Red Tractor Misleads On Environmental Claims

Britain’s rivers are in terrible shape, and our biggest supermarkets are up to their necks in it. For years, retailers like Tesco and Asda alongside their agribusiness suppliers have relied on the cosy logo of Red Tractor, telling customers their food is “farmed with care… from field to store all our standards are met”. In late 2025, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) called time on this charade.

The regulator has ruled that Red Tractor, the UK’s largest farm assurance scheme, misled the public by suggesting its logo guarantees environmental protection. It doesn’t. The most recent Environment Agency data shows a staggering 19,000 breaches across 60% of inspected Red Tractor–certified farms between January 2020 and July 2025, exposing a systemic failure behind the label’s “environmentally friendly” claims.

This isn’t a marginal issue. It goes to the heart of how our food system operates, and how some of the biggest companies in Britain shield themselves from responsibility while rivers and lakes collapse under a deluge of pollution caused by intensive agricultural practices.

Take Tesco. Controlling nearly 30% of the supermarket sector, it is the single most powerful buyer of British farm produce. Its chicken and pork supply chains run through industrial-scale operators like Avara Foods and Moy Park. These are not quaint family farms but subsidiaries of US agribusiness giants Cargill and Pilgrim’s Pride. These companies have been linked to ecological crises such as the collapse of the River Wye and the ongoing algal disaster in Lough Neagh, the UK’s largest freshwater lake.

At a recent Sustainable Food Conference in London, River Action’s Head of Engagement asked Tesco CEO Ken Murphy why the company continued to stock Red Tractor products after the ASA upheld a greenwashing complaint against the scheme. His response was: “That’s an issue for Red Tractor.”

For years, supermarkets have pointed to the Red Tractor logo as their environmental shield. But that line has now been shredded. In a landmark ruling, the UK’s ASA concluded that Red Tractor’s environmental claims were misleading, finding that the advertising exaggerated the scheme’s standards and misled consumers. This is no longer just campaigners or scientists raising the alarm; it is an independent regulator confirming that the reassurance offered by the logo does not stack up. Any retailer still presenting Red Tractor as a marker of good environmental outcomes is not reassuring customers, but risking greenwash.

The data underpinning the ruling is stark. Between January 2020 and July 2025, 7,353 Environment Agency inspections of Red Tractor–certified farms found 4,353 breaches, meaning nearly 60% of farms failed to meet environmental rules. These were not trivial lapses.  Inspectors recorded 19,305 instances of non-compliance, including thousands of breaches intended to stop slurry and fertiliser entering rivers – pollution that fuels algal blooms, kills fish, damages ecosystems, and contaminates drinking water.

This is not just a story about dirty rivers. It is about a food system where the biggest players, multinational agribusinesses and the retailers who buy from them, use weak, industry-controlled assurance schemes to insulate themselves from scrutiny. Red Tractor is not a neutral standard-setter. It is designed by the very interests it is supposed to regulate. And guess who controls it? The majority of seats on Red Tractor’s governing council are held by the UK’s various National Farming Union bodies. Yes, the farming lobby actually controls its own product quality scheme.

Red Tractor’s defenders will say that criticising the scheme means attacking farmers. Let’s be clear, it does not. Many farmers care deeply about the land and waterways that sustain them and us all. They are being undercut by a system that rewards scale, intensification and cutting corners, while paying lip service to environmental protection.

As Martin Lines, CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, has put it:

“Consumers and farmers want real sustainability, not a sticker.”

Farmers who are genuinely improving soils, protecting rivers and reducing chemicals see little reward for their efforts. Supermarkets cannot claim ignorance. They have been told repeatedly about the links between their suppliers and river pollution. The Environment Agency rejected Red Tractor’s bid for “Earned Recognitions” precisely because it fails to meet good environmental standards. Yet retailers still rely on the logo as their shield.

This complicity matters because of their sheer market power. When supermarkets demand Red Tractor chicken, vast supply chains, from feed mills to slaughterhouses to contract farmers, are locked into a destructive model. This legitimises the industrial systems polluting our rivers. And when consumers challenge them, they point to the little tractor logo, as if that settles the matter.

The ASA ruling proves it doesn’t.

We now face a choice. Tesco, Asda, Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons and others can continue to sell food tainted with pollution, hiding behind a logo that regulators have called out as misleading on environmental performance. Or they can do the honest thing: demand genuinely high environmental standards from suppliers, pay farmers properly for producing food in ways that don’t wreck our rivers, and support the farming community's transition to nature friendly farming.

This isn’t just about protecting wildlife or river users such as this nation’s army of wild swimmers. Though that should be enough. It is also about restoring trust in our food system. Consumers deserve to know that when they buy British, they are supporting farming that safeguards our countryside, not destroy it. Farmers deserve a level playing field that rewards those who do right by the land. And companies that profit from selling us food have a duty to ensure their supply chains comply with legal standards, both under the law and broader social responsibility.

For too long, Red Tractor has allowed agribusiness and retail giants to dodge that duty. Thanks to the ASA, the greenwash is now exposed. The question is whether the supermarket giants will finally face up to reality, or whether they will cling to a broken system until public trust collapses.

Britain’s rivers cannot wait. Neither can the farmers who are trying to do the right thing. The time for excuses is over. We hope that conversations like the one with Tesco’s CEO plant a seed and prompt supermarkets to take real responsibility for the food they choose to stock on their shelves.