Assured British Pigs responds to industry demand for a single national standard, competitively and consistently delivered
From 1st September assurance with Assured British Pigs (ABPigs) will be available through several providers, or certification bodies.
"This will introduce direct competition into the market for pig farm assurance," said ABPigs Chairman, Richard Campbell.
"These providers will also be able to inspect two or more enterprises, for example pigs and cereals, in one visit and so facilitate the movement towards single or integrated inspections for multiple enterprises.
"Both competition and the capability to conduct integrated inspections should exert downward pressure on the cost of pig farm assurance, in response to demand from the industry," he said.
"We are equally aware of the demand from our customers for the supply of pigs assured to a single consistent national standard.
As ABPigs is an EN45011 scheme, all the certification bodies contracted from September will be required to ensure their scope of accreditation under EN45011 covers ABPigs work. They will therefore be committed to following the same assessment protocols and applying the standards consistently. In addition ABPigs will both frame its contracts with certification bodies, and put checks in place, to ensure the same quality of delivery as has been associated with ABPigs over the last four years," said Mr Campbell.
ABPigs remains the body responsible for the Pig Scheme Standards and ensuring that they develop in line with market or legal changes. The delivery improvements for ABPigs are in line with the ongoing re-structuring of Assured Food Standards (AFS) and moves to ensure that the various commodity standards are consistent and knit together well without gaps and overlap. ABPigs has recently gained a seat on the AFS Board.
In time AFS will become joint owner of the ABPigs Standard.
ABPigs is now in the final stages of contract negotiation with potential providers of certification and inspection. It will shortly announce the names of the providers who will be authorised from September to use the Assured Pig Standard and contracted to provide certification and on-farm inspection. Current assurance will remain valid through to the expiry date on existing certificates by EFSIS.
To retain assured status, after the current certificate expires, producers must make arrangements with one of the certification providers to continue their assurance certification. With these changes, it will not be possible for EFSIS to continue to provide both secretariat and
certification services to ABPigs. EFSIS will thus be withdrawing from providing secretarial support services for the Assured British Pigs Board and Technical Advisory Committee, to concentrate on assurance provision.
ABPigs Ltd will appoint Assured Food Standards as the Pig Standard's secretariat.
The ABPigs changes have no direct effect on the operation of British Quality Assured Pork or of the BPEX British Meat Quality Standard Mark.
