Food and philosophy are two of my greatest passions. I oscillate between gratitude that I have at times been able to combine to two and frustration that such times are not more frequent. It seems to me that meetings between the two are extremely fertile, but strangely difficult to set up.
One reason why I value being a member of the Food Ethics Council is that it enables me to keep exercising this interest in a practical way, since the FEC works with people literally on the ground: several members are farmers.
An issue that’s bothering me a lot at the moment is the question of where power lies in the food system. Sometimes it can seem as though governments – or at least intergovernmental bodies – pull the most strings. For example, the main reason why there is so much high fructose corn syrup in processed American food is because of corn subsidies.
Sometimes, however, it seems the customer is king. Where there is demand, supply follows. The explosion in vegan options in British restaurants and supermarkets, for example, is mostly demand-led.
But talking to guests from various parts of the food world at the FEC 20th anniversary event, the consensus seemed to be that the most powerful people in the chain are the big supermarkets. The CEO of Tesco, Dave Lewis, has more influence over how our food is produced than the Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, George Eustice.
Why is this so? In short, it’s because their buying power is such that they can effectively dictate the terms on which most producers work. Sometimes, this is for the better. When Sainsbury’s decided to sell only fairtrade certified bananas ten years ago it directly affected the terms under which thousands of farmers in Central and South America, the Caribbean and West Africa worked.
Too often, however, it is for the worse. Supermarket suppliers are forced to operate to very tight margins as the retailers compete with each other on price. They also often work with asymmetric guarantees: they have to be ready to supply a certain amount but the supermarkets are not obliged to order it. That means in some weeks stock that is not needed after all goes to waste. No wonder then that when I’ve spoken to small, quality food producers over the years, many have seen the dream of getting into the supermarket shelves turn to finger-burning nightmare while many others have looked, learned and decided not even to bother trying.
This is a sobering thought for those who, like the FEC, want a food system that is “fair and healthy for people, animals and the environment”. However, the power supermarkets currently has is not the result of inviolable laws of nature. On one side, governments could be more interventionist. The power of supermarkets is in no small small part down to the prevalence of the view that markets should be minimally regulated. But rightly rejecting the central planning that led to famine in several communist countries does not entail the laissez-faire opposite. (I argued that, in fact, orthodox free market economics justifies more intervention in my paper for the 2014 Oxford Symposium on Food and Drink.)
Consumers could also do more to push supermarkets in the right direction. Suppliers get a raw deal because customers too often pay attention only to what they see on the shelves. We have come to expect a reliable, predictable supply and that requires suppliers to do whatever it takes to ensure that. Supermarkets believe, probably correctly, that if they treated suppliers more fairly and as a result could not guarantee consistent stock levels, their customers would not sympathetically understand but would quickly shop elsewhere. The same goes for treating farm animals and the environment better.
The harsh truth is then that we get the food system we deserve because at the end of the day we prefer having choice and cheap prices at the point of purchase to the alternative of fewer options but fairer pay for all, good animal husbandry and an agricultural sector that maintains the soil for future generations rather than chasing higher short-term yields.
If we want to change this, using our much trumpeted “consumer power” is only one part of the picture. We also need to demand more of our governments. That is one reason why the FEC is promoting the idea of “food citizenship”. For too long we have been reduced to mere consumers, led to believe that the only power we have to change the food system is through our wallets. But government policy – local and national – also has a role to play. As citizens we can shape this by campaigning and voting. We can and should be ethical consumers, but can and should be more than that too.
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