New logo guarantees food quality

Best of British - shoppers will be guaranteed quality

A new British standard for food is being introduced in more than 4,000 supermarkets across the UK on Tuesday.
The BBC's consumer affairs reporter, Karen Bowerman, reports.

For hundreds of farmers and fruit and vegetable growers across the UK - this is what they have been waiting for. A logo, which acts as a guarantee to shoppers that their food is good quality - and British.

All meat displaying the logo, will for example, have met strict hygiene, animal welfare and environmental standards.

For an industry that's suffered numerous food scares, the new scheme also provides the opportunity to reassure consumers that what they're buying is safe.

The food production quality label, which will be on display in around four thousand supermarkets from today, has as its logo a red and blue tractor - in the shape of an F to remind shoppers of the traditional image of farming.

The label will cover meat, poultry, fruit and vegetables.

High quality

Farmers believe it is a chance for them to promote the high quality of British produce, compared with foreign food, which may be cheaper, but is often produced to lower standards.

The industry also hopes it will help seize sales from a growing import market. Imports of poultry have risen three fold in the past ten years, with the market taking advantage of the strong pound.

According to the National Farmers Union, British people now eat around 1.7 million tonnes of poultry meat each year, 350 thousand tonnes of which is now imported.

But there are some fears that the standards demanded by the new scheme aren't much stricter than those required by law - and that the new logo does little more than promote certain products.

Producers and retailers deny it is just a marketing ploy; they say their standards demand more attention to detail - though there has been talk of consolidation of certain guidelines which seem to have been adhered to, long before today's launch.

Consumer confusion

But it is generally agreed that the new logo will help reduce consumer confusion over food labels and what they all mean.

The tractor is set to replace a wide variety of logos and food quality assurance schemes, which up until now, have been run independently, by producers and supermarkets.

The idea is, that food displaying the logo will eventually become seen a kind of brand, which consumers will recognise and trust.