IN Brief:
- Red Tractor awareness reached 75% in YouGov tracking data.
- Lion mark awareness was tracked at 72% over the same period.
- Red Tractor’s 25th anniversary campaign is set to run to March 2026.
Three quarters of UK adults now recognise the Red Tractor logo, with YouGov tracking data putting awareness at 75% — a three-point increase since January 2025. In the same tracking, the Lion mark for eggs was recorded at 72%, placing Red Tractor marginally ahead for the first time in the data set.
Red Tractor’s director of marketing and commercial, Richard Cattell, linked the uplift to the scheme’s category coverage, on-pack visibility, and the reach of its consumer advertising. The “With you for 25 years” campaign launched in August and is forecast to reach 46.9 million people by March 2026. Cattell said farm assurance marks help shoppers make informed choices, and described the Red Tractor logo as a long-running symbol of food that is safe, traceable, and responsibly produced, backed by more than 40,000 farmers and growers.
The comparison with the Lion mark is an unusually direct one, given the different scopes. Red Tractor covers multiple farm sectors and supply-chain standards, with certified standards spanning areas including meat, dairy, crops, and fresh produce, alongside standards for parts of the downstream chain such as meat and poultry processing. The Lion mark is specific to eggs and is built around the British Lion Code of Practice, which covers the production chain and includes food safety controls such as Salmonella vaccination and traceability systems.
Brand owners have also leaned on assurance logos for commodity supply chains, particularly where provenance and process controls are being made more explicit on-pack. Weetabix head of quality and food safety Peter Chandley said the company sources all wheat used from within a 50-mile radius of its mills as Red Tractor assured, describing assurance as providing confidence in safety, traceability, and compliance, with independent verification back to the farm.
Red Tractor CEO Jim Moseley said the scheme has only advertised since the end of 2018, describing the latest tracking position as a strong outcome for clear, trusted labelling. He also pointed to the role assurance marks play in consumer confidence, while noting schemes cover different products and standards.
Red Tractor’s campaign is scheduled to continue through March 2026, with the next wave of tracking likely to show whether the shift holds as retailers and brands cycle packaging artwork and promotional activity through the spring.
