Updated list of accepted Feed Assurance Schemes
As at 2010 Earl Assured Food Standards announced that it’s six sector farm assurance schemes would all be re-branded Red Tractor Farm Assurance Schemes and that from 1st April 2010 the standards would be updated.
As part of this update all the livestock farm assurance schemes now require their assured farmer members to buy assured animal feed only. This means that any purchases of brewers grains from breweries must be assured either through the BFBi Feed Assurance Scheme or FEMAS or the assured farmer will no longer be able to buy the product.
‘The traceability and safety of feed is a vital element of livestock assurance,’ said David Clarke, AFS Chief Executive, ‘and the BFBi scheme helps us to ensure that this is delivered in cases where a farmer buys in brewers grain from a small local brewery.’
As at April 2009, the BFBi Feed Assurance scheme accepts Members up to 200,000hl output per annum.
Gordon Jackson, BFBi Feed Assurance Verifier & BRI Head of Quality
Systems and Chief Auditor comments,
”most farms have certification and hence microbreweries that supply animal feed to them must have certification for their feed materials
– the farmer may not specifically ask for it but, by having certification, the microbrewery ensures that it complies with its due diligence requirements. This will help if there is a problem with the feed chain.”
He continues to comment:
”there have already been ‘incidents’ in the feed chain – some involving farms that receive feed from breweries. This has resulted in investigations of the incidents. Since the breweries involved had certification they were able to produce evidence/records of the safety of the materials supplied. They were also able to hand over the retained sample of feed for analysis. This resulted in them being able to demonstrate that the problem did not originate from their brewery.
”All other purchased feed materials must be sourced from suppliers certified by the AIC Universal Feed Assurance Schemes (UFAS) or an approved equivalent, other appropriately assured farms or, in specific circumstances, with a suitable warranty. Details of certified merchants may be found on the AIC website – www.agindustries.org.uk. Details of equivalent schemes are given in Appendix L3.
For farmer – farmer transactions or for forage crops, a warranty letter in the format specified in Appendix L4 may suffice to ensure traceability is maintained. Such a warranty declaration will state that the supplier and any third party haulage complies with all current feedingstuffs legislation (including Local Authority Registration if required) to ensure that every reasonable precaution has been taken to keep the feed material free from contamination and fit for purpose of use as an animal feedstuff.”
Join today and gain access to exclusive content, huge discounts and expert advice.
BFBi are the only international trade association representing the entire value chain supplying the food & drink industry worldwide.
We believe that we are unique in that we represent an entire value chain – from seed to sales.