Promoting Agricultural Value Chains:

In the OIC Member Countries

for retail outlets to making its way to the food services industry in 2009 and certification of the

first fast food chain in 2011. Following the horsemeat scandal that hit Europe in 2013 and the

resulting slump in convenience food sales, ready meals can now also get branded with the Red

Tractor logo to guarantee that 100 percent of the meat used meets its standard (BBC, 2014).

Despite this apparent success, Red Tractor has faced a variety of setbacks and criticisms

throughout the years. Soon after its launch in 2000 a number of environmental and animal

welfare NGOs started condemning the scheme for doing little more than ensuring legislative

compliance. The environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, for instance, argued that

the scheme made mostly empty claims and did not provide any assurances that food was

produced to any higher standard that other food sold in retail markets (FoE, 2002). A 2012

study produced by two charities, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and OneKind, claimed

that the Red Tractor scheme even ranked lowest on animal welfare among a variety of

voluntary schemes and advised consumers to buy meat carrying the “Freedom Food” label by

leading UK animal welfare charity RSPCA or the logo by the UK Soil Association instead (CIWF

& OneKind, 2012). Shortly after the adverse publicity triggered by the report, supermarket

chain Sainsbury’s announced to opt out of the Red Tractor assurance scheme from its

products, claiming that it did not want to confuse consumers with too many logos appearing

on its packaging. Although the retailer announced that it would continue sourcing from Red

Tractor certified enterprises, its decision to keep similar labels on its products, such as

Freedom Food, may indeed be an indication that Red Tractor’s adherence to minimum legal

requirements does not serve the retailer’s need to differentiate itself vis-à-vis other competing

retailers anymore.

2.2.4

Changing consumer demands: The rise of ready meals in the UK

experience

Convenience takes many forms and one of its most visible ones is in food. Changing

demographics, busy lifestyles and time-scarcity have created a multi-billion dollar industry

that caters to the demand for convenience by offering meal solutions that require little or no

extra ingredients before consumption. Such “ready meals” (or “ready-to-eat” meals) can be

broadly defined as “complex assemblages or precooked foodstuffs, packaged together and sold

through the refrigerated retail chain” (Muhamad & Karim, 2015, p. 106). This includes

products such as frozen pizza, fresh pasta, prepared salads, chilled soups, sandwiches,

desserts, chilled pizza, or fresh juice. All of these foods enable the consumer to save time and

effort related to shopping, meal preparation and cooking, consumption and post-meal

activities (Buckley et al., 2007).

The rise of ready meals can be traced back to the 1950s when US food company Swansons

came up with the idea of marketing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (turkey and all the other

components) as a single frozen meal which only needed to be heated in the microwave. What

became known as “TV dinner” set the trend for a whole industry, and as domestic freezers

made their way into American and European homes in the 1960s and 1970s, so did a whole

range of frozen ready meals. Although made possible by technological progress through the

spread of modern retail chains, which allowed for the better handling of perishable and frozen

foods, the demand for ready meals was fuelled by changing lifestyles underpinned by social,

economic and demographic shifts. For one, the transformation of traditional household roles in

Western societies led to the undoing of the clear cut division between provider (men) and

home-maker (women). As women joined the work force and both men and women were