Assurance body has outlined its priorities for delivering improvements over the coming years
Red Tractor has published its priorities for delivering improvements in each farming sector, including outlining its ambitions for fresh produce over the next five years.
The priorities have been developed and agreed collaboratively by representatives sitting on Red Tractor’s Sector Boards and include a review of farming standards in 2026. They sit alongside wider improvements already in progress, including the Red Tractor portal, communications and assessor training.
Red Tractor said the priorities will guide improvements to the scheme and “mark an important step in the organisation’s ongoing commitments to greater transparency and delivering positive, tangible change for UK farmers and growers”.
Goals for fresh produce
In fresh produce, the key objectives have been identified as reducing the audit burden through a more bespoke, risk-informed approach, without compromising food safety, and shifting assessors’ focus to ensure standards are evidenced through practical compliance as well as paperwork.
There is also a goal to promote and encourage a strong food-safety culture based on appropriate risk assessment within fresh produce businesses.
The overarching aim is to ensure the standards and assessment process supports efforts to rebuild trust across the supply chain, positioning Red Tractor as a “champion of the sector”.
In order to deliver these objectives, the fresh produce sector board and technical advisory committee (TAC) will review crop-risk categories, develop specific standards for leafy salads, quantify the audit burden across the sector, and document the rationale for existing standards.
Red Tractor also outlined longer-term objectives for 2027-2030. These include launching refreshed, more bespoke standards, exploring group approaches via the Red Tractor Members’ Portal, pursuing further opportunities for earned recognition, considering the implications of environmental impact on food safety, and growing Red Tractor’s role in upskilling/driving a food-safety culture.
Longer term, the Fresh Produce Sector Board will also explore smarter, data-driven audit regimes, segmenting standards by risk category, and more targeted, risk-based assessments.
’Clear direction of travel’
Chair of Red Tractor, Alistair Mackintosh, said: “By setting out these priorities, we’re giving stakeholders, including farmers and growers, a clear view of the direction of travel in each farming sector and providing an early opportunity for feedback.”
All stakeholders have been invited to share feedback by 1 February 2026 via the Red Tractor website.
“The collective focus of the review is to support reduction of unnecessary audit burden, delivering efficiency while maintaining rigour and ensuring that every audit point helps farmers to demonstrate due diligence or meet their customers’ expectations,” Mackintosh added.
The priorities have been developed through Red Tractor’s established governance structure, it explained. The Red Tractor board sets the organisation’s strategic direction, while each farming sector is represented by its own sector board, made up of farmers, growers, vets, processors, retailers and supply-chain experts.
Each sector board will continue to oversee the review process, using their collective knowledge to consider the specific needs and pressures facing their sector, Red Tractor explained.
Mackintosh said the next phase of work moves to the TACs, which bring together experts from across each sector to develop detailed recommendations designed to deliver the priorities and objectives.
“The TACs’ role is to explore options, test practicality and develop proposals that reflect both the objectives set by the sector boards and the realities of on-farm delivery,” he said. “Farmers and growers have asked for greater transparency and clearer opportunities to have their say, and this is what we aim to achieve. Feedback at this early stage will help shape the work that follows.”
Further opportunities to comment on draft standards will take place during 2026, before final, UKAS-accredited standards are published and implemented in 2027.
