The Politics of Food Labeling and Certification - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 613

Chapter 25
The Politics of
Food Labeling and
Certification
Emily Clough
Introduction
Yo u are what you eat , the saying goes. The notion that one's food should not only taste
good and meet one's dietary needs but should also reflect one's priorities, values, and
identity is at the core of the politics of food labeling and certification. A rapidly prolifer-
ating array of labels cater to concerns about working conditions in developing countries,
environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and health. In today's grocery stores, an
environmentalist can purchase tomatoes grown without chemical pesticides, a socially
conscious humanitarian can buy coffee grown by farmers guaranteed a minimum price
and safe working conditions, and a health-concerned parent can select a cut of meat
from animals that never ingested growth hormones. These so-called “ethical consum-
ers” are able to identify these products because each carries a label that signifies that it
has been certified to meet a particular set of standards. This act of buying food that is
labeled as ethically sourced is sometimes called “voting with your dollar.”1
From Fair Trade to Shade-Grown and from Organic to Rainforest Alliance certified
products, food labeling and certification have become increasingly prevalent in the
United States and other wealthy countries in recent decades. As the market for private
food certification schemes has grown, it has shifted from the small niche market of ide-
alists into the consciousness of mainstream consumers, becoming a source of contro-
versy for pundits, academics, activists, and shoppers. Neither the proponents nor the
critics of food labeling lack passion or conviction. It is understood, respectively, as a
useful attempt to raise the standards of food production in the absence of strong state
regulation, or as a marketing ploy by which firms capitalize on consumer demand for
ethical products by “greenwashing” or “fairwashing” their public images. This chapter