What’s it all about?

Everyone wants to know more about where their food comes from. Although there have been some great advances on how food is labelled from a nutritional perspective, there is very little information shared about what’s happened from farm to aisle. Where’s This From tells you more about the food you buy.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Every packet of meat that is sold in supermarkets carries an oval EU Identification Mark with a four-digit code. You may not have noticed it before but these codes link to publicly available data published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on approved meat operators in Great Britain. These meat operators are the last link in the supply chain of most packaged meat and mince sold in UK supermarkets.

WHAT DOES THE APP DO?

Where’s This From uses the code to find the relevant data published by the FSA and presents it in a lovely mobile App. Simply pick up the meat product you’re about to buy, find the relevant code on the packaging and then type it into the search screen of the App. Once you tap enter, the App searches and returns the relevant FSA data on that meat operator.

WHAT DOES THE APP TELL ME?

The App tells you the name, location and activities of the operator (typically a slaughterhouse, cutting or packaging plant) – handy if you want to know how far the meat has traveled. You can also see which types of food are handled by that operator. This could include Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry, Red Meat (meats which are red when raw) Fish and Dairy.

WHAT ABOUT HYGIENE AND ANIMAL WELFARE?

The FSA also monitors operators handling meat products under an audit system which ensures operators are operating with appropriate animal welfare and hygiene standards. Where available, the App shows you the level of compliance of the operator with FSA requirements on hygiene processes and animal welfare. With the App you can tell if an operator is the “best in the class” for compliance or “could do better” – indicated by simple Good, Generally Satisfactory, Improvement Necessary or Urgent Improvement Necessary scores. Unfortunately this level of information is not available for fish or dairy operators.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

Once you’ve looked at the information, we’d love to know what you think! You can click “Bought” or “Not Bought!” to tell us how important supply chain information is to you.

GET THE APP

The App is completely free. Download it now by clicking on the iPhone and Android icons below.