Overview

Beyond a Food Safety Verification Program

The Verified Beef Production (VBP) program, known in Canada for on-farm food safety, has been helping producers meet industry standards for food safety for over a decade. This well known, trusted and industry-led program is backed by technical reviews by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and provincial governments. The program includes robust standards and third party auditing processes, yet remains a practical, cost-effective and relevant program. Still, demands at the consumer and retailer ends of the beef chain are shifting. VBP had to evolve to keep step with those changing realities. The time came for VBP+.

Why Enhance The Program?

• Consumers are demanding more transparent, accountable, and sustainable beef production.
• When buying their beef consumers increasingly expect assurances on sound animal care, environmental stewardship and adherence to animal health and disease control practices.
• Retailers and food service firms respond to these consumer signals with branded programs to target consumer sentiment.
• It makes sense to add animal care, biosecurity and environmental stewardship components to enhance the program to help Canada's beef cattle producers respond to consumer and retailer signals.
• VBP+ is developed to align with the sustainability indicator work of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB), to which the McDonald’s Verified Sustainable Beef pilot project is also informing.
• VBP+ allows certified operations to be a part of a bigger picture of raising beef cattle that can flow into the growing Verified Sustainable Beef supply stream.

The goals of the VBP+ program are to provide the tools for Canadian beef cattle producers to anticipate and meet emerging market realities for sustainable beef production at the farm, ranch and feedlot levels. VBP+ does not add to an already strenuous workload for producers. The key is the VBP+ program captures what beef producers are already doing right. There may be a small tweaking of records to help producers prove what they do right, but it is a small price to pay to be ready to react to the evolving consumer and retailer demand.