about christine

Christine Tacon CBE was appointed in May 2024 to be a Member Nominated Director of the Co-op Group, elected by their members to represent them at board level. She is currently also the Chair of Assured Food Standards who operate the Red Tractor Assurance scheme but has stated she will step down from this role following her appointment to the Co-op to ensure there are no real or perceived conflicts of interest. The former Groceries Code Adjudicator has decades of experience as a leader and advocate for the British food and farming industry and with an extensive background in change management, regulation and the food chain.

Christine started her professional career as an engineer and then moved into marketing working at organisations including Mars, Vodafone and Anchor (now Fonterra). For more than 10 years, she ran the Co-operative Group’s farming business- the largest of its kind in the UK and more recently was a director of the AF Group, a farm purchasing co-operative, for 9 years.  In 2004, she was awarded a CBE for services to agriculture.

She also serves as the Chair of the BBC Rural Affairs Committee and MDS – a management training scheme for the food and fresh produce industry with nearly 100 trainees on the 2-year programme. She is also a Trustee of the Farmers Club Charitable Trust which makes awards to agricultural educators and farmers seeking to expand their knowledge through a Snapshot Study or through leadership training with the Windsor Leadership Trust. She was also the founder of Women in Food and Farming, a network with a focus on supporting young women in the industry.

Until October 2020, Ms Tacon was the Groceries Code Adjudicator, a government regulator responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice by large grocery retailers, in their dealings with direct suppliers.

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