The Politics of Food Labeling and Certification - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 622

which is the binding constraint, and, thus, to know exactly the extent of latent consumer
demand for ethical goods, making it hard to settle this debate.
Another concern is that demand for ethically certified food is likely to be signifi-
cantly constrained by income, limiting the scale of the market for labeled food. That
is, lower-income consumers face budget constraints that may limit their ability to
spend extra money on products that make ethical promises (Howard and Allen 2010).
A related objection is that these initiatives are fundamentally classist in nature, exclud-
ing low-income consumers from this model of ethical action. Finally, the concern about
income constraints on demand raises an additional alarm, which is that fluctuations in
the economy will be reflected in fickleness of demand for labeled food; accordingly, in
an economic downturn, sales of Fair-Trade and Organic groceries would fizzle (Cohen
2012, Hickman 2010).
A third concern centers on label proliferation and fatigue (Schuetze 2012, Harbaugh,
Maxwell, and Roussillon 2011). Because there is no single governmental or nongov-
ernmental body that oversees labeling standards, new certification standards are born
every year, each designed by different agents and addressing a wide assortment of con-
cerns. The number and variety of certification standard have grown in recent decades
to the point that consumers may find it overwhelming and frustrating to sort through
the various claims. In 2006, there were as many as 137 labels being marketed to socially
conscious consumers that made claims ranging from “salmon-safe” to “ozone-friendly”
(Alsever 2006). At the time this volume went to press, Ecolabel Index listed 432 eco-
labels—ranging from “salmon-safe” to “bird-friendly”—across 246 countries and 25
industries” ( www.ecolabelindex.com) . Consumers, like voters, have limited time to
investigate claims made by different labels, and this combined with the burgeoning of
certification standards may have two consequences that limit the effectiveness of label-
ing schemes.
First, consumers may not be able to tell the difference between the claims made by
different labels, creating an incentive for “greenwashing” or “fairwashing.” The average
consumer may glean basic information about a product from its label (“this is good for
the environment”), but details about what is being guaranteed are often lost. Consumers
may thus be unable to differentiate between rigorous and lax standards, and that disad-
vantages producers who subscribe to expensive, rigorous standards. The ill-informed
nature of consumer demand for ethically labeled food may incentivize firms to adopt
certification standards with few requirements, potentially creating a race-to-the-bottom
dynamic.
Second, consumers may get fed up by the number of different labels and their lack of
transparency, and disengage from ethical consumption entirely. Even the most consci-
entious, committed shopper could spend hours poring over the websites of standards
providers without understanding the differences among similar-sounding certification
rules. Well-meaning consumers may also discover that a favorite label carries fewer
guarantees than its brand image would suggest; indeed, such an incident made the
national news when consumers discovered that Kashi's “natural” cereals contained
genetically modified ingredients ( http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/