Accounting for Taste: Contested Accountability Regulation in Food

Key Findings and Outputs: 

The results of the research show:

• First, there is indeed a significant trend towards Europeanisation of food policy in the UK.

• Second, there is a growing institutionalisation of these policies, and the related empowerment of a different set of interest groups when specific issues e.g. GM food, BSE and a multitude of other food safety issues are concerned.

• Third, private interest groups (particularly retailers) are increasingly playing a major role in (re)shaping the UK food policy.

• There is consensus on issues of common interest, and there is a more flexible and participatory relationship between the private interest, policy and regulatory interest and consumer and social interest groups. The latter indicates that this is an amalgamation of a state-private sector model of food regulation, where there is a specific response from public and private sectors to the various pressures on food regulation.

• A complex model is emerging as a response to the (post BSE) food regulation pressures, in ways which safeguard the broader macro-economic and political concepts of the European Internal Market (EIM) and increasingly integrated exchange of food goods within and beyond Europe, while also simultaneously enunciating new standardised and ‘non-competitive’ controls in the name of the European consumer and public interest.

• The emerging model of food regulation has begun to lay a foundation for a more all-inclusive and business-led regulatory system, based on appeasing consumer and private sector apprehensions. The new and distinctive stimuli for this have arisen partly due to the more exigent and intricate food risk environment. It appears (in the context of the UK at least) as though this trend will be maintained by the interaction of a larger number of actors and policy networks, which, in turn, makes the evolution process more complex and potentially contingent.

• In the fresh fruit and vegetable sector, as uniformity and high quality of products are required for further processing, branding and large-scale buying by food service, buyer-driven chains have evolved to ensure ways of preserving traceability and identity. The buyer-driven chains are more regulated and characterised by high levels of governance by, and long-term vertical co-ordination between, the producers, supplier-integrators, processors and retailers. The resulting chains have barriers to entry, such as voluntary standards, codes and benchmarks.

• In the fresh fruit and vegetable sector, there has been a proliferation of private standards, often initiated as part of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) or risk management initiatives. This plethora of private safety control systems, standards, and certification programs are responding to more demanding consumer requirements. Many leading retailers in Europe have developed programmes for integrated production, thus paving a way for both supply and demand, and playing a pivotal role in bringing about a change in the way crops are cultivated in a safe and sustainable manner.

Highlighted Outputs

Books

 

The new regulation and governance of food: Beyond the Crisis? Terry Marsden Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (August 5, 2009) ISBN-10: 0415956749 The volume documents the development of food policy and regulation following the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis of the late 1990s. It provides a contemporary and (social science-based) interdisciplinary analysis of the new processes involved in the contested regulation and accountability for food in the EU. The book brings together a theoretical and empirical analysis and a new governance model of the ‘post-BSE period’ and assesses the changing nature of three sets of actors: private interests: such as the corporate retailers; public regulators such as the EU directorates (DG SANCO), Agriculture and Trade, as well as Member State actors such as DEFRA and the FSA; and the Consumer groups at EU and national levels. The analysis produces a new model and a new synthesis on food policy and regulation.

Working Papers

The contested regulation and the fresh fruit and vegetable sector in Europe BRASS Working Paper Series Number 27,  2005 Samarthia Thankappan and Terry Marsden

The battle for the consumers: building relationships in a new phase of contested accountability in the UK food chain  BRASS Working Paper Series Number 17,  2004, Samarthia Thankappan, Terry Marsden, Andrew Flynn and Robert Lee

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• Background
• Aims and Objectives
• Methodology
• Key Findings
• Partners and Funding