A consultant in consumer behaviour had industry representatives leaping to the defence of the Red Tractor at Pig and Poultry Live when he questioned whether it was suitable for use as a quality assurance symbol.
Philip Graves said that whilst consumers would recognise a number of good associations with a tractor – things like the countryside, farming and power, which were all positive - there were also a number of negative associations for anyone seeing a tractor symbol. Tractors regularly appeared on warning signs at the side of the road, they could be associated with exhaust fumes and individuals could also think of being held up in traffic queues behind tractors. "Whether a tractor is a good choice for an assurance logo, I am not sure," he said during a talk to delegates at the event.
James Hook of P.D. Hook (Hatcheries) Ltd was clearly angry at Philip Graves’ observations. "We have spent a lot of time and effort developing that brand. I think some of the information was misleading. I think some of it was quite badly wrong, but I know it was there to provoke so I am not personally cross," he said. "I went to a meeting last week at which it was said that 80 per cent of consumers now recognise the Red Tractor, I went to a meeting two or three weeks ago to discuss the practicalities of KFC putting the Red Tractor on all of their food. There are an awful lot of good positive things and we have been 15 to 20 years developing this. It is now on £12 billion worth of products. There are a lot of good things in our industry but it is one of the major selling points and we are going to defend it come hell or high water. That Red Tractor is good for us. A lot of people knock it but I think that is one of the best things we have got going for British farming at the moment."
NFU president Peter Kendall said it was always possible to analyse how people perceived things but the farming industry had to work really hard to demonstrate the standards to which it was producing food. What was important was persuading retailers to stock only Red Tractor product. "Look at the TNS data and you can see how much retailers are doing what they say in supporting and selling UK standard product," he said.
"We always want advice on how to tick the right boxes in people’s psyche, but I hope that when they look at Red Tractors it comes out of children’s books as well. It can have good memories, and now we have put the Union Jack underneath it to try and make sure there are more connections rather than just chimney pots, danger etcetera, etcetera. The big win is knowing that a retailer is going to say I am only going to sell product that I know is made to that standard."
Peter said the Olympics had announced that all catering would be done to Red Tractor standards. London hospitals and police would now source to Red Tractor standards. Whether the psyche was right or not, he said, for the industry it was important to get people to buy into its standards and they way it farmed.
