NFU responds to Government Buying Standards

The Government’s drive to increase the amount of British food used in its catering contracts does not go far enough, the NFU has said.

Agriculture minister Jim Paice launched the Government Buying Standards today and it is due to come into force from September this year. It includes a raft of standards such as animal welfare, production, environmental protection, seasonal food, Fair Trade, energy and waste management as well as nutrition.

However, the NFU believes it falls short of the mark in a number of areas which could lead to confusion for procurers and undermine the excellent work British farmers and growers already do.

NFU head of food chain Lee Woodger said: "We welcome the Minister’s statement to ensure that where Government lays down standards of production, its own purchases should meet these standards. We believe this should be the norm across government departments and local authorities, but we are not there yet. Any effort within the Government and its agencies to ensure procurement to British standards is to be applauded. But there are a number of areas where these standards fall short of the mark or could even undermine the efforts of our farmers and growers."

Key issues:

• The blunt cost mechanism doesn’t recognise that our farmers and growers work to higher legislative standards than many of those we import from, which leads to higher costs. While British farmers work hard to mitigate these extra costs it is often impossible to eliminate them all.

• Procurers will find it very difficult to know if their caterers are supplying produce below these minimum standards because there is distinct lack of guidance in this area

• It is limited to a very small number of central Government departments and lacks consistency. From September the Ministry of Justice and armed services will be covered but hospitals and schools won’t be

• The industry principles on Country of Origin information are ambiguous and allow cheese and butter to be sold as British regardless of whether British milk has been used in the product’s manufacture.

• The definition of seasonal produce being for the natural growing period for the country of production could also be confusing for procurers and again seems to undermine efforts by UK growers.