Animal welfare inspectors have been sent into more than 200 farms amid claims one of the UK’s largest food certification schemes is failing to enforce legal standards, the BBC has learned.
RSPCA Assured covers almost 4,000 farms and its supermarket labels are supposed to inform shoppers food they are buying has been produced to higher welfare standards.
But a coalition of 60 campaign organisations is calling for the scheme to be scrapped, saying their undercover investigations at around 40 farms found welfare issues.
The RSPCA said it had launched an investigation and wider review of the scheme, including unannounced visits to more than 200 randomly chosen members, after hearing the concerns.
Earlier this year, animal welfare activists carried out secret filming on RSPCA Assured farms which they said showed breaches of legal standards and regulations. These included overcrowding, poor hygiene, unacceptable health conditions and, in extreme cases, physical abuse of livestock by farm workers.
At the time, Chris Packham, president of the RSPCA itself, called for the suspension of the RSPCA Assured scheme.
RSPCA Assured said it had launched an immediate investigation after receiving the footage and visited all the farms identified as members of the scheme. It said it was established that eight of the farms were not members.
It said two members were removed from the scheme and five were “sanctioned” which could include “advice, formal warning or additional measures such as unannounced visits”.
A separate “fine grain and comprehensive” review of the scheme, which covers meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, has also been carried out over several months.
The RSPCA said the inspections of more than
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