Red Tractor has slammed the Advertising Standards Authority after the regulator made a “fundamentally flawed” decision to uphold a complaint against one of its adverts by campaign group River Action.
The farm assurance scheme’s ad, last aired in 2023, emphasised products carrying the Red Tractor Assurance logo boasted “certified standards” and were “farmed with care”.
However, River Action said the advert, which also claimed Red Tractor was “a label to trust”, had “exaggerated the benefits of Red Tractor endorsement”.
This was due to how “some environmental standards relating to pollution on Red Tractor Assured farms were not met”, it claimed, citing Environment Agency data on river pollution caused by run-off from dairy farms.
That data stated that “62% of the most critical incidents (category 1 and 2), occur on Red Tractor farms”, the ruling said, though Red Tractor responded it was later revealed that the data was inaccurate.
But despite Red Tractor’s explanation the EA’s findings had been incorrect – a fact it said had since been confirmed by the EA – the ASA agreed with River Action that the ad’s claims that “when the Red Tractor’s there, your food’s farmed with care”, coupled with the statement that “from field to store all our standards are met”, would mislead consumers.
The ruling added it considered Red Tractor’s claims over certification, “together with the different food types depicted and the pastoral imagery”, contributed to an impression assured foods were “subject to certified standards, which sought to achieve high levels of care, across the full journey over which food was produced”.
Some consumers would also expect that, in giving assurances about high standards of farming and food production, such a standard would also “encompass measures to manage and mitigate environmental risk that arose through farming practices”, the advertising watchdog added.
Those consumers “would consider there was an inextricable relationship between high quality food production and the environment that food was grown or reared in; for example, through responsible land, river and ground water quality management and soil health”, the ASA said.
It found that Red Tractor had breached three code rules: misleading advertising, substantiation and exaggeration.
Red Tractor hits back
But in a detailed rebuttal to the ruling, Red Tractor said it had spent more than two years “co-operating fully with the ASA’s investigation and defending its position”.
During this time, the ASA had “flipped from not upholding to upholding”, said Red Tractor CEO Jim Moseley. “We believe the ASA’s final decision is fundamentally flawed and misinterprets the content of our advert.”
If the advert had been clearly misleading, “it wouldn’t have taken so long to reach this conclusion”, he claimed.
Accordingly, the ASA’s enforcement actions were also “minimal”, Moseley pointed out. “They’ve confirmed we can continue to use ‘Farmed with Care’ but simply need to provide more information on the specific standards being referred to, such as a link to our website.”
The ad had made “no environmental claim, and we completely disagree with the assumption that it would have been misinterpreted by consumers”, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, Red Tractor’s original response to the ASA, published in the regulator’s ruling, revealed just a “tiny percentage of farms”, amounting to just 0.4% of Red Tractor members, had experienced the most critical incidents, rather than the EA’s incorrect assertion of 62%.
This, instead related to non Red Tractor-assured farms – which the scheme said in a 2023 statement reflected the fact there were incidents on 77% of non-Red Tractor farms.
Red Tractor added that its data showed that from November 2021 to May 2023, some 98.8% of Red Tractor farmers were compliant with requirements for environmental protection.
The “clear references” to its standards for animal welfare, traceability and food safety had also been approved by ad clearance service Clearcast in 2021 and 2023. And neither its voiceover, script, nor imagery “made any environmental claim“.
ASA processes challenged
The organisation stressed EA’s data on compliance with environmental regulation should not be confused with farms’ compliance with Red Tractor’s requirements.
“As the regulator, it is the Environment Agency’s responsibility to ensure the law is being met”, it insisted.
“Red Tractor is a voluntary assurance scheme operating completely independently from the Environment Agency and UK government. However, ASA and River Action have confused the role of Red Tractor with that of the Environment Agency. Red Tractor does not enforce environmental regulation, and does not claim to do so.”
Environmental requirements formed “a minor part of Red Tractor’s standards and do not cover all environmental legislation”, it added, pointing out “Red Tractor’s core standards relate to food safety, animal welfare and traceability”.
Moseley also expressed concerns over the processes followed by the ASA over the course of the investigation.
“First, rather than use the accepted ‘average consumer test’ [it normally deployed], the ASA has used their own judgement that a minority of informed consumers may misinterpret the advert,” said Moseley.
“We believe this is an error in law and certainly a departure from normal practice. Second, we’re concerned that the use of pastoral imagery (in CGI) in conjunction with messages about responsible farming, is treated as an implicit environmental claim. Both concerns could have serious implications for other advertisers, particularly in the field of food and farming.”
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