Tests cast doubt on farm assurance scheme

High-tech chemical isotope testing procedures which yesterday revealed that two supermarket pork chops bearing the English Red Tractor assurance scheme logo – and claiming to be from UK pigs – were much more likely to be from the continent will soon be widely used to back up and verify traceability audit trails across the country.

But Andy McGowan, head of industry development with Scotland’s major meat assurance scheme Quality Meat Scotland, said it was still early days in the use of this emerging technology:

“Isotope testing looks likely to prove a valuable scientific tool as a bolt-on layer on top of the existing range of procedures in place,” he said.

“QMS, along with others in the industry, has been investigating its long-term potential for beef and lamb, as well as pork.”

But, south of the Border, the foot-shooting breach of the English traceability scheme was highlighted in a BBC radio programme looking at the works of the country’s main farm assurance scheme, the Red Tractor logo. The tests were carried out to reassure consumers after the horsemeat scandal and to show just how rigorous the traceability procedures adopted by the assurance scheme were.

As part of “Red Tractor Week” the BBC programmes Farming Today and You and Yours followed the production chain and the controls placed on it to ensure integrity of supply.

And although the paper trail audit maintained that the meat from the chops originated on UK farms, high-tech chemical tests which identified the prevalence of specific chemical isotopes in the meat indicated that there was less than a one-in-100 chance that the meat had actually originated on these shores.

David Clarke, chief executive of the Red Tractor scheme said: “This isotope test has been developed collaboratively by the industry to help validate information on food labels and to provide further reassurance. The introduction of this additional level of testing can only add integrity and credibility to the industry’s systems and to the Red Tractor logo.

Clarke added that further samples from the same source had proved satisfactory and stated that “human error” was to blame, not premeditated fraud.