Voting with Your Fork? Industrial Free Range Eggs and the Regulatory Construction of Consumer Choice
Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Science, 2013, 649, 52-73, DOI: 10.1177/0002716213487303
46 Pages Posted: 25 Aug 2013 Last revised: 20 Feb 2014
Date Written: August 24, 2013
Abstract
Labeling and information disclosure to support consumer choice are often proposed as attractive policy alternatives to onerous mandatory business regulation. This article argues that choices available to consumers are constructed and constrained by actors in the chains of production, distribution, and exchange who bring products to retail. I trace how “free range” eggs come to market in Australia, finding that the “industrial free- range” label dominating the market is not substantially different from caged-egg production in the way that it addresses animal welfare, public health, and agro-ecological values. I show how the product choices available to consumers have been constructed not just by the regulation (or nonregulation) of marketing and labeling, but also by the regulatory paths taken and not taken all along the food chain.
Keywords: animal ethics, food, argoevology, soio politics of food, business regulation, miseading labelling, free range eggs, consumer culture, supermarkets
JEL Classification: K42, K32, M37
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation