Red Tractor Farm Assurance Combinable Crops & Sugar Beet Scheme (formerly ACCS)

The Red Tractor Farm Assurance Combinable Crops & Sugar Beet scheme sets out to maintain, develop and promote Assurance standards within the industry. The aim is to provide consumers and retailers with confidence about product quality attributes including food safety and environmental protection.

Red Tractor Farm Assured British combinable crops and sugar beet are world class, grown on farms that are managed by well-qualified, caring and highly professional farmers. Certification to Red Tractor Farm Assurance Combinable Crops and Sugar Beet  demonstrates that the high standards of production meet nationally agreed levels of best agricultural practice.

Crops covered by the Scheme include wheat, barley and rye, oilseeds such as linseed and rapeseed, pulses such as peas and beans and most recently, sugar beet. The phrase ‘Combinable Crops’ refers to the harvesting method by combine harvester, which picks the crop from the ground and separates edible parts of the plant, the seeds or beans, from the rest. The scheme was set up in 1998 to address food safety concerns and the quality requirements of different buyers, especially millers and bakers. These crops are widely used in food and drinks, milling wheat for flour and malting barley for beer and whisky. Many are used in animal feeds for livestock.

Separate Sugar Beet Standards were launched by AFS in 2003. These standards have now been incorporated with the Assurance standards for combinable crops into a single set of standards for combinable crops and sugar beet.

Previously known as Assured Combinable Crops (ACCS), the Red Tractor Farm Assurance Combinable Crops & Sugar Beet Scheme is now fully integrated into Assured Food Standards (AFS).