Abstract
In recent decades, the governance of food safety, food quality, on-farm environmental management and animal welfare has been shifting from the realm of ‘the government’ to that of the private sector. Corporate entities, especially the large supermarkets, have responded to neoliberal forms of governance and the resultant ‘hollowed-out’ state by instituting private standards for food, backed by processes of certification and policed through systems of third party auditing. Today’s food regime is one in which supermarkets impose ‘private standards’ along the food supply chain to ensure compliance with a range of food safety goals—often above and beyond those prescribed by government. By examining regulatory governance in Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom we highlight emerging trajectories of food governance. We argue that the imposition of the new private forms of monitoring and compliance continue the project of agricultural restructuring that began with government support for structural adjustment schemes in agriculture and that these are most evident in the UK and Australia where neoliberalism is an entrenched philosophy. However, despite Norway’s identity as a social democracy, we also identify neoliberal ‘creep’ into the system of food governance. Small-scale producers in all three nations are finding themselves increasingly subject to governance through private, market-based mechanisms that, to varying degrees, are dominated by major supermarket chains. The result is agricultural restructuring not through the traditional avenues of elected governments, but via non-elected market operatives.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Freedom Food is an RSPCA monitored assurance scheme stipulating additional welfare standards for animals in the UK food industry (Freedom Food 2010).
HSH is Norway’s leading federation of commercial and service enterprises within the private sector. The four major retailers are members of HSH.
References
ACCC Australian Competition Consumer Commission. 2008. Report of the ACCC inquiry into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries (July 2008). Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Biénabe, E., D. Boselie, M.-H. Collion, T. Fox, P. Rondot, P. van der Kop, and B. Vorley. 2007. The internationalization of food retailing: Opportunities and threats to small-scale producers. In Regoverning markets: A place for small-scale producers in modern agrifood chains?, ed. B. Vorley, A. Fearne, and D. Ray, 3–14. Farnham: Gower Publishing Ltd.
Brown, O., and C. Sander. 2007. Supermarket buying power: Global supply chains and smallholder farms. Winnipeg: International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Brunori, G., and A. Guarino. 2010. Security for whom? Changing discourses on food in Europe in times of a global food crisis. In Food security, nutrition and sustainability, ed. G. Lawrence, K. Lyons, and T. Wallington, 41–60. London: Earthscan.
Burch, D., and G. Lawrence. 2005. Supermarket own brands, supply chains and the transformation of the agri-food system. International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 13(1): 1–18.
Burch, D., and G. Lawrence. 2007. Supermarket own brands, new foods and the reconfiguration of agri-food supply chains. In Supermarkets and agri-food supply chains: Transformations in the production and consumption of foods, ed. D. Burch, and G. Lawrence, 100–128. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Campbell, H., and R. Le Heron. 2007. Supermarkets, producers and audit technologies: The constitutive micro-politics of food, legitimacy and governance. In Supermarkets and agri-food supply chains: Transformations in the production and consumption of foods, ed. D. Burch, and G. Lawrence, 131–153. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Choice/Australian Food and Grocery Council. 2011. Supplementary submission to the Senate Economics Committee of Inquiry. http://www.choice.com.au/media-and-news/consumer-news/news/milk-submission.aspx. Accessed 7 June 2011.
Clapp, J., and D. Fuchs (eds.). 2009. Corporate power in global agrifood governance. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Competition Commission. 2000. Responses to the smaller suppliers questionnaire. http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/2000/446super.htm. Accessed 13 August 2010.
Freedom Food. 2010. About Us. http://www.rspca.org.uk/freedomfood/aboutus. Accessed 21 October 2010.
Freidberg, S. 2004. The ethical complex of corporate food power. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22: 513–531.
Fox, T., and B. Vorley. 2004. Stakeholder accountability in the UK supermarket sector, Final report of the ‘Race to the Top’ project. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Fritz, M., and C. Fischer. 2007. The role of trust in European food chains: Theory and empirical findings. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review 10(2): 141–164.
Fuchs, D., A. Kalfagianni, and M. Arentsen. 2009. Retail power, private standards, and sustainability. In Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance, ed. J. Clapp, and D. Fuchs, 29–59. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fulponi, L. 2006. Private voluntary standards in the food system: The perspective of major food retailers in OECD countries. Food Policy 31: 1–13.
Garcia, M. 2007. Economic analysis of food quality assurance schemes: The Red Tractor scheme. Geneva: European Commission Directorate General Joint Research Centre.
Hutter, B., and T. Amodu. 2008. Risk regulation and compliance: Food safety in the UK. London: The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Harvey, M. 2007. Supermarkets and asymmetries of economic power. In Supermarkets and agri-food supply chains: Transformations in the production and consumption of foods, ed. D. Burch, and G. Lawrence, 51–73. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Hall, J. 2010. Tesco increases market share. The Telegraph. 8 December. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8187435/Tesco-increases-market-share.html. Accessed 9 September 2011.
Kirk-Wilson, R. 2002. Review of food assurance schemes for the Food Standards Agency (UK). http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/FAS_Report.PDF. Accessed 10 July 2011.
Kjærnes, U., M. Harvey, and A. Warde. 2007. Trust in food. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Konefal, J., C. Bain, M. Mascarenhas, and L. Busch. 2007. Supermarkets and supply chains in North America. In Supermarkets and agri-food supply chains: Transformations in the production and consumption of foods, ed. D. Burch, and G. Lawrence, 268–288. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Konefal, J., M. Mascarenhas, and M. Hatanaka. 2005. Governance in the global agri-food system: Backlighting the role of transnational supermarket chains. Agriculture and Human Values 22: 291–302.
Kjuus, J. (ed.). 2010. Dagligvarehandel og mat. Oslo: NILF.
Konkurransetilsynet [Norwegian Competition Authority]. 2009. Tine fikk medhold i tingretten [Tine was upheld in court] http://www.konkurransetilsynet.no/no/Aktuelt/Nyheter/Tine-fikk-medhold-i-tingretten/. Accessed 9 September 2011.
Lang, T., D. Barling, and M. Caraher. 2009. Food policy: Integrating health, environment and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lawrence, F. 2008. Eat your heart out: Why the food industry is bad for the planet and your health. London: Penguin.
McCullogh, E., P. Pingali, and K. Stamoulis. 2008. Small farms and the transformation of food systems: An overview. In The transformation of agri-food systems: Globalization, supply chains and smallholder farmers, ed. E. McCullough, P. Pingali, and K. Stamoulis, 3–46. London: FAO and Earthscan.
Ministry of Agriculture and Food. 2010. Public commission to inquire into the power relations in the food supply chain. http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/lmd/aktuelt/nyheter/2010/Feb-10/Public-Commission-to-inquire-into-the-power-relations-in-the-food-supply-chain.html?id=593844. Accessed 29 June 2010.
Narrod, C., D. Roy, and J. Okello. 2008. Impact of international food safety standards on smallholders: Evidence from three cases. In The transformation of agri-food systems: Globalization, supply chains and smallholder farmers, ed. E. McCullough, P. Pingali, and K. Stamoulis, 356–372. London: FAO and Earthscan.
NOU. 2011. Mat, makt og avmakt—om strykeforholdene i verdikjeden for mat. [Food, power and powerlessness—the power relations in the food supply chain] NOU 2011:4.
Richards, C., G. Lawrence, and D. Burch. 2011. Supermarkets and agro-industrial foods: The strategic manufacturing of consumer trust. Food, Culture and Society 14(1): 29–47.
OECD. 2004. Competition and regulation in agriculture: Monopsony buying and joint selling, policy roundtable. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/56/35910977.pdf. Accessed 19 April 2010.
SGS. 2010. GFSI—How to effectively comply with retailer’s standard. http://www.foodsafety.sgs.com/global-food-safety-initiative-information-request.htm?wt.mc_id=gSSCglo0041&WT.seg_1=gfsi&WT.srch=1&gclid=CMfe_9nk2qECFRMZewoduxJhIw. Accessed 18 May 2010.
Tesco. 2011. Nurture and its values. http://www.tescorealfood.com/Our-Food/Nurture-and-its-values.html. Accessed 7 June 2011.
The Norwegian Food Safety Authority. 2009. This is the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. http://www.mattilsynet.no/mattilsynet/multimedia/archive/00041/This_is_the_Norwegia_41234a.pdf. Accessed 5 September 2011.
Trimmer, C. 2008. Food policy in the era of supermarkets. What’s different? In The transformation of agri-food systems: Globalization, supply chains and smallholder farmers, ed. E. McCullough, P. Pingali, and K. Stamoulis, 68–86. London: FAO and Earthscan.
Acknowledgments
This study was part-funded by the Australian Research Council (Project Nos. DP 0773092 and DP 110102299). Dr Richards, Dr Bjørkhaug and Professor Lawrence received funding from the Norwegian Research Council (Project No. 202374). Professor Lawrence also received financial support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2010-330-00159). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Richards, C., Bjørkhaug, H., Lawrence, G. et al. Retailer-driven agricultural restructuring—Australia, the UK and Norway in comparison. Agric Hum Values 30, 235–245 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-012-9408-4
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-012-9408-4