It’s all about primary vs secondary data
The race to develop and commercialise an eco labelling system is on. But many voices from the British food and drink industry are sounding a note of caution. They worry that, in this haste to be first to market, the quality and integrity of the methodology and data will not accurately reflect the differences between two identical products produced in very different systems.
Key to developing a system that gives consumers an accurate comparison is whether it uses primary data (supply-chain specific, collected directly from UK farms and processors), or secondary data (using global or regional averages). IGD are currently developing a hybrid of this using secondary data that’s been refined to reflect a UK market but with the ambition of moving to primary data.
BMPA is part of a group of industry representatives who are actively scrutinising this approach. We need to ensure that flaws and inaccuracies that get built into the system at the beginning and could disadvantage meat producers simply because the metrics are wrong, are weeded-out and replaced with accurate measurements that people can rely on.
