Hotel chain benefits from our Primary Authority tailored business advice

We have been working closely with a national hotel chain who are one of our Primary Authority partners, to provide them with assured advice on their allergen management systems.

Through our advice, the business put in place tight procedures for protecting customers who have an allergy in a consistent and robust manner. As a partner we assured this advice, which means as long as each site follows it, they can rely on it across all their sites.

How Primary Authority can help your business

Primary Authority advice can help your business understand how legal requirements apply to you, how you can achieve compliance and whether the controls you have in place are acceptable.

Through Primary Authority, we can give you assured advice which means that as long as you abide by the advice, you won’t need to follow conflicting advice from other sources. Your business should be protected against the risk of enforcement action from enforcing authorities that have different views on what you should be doing to be compliant.

Primary Authority has been protecting people and supporting business for 10 years.

New project providing expert advice to farmers

Farmers - have you prepared for the changes in Direct Basic Payments and the potential impacts on your farm? No? Then we may be able to help!

Devon County Council is running a new Defra-funded project providing free, expert advice to help lowland grazing farmers in east and mid Devon transition from Direct Basic Payments towards the Government’s new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme.

The Government announced further details this week on what the changes will look like, and our project is designed to work with you to help guide you and understand what the changes to Direct Basic Payments will mean to you and your farm.

If you are interested in receiving free support to create a bespoke action plan to help you navigate these changes, please get in touch to find out more. Call 01392 381860 or email farmingresilience@devon.gov.uk. 

Trading Standards Farming Partnership

The latest Trading Standards Farming Partnership meeting took place on Thursday 20 February in Bradford-on-Tone, Taunton. Twenty two stakeholders from the farming community were there, including:

• Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA)
• Farming Community Network
• Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution
• British Horse Society
• Association of Show and Agricultural Organisations
• Market auctioneers
• Livestock Haulage Association
• Devon Association of Smallholders
• Dartmoor Commoners' Council.

Presentations included:

• Peter Morris and Sam Winzer of Defra and Hilary O’Keife of Shearwell Data on the new Livestock Information Programme.
• Jon Phipps of World Horse Welfare talked about his role and the use of the Control of Horses Act 2015.
• APHA veterinary officers spoke about avian influenza, equine viral arteritis and the importation of livestock.
• Devon, Somerset & Torbay Trading Standards officers gave an update on the work of the service including some recent cases, and gave out TB advice packs. 

The next meeting is planned for the spring.

Two more businesses join Buy With Confidence

Devon, Somerset and Torbay Trading Standards welcomes two new businesses to the Buy With Confidence family this month: Load It & Tip It and D.A. Auto Repairs, both based in Newton Abbot.

Buy With Confidence, the Trading Standards approval scheme, has been operating in our area since 1999 and is growing every year. It is not just a feedback scheme – it’s about proper Trading Standards-administered vetting and monitoring, to help give the public reassurance that any business on its list is only there because they deserve to be.

By joining Buy With Confidence, you can help us steer people away from the rogues and fraudsters that give legitimate businesses a bad name, and towards good, honest, reliable traders. Created to protect both businesses and consumers, this scheme is now open to almost every type of business.