If you are a regular reader of our blogs, you may be wondering why I am writing about a subject non-history related. Well, if you have been eyeing up some of social media platforms you may have noticed the theme throughout May is ‘Food and Drink’. It therefore seemed quite relevant to talk about Lloyd’s Register’s (LR) work with some of the biggest food and drink companies in the world! Although LR began as a maritime classification society, today the company provides technical assurance and assessment services for a variety of industries. I wonder if the eleven men who started the company in 1760 would have ever thought their company would be working with the likes of Cadbury’s and Coca Cola 260 years later…
Lloyd’s Register is one of the largest providers of the core food certification standards globally, working with large and small businesses alike. The core food certification standards LR provide are FSSC, IFS and BRCGS and each of these are aligned with the Global Food Safety Initiatives.
The food industry is one of the world’s largest manufacturing sectors; linking farming, fishing, retail and hospitality together. Lloyd’s Register work with 20 of the world’s top 50 food manufacturers, in 75 countries worldwide, performing over 50,000 food audits every single year.
I thought it would be interesting to list some of the ‘big brands’ you consume every single day that you might not know work with Lloyd’s Register.
- LR are world leaders in confectionary assurance. The organisation’s teams work closely with confectionary companies such as Mars, Mondelez (including Cadbury), Nestle, Barry Callebaut and Hershey on a variety of food safety, quality and sustainability programmes globally.
2. LR are exclusive providers of Red Tractor’s Traceability Challenge, meaning everything with the Red Tractor logo bought in the UK has been verified by our teams. The UK’s largest farm and food standards scheme, Red Tractor has some of the most comprehensive quality standards in the world. Lloyd’s Register works closely with Red Tractor, providing thorough audits and supporting their wide network of producers in achieving industry expectations.
3. Did you know that Lloyd’s Register certify almost all of Scotland’s salmon; the UK’s largest export food product with a value of £1 billion per annum. In 1992, Scottish salmon was the first product to be awarded the exclusive Label Rouge qualifier by the Ministry of French Agriculture. It is only awarded to fish farmers that can demonstrate a superior quality of produce — with a particular focus on taste. Lloyd’s Register remains the only non-French body that is accredited by the French National Commission for Labels and Certification to provide assessments for the scheme. The organisation’s seafood business is worth £3 million per annum and has strong credentials in both sustainable fishing and standards development. To date LR have assessed over 100 species of fish and shellfish around the world.
4. In farming LR are the second largest provider in the UK and have held Europe’s single largest farm assurance standard since the early 1990s. Further, Lloyd’s Register have real sector credibility and expertise with an annual expenditure worth £6.5 million.
5. Another sector where LR has a great profile is the alcoholic beverage sector. Brand names that our work at LR helps to protect include; Bacardi Rum, Campari, Guinness Beer, Johnny Walker Whisky and Smirnoff Vodka.
6. Finally, Lloyd’s Register are a top five provider of the Global Food Safety Initiative’s (GFSI) largest aligned standards. As such LR’s food inspection services deliver 1,000s of annual audits across the globe, with great presence in the likes of the Netherlands, Japan, USA and UK and strong growth in recent years in growing food markets such as South Korea and Turkey.
I hope this overview gives you an insight into some of the work Lloyd’s Register does with the food and drink industry around the world. The archive may only cover our work in the shipping world, but Lloyd’s Register covers much more than that in the twenty-first century!
If you want to find out more about the work LR does, please visit https://www.lr.org/ .
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