A Red Tractor Assurance verification system is being implemented by Waterford-based meat processor Dawn Meats to allow easy checks to see if an animal has spent the previous 90 days on a Red Tractor-assured farm.
Dawn Meats has implemented a data system to verify that cattle from UK farmer suppliers have been present on a Red Tractor-assured farm for at least 90 days prior to movement. Under the current rules of the Red Tractor scheme cattle are required to have been on an assured farm for at least the previous 90 days.
Dawn Meats says the new technology will allow it to check whether the 90-day Red Tractor rule has been adhered to in a secure and time-saving format. The system works by scanning the animal passport at the lairage and ensures that all farms listed on the passport are checked for Red Tractor assurance status with a real time search of the database, or integrated checker service, as it is called.
The technology for the integrated checker service is provided by Edinburgh-based tech firm Everysite and the food industry solutions provider Hellenic Systems.
Until now, the only way to check Red Tractor assurance for each animal was to check all farms and markets that each individual animal had been on through the Red Tractor assurance website, a process Dawn says was manual, time-consuming and error-prone.
