Who Came First? The Egg or the Carton? An Analysis of Organic Packaging for Italian Retail Chain Esselunga - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 110

a request by citizens to impose federal and state regulations both at the marketing
level as well as at the production level (Schlossberg 1993 ; Polonsky 1994 ; Triplett
1994 ; Mendleson and Polonsky 1995 ; Nestle 2002 ; Peattie and Crane 2005 ).
The intervention from governmental entities in green corporate practices did not
resolve the issue of producing and promoting alternative products and solutions to
environmental/food issues. Peattie and Crane ( 2005 ) define 'compliance marketing'
businesses' practices “whose environmental initiatives do not go beyond responding
to regulation” (p. 363). Thus, even with the involvement of state or federal author-
ities firms were still reluctance in drastically changing operations of production,
distribution, and consumption. This is not to say that the implementation of food-
labeling laws did not bring positive outcomes for the consumer, the environment,
and the company. Libery and Kneafsey ( 1998 ) discussed the conceptualization of
accreditation and labeling schemes in Europe, pointing at how regulatory programs
in food labeling for non-industrialized foods can add credibility and authenticity
to the product and the company, thus favoring locally and family owned firms. In
recent years, even companies, including Wal-Mart and McDonalds have been able
to improve their environmental credibility and green image by complying to laws,
revamping green marketing (Polonsky 1994 ; Mendleson and Polonsky 1995 ; Smith
1998 ; Peattie and Crane 2005 ). A recent example is the partnership with Michelle
Obama and Wal-Mart in fighting obesity. The retail store aims to offer more 'healthy
foods' at a lower price by 2015, including opening new stores in deserted food
areas (Wilgoren and Mui 2011 ). This intervention of the state and public officials
like Michelle Obama, in influencing the credibility of green initiatives poses a
question of consumer-citizenship linked to the marketing and labeling system. Does
additional information on packages of green products reflect consumers' power or a
mixture of compliance marketing and green selling?

6.3 Organic Marketing & Food Labels in Italy

Generally speaking, food labeling is defined as “direct consumer information,
with the federal government intervening in the two-party relationship between
seller and buyer to remedy information imperfections and failures” (Caswell and
Padberg 1992 , p. 462). From a company's prospective, food labels (e.g., healthy
claims, slogans that attract the buyer) should have limited regulation (Caswell and
Padberg 1992 ) because they should help entrepreneurs to enter the market and
have a positive impact on the economy (Peattie and Crane 2005 ). Food labels
for the seller mean freedom of marketing a product with limited attention to
environmental and health consequences. To address the potential harm of false
claims many countries and unions, including the European Union and the United
States, require firms to follow specific procedures when marketing food products,
in addition to guidelines for the production and distribution of goods (Libery and
Kneafsey 1998 ; European Commission 2007 , 2008 ;Gold 2008 ). For example, the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that all health claims must