RSPCA Assured has launched a 'comprehensive' review into the food assurance scheme as Queen guitarist Sir Brian May quits his role as vice-president over animal welfare claims.
The RSPCA said that it had launched an 'immediate' investigation and visited all farms who were identified by animal welfare activists for allegedly breaching legal standards.
The claims have led Sir Brian to resign from his role as vice-president due to the 'damning evidence' of the activists' findings, who secretly filmed conditions at 40 farms across the country.
Chris Packham, who is the president of the RSPCA, has called for the assurance scheme to be suspended.
But an RSPCA spokesperson said: “We know that improving farmed animal lives is challenging, but we are constantly striving to drive up standards through improved legislation, better enforcement and farming practices.
“Both the RSPCA and RSPCA Assured take any welfare concerns on farms very seriously - this is the sole focus of the scheme and central to the core work of the RSPCA.
“Once concerns came to light, RSPCA Assured launched an immediate investigation and visited all farms identified as being members.”
Sir Brian, who recently presented a controversial BBC documentary on bovine TB, published his letter of resignation on social media.
He said: "It is with profound sadness and not without massive soul-searching that today I have to offer my resignation as a vice-president of the RSPCA.
"I have understood that the RSPCA needed time to evaluate the evidence and make decisions on action to be taken."
The RSPCA Assured scheme, was launched three decades ago, and covers meat, fish, eggs and dairy.
Certified farms have to follow strict welfare standards that are set out by the RSPCA, and are set at a higher bar than what is legally required in the UK.
Speaking further, the RSPCA spokesperson said that the charity wanted to give confidence that RSPCA Assured was "consistently delivering better welfare than standard farming practices."
Alongside this investigation, it recently launched an independent review of RSPCA Assured, which has been carried out over several months, including unannounced visits to more than 200 members of the scheme.
"This is in addition to the existing checks we have in place as part of the scheme," the spokesperson said.
“This has been a fine grain and comprehensive review looking at a large number of farms and the analysis is still ongoing. We will assess this and communicate our findings as soon as we are able.”
