Eskort’s new quality assurance badge acknowledges the company’s unrivalled commitment to pork product quality in South Africa.

Introduced in the second half of 2020 and featuring on all Eskort branded pork products, the badge depicts a pig on a globe and the acronym SAFE.

The globe communicates the global benchmarks that Eskort’s quality assurance practices meet while the acronym neatly summarises the four cornerstones of its quality assurance programme:

1. Sustainable – environmental sustainability, sow-friendly practices, pig welfare and biosecurity
2. Accountable – traceability, uncompromised hygiene practices and rigid quality control measures
3. Farm-to-fork – responsibility across the entire value chain
4. Excellence – superior, award-winning products for 103 years

“At Eskort, we place our customers’ health and well-being above all else. It is, therefore, crucial for us to take ownership of every element of the supply chain,” said Eskort’s CEO, Arnold Prinsloo.

“From the farm, to the processing and manufacturing facilities, to delivery to the retailer, to the consumer’s plate – Eskort assumes responsibility across the entire value chain, and it is this holistic quality process that ensures superior quality products from farm-to-fork that the SAFE badge communicates,” he said.

According to Prinsloo, the first two of the cornerstones – Sustainable and Accountable – are addressed by Eskort’s superior farm practices, including food safety and traceability systems, pig welfare and sow-friendly practices, and biosecurity and environmental sustainability programmes.

The third – Farm-to-Fork – is ensured by the fact that Eskort’s quality control programme addresses the entire value chain, including processing and manufacturing.

This means that Eskort grades and enforces compliance with respect to how manufacturers and processors maintain their facilities, and how they look after the pigs’ welfare once they are delivered into those facilities, to name but two critical links in the post-farm supply chain.

Finally, he said the fourth cornerstone – Excellence – is evident in the company’s 103 years of uncompromised quality, its rigid commitment to quality and hygiene practices, and the many principles it has in place as safety assurance for its consumers.

“The critical difference between our quality assurance approach and the farm assurance mark most other producers adhere to is that Eskort’s addresses every link in the supply chain. The adoption of SAFE badge conveys our holistic approach to quality assurance,” Prinsloo pointed out.

“We think this approach is worth acknowledging and celebrating with the SAFE badge, and are certain our customers will agree with us,” he said.

The Eskort SAFE quality assurance badge was designed by the company’s communications partner, MetropolitanRepublic. It is playing an important role in Eskort’s brand refresh which launched in November last year. The rationale behind the refresh lies in the agency and brand’s collective assertion that the pork industry is primed for a strong player to step in, or rather step up, to reinvent the market category.