Feed

Animal feed is an important part of the livestock farm supply chain and a complex area with many different products and ingredients available for feeding to different species of livestock. Providing livestock with acceptable animal feed of good quality and from traceable sources is of fundamental importance to the Red Tractor Assurance Schemes as it has a direct impact on food safety and animal welfare on livestock farms.

Animal feed may be purchased onto the farm from a variety of animal feed supplying sources (such as compounders, merchants, food manufacturers, other farms) or it may be grown on the farm for consumption by the livestock (such as cereals, forage crops, hay and silage). The Red Tractor Assurance Schemes for livestock farms all have a whole section within their standards dedicated to animal feed.

Technical Advisory Committee (TAC)

Due to the complex nature of the animal feed supply chain and its importance to the Red Tractor Assurance Schemes there is a Feed Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

The scope and responsibilities of the TAC are to:

• Advise on all issues relating to animal feed (including compound feed production, animal feed merchants, feed materials, mobile animal feed mixers, on-farm feed mixing)
• Assess the suitability of externally owned animal feed schemes (pre-farm) for recognition and acceptance by Red Tractor Assurance Schemes for Livestock farms
• Ensure that all standards cover the principle areas of food safety and traceability.
• Act as approval TAC for the Agricultural Industries Confederation’s Universal Feed Assurance Scheme (AIC UFAS), considering final draft of the UFAS standards and public consultation responses.

Listed below are the current members of the Red Tractor Assurance Feed TAC.