central store wouldn't matter If I left whole scheme is a con

By stopping the direct debit, you are doing more good than anything else. If we all stopped paying the whole protection racket would collapse.

 

[Performer]

page 127 of the Sunday mail. Very poor effort of red tractor advertising team ,on the stairlift page. What did this cost the members? And what good will it do.