Elsevier

Journal of Rural Studies

Volume 54, August 2017, Pages 266-275
Journal of Rural Studies

Capturing the meaning of “free range”: The contest between producers, supermarkets and consumers for the higher welfare egg label in Australia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.06.014Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Industry influenced the development of Australia's food labelling standard for eggs.

  • Supermarket standards underpinned the new national egg labelling standard.

  • The policy problem was redefined during development of the new labelling standard.

  • The development of a food labelling standard is a highly contested regulatory space.

Abstract

This paper shows how the Australian egg industry maintained its preferred definition of “free range” eggs in the face of a powerful consumer-oriented challenge to its labelling practices. We show how a consumer law initiative intended to enhance consumer confidence and address misleading labelling of industrial-scale egg production as “free range”, was reframed through the policy consultation process, so that the primary policy problem became one of assuring industry certainty in a volatile contest for control over the governance of “free range” labelling. Drawing on notions of contests for power in regulatory space, we show how a policy coalition of egg industry and government primary industries actors successfully advocated for “free range” to be legally defined in a new consumer law information standard in accordance with existing, industrial-scale free range production systems, rather than the smaller scale systems preferred by consumer and animal welfare advocates. While this decision reflects the traditional regulatory capture by agricultural industries of Australian food and animal welfare policy decision making, we suggest that it equally reflects the existing power structure in the retail egg market – namely the two major supermarkets' adoption of industrial free range as their own standard for higher welfare egg labelling.

Introduction

At the beginning of 2015, Australian federal and state consumer affairs ministers1 together announced the introduction of a mandatory new information standard for “free range” eggs. This long awaited regulatory clarification of the meaning of free range was originally intended to “enhance consumer confidence and certainty around egg labelling” and to “respond to growing consumer demand in the face of confusing and potentially false and misleading claims in the market” (CAF, 2015, p. 2). By the time the new standard was announced in March 2016, however, the objective had changed to incorporate both “giv[ing] more information to consumers” but also importantly, “reduc[ing] the regulatory uncertainty faced by egg producers and encourage[ing] investment in the industry” (CAF, 2016). To the disappointment of both consumer and animal welfare advocates, the new “free range” information standard enshrined a maximum outdoor stocking density of 10,000 hens per hectare (in comparison with the 1500 to 2500 hens per hectare that they had advocated) and provided only for “meaningful and regular access to the outdoors”, without specifying further conditions such as size and positioning of doors to the outside, conditions on the range, and opportunities for natural behaviours such as dust bathing, pecking and scratching (Bettles, 2016a, Choice, 2016).

This paper shows how the egg industry was able to shape the consumer law initiative, with the support of primary industries ministers, to define the meaning of “free range” eggs in accordance with existing, industrial-scale, barn-based free range production systems, rather than the smaller scale, outdoors-based systems preferred by consumer advocates and some other stakeholders.

Drawing on the concept of “regulatory space” (Hancher and Moran, 1998), we analyse how industry actors were able to “capture” the development of the consumer information standard (Goodfellow, 2016), even in an age of consumer challenge to primary industry power (Dixon, 2003, Roff, 2007), and with increasing public support for higher animal welfare standards (Chen, 2016).

Much food systems literature points out the significance of industry and corporate influence over food system governance (Lang and Heasman, 2015, Stucker and Nestle, 2012; Clapp, 2012). In Australia, the captured relationship between primary industries and Australian government has been particularly infuential. Yet we suggest that the egg industry's traditional “cozy” (Marangos, 2009) relationship with government and primary industries departments, while an important part of the story, is not the whole story. As Lang and Heasman (2015) point out, the retailers are the power brokers between consumers and industry in the contemporary food system. We suggest that it was the tacit alignment of the new free range standard with supermarket requirements that ultimately allowed the egg industry to maintain its preferred view of “free range” as industrial-scale free range.

The first section of this article outlines the background and policy context for the highly contested debate about “free range” eggs in Australia, showing how consumer demand and advocacy by civil society groups led to the opening of a “policy window” (Kingdon, 2011) or opportunity for change. The second section reviews the history of regulatory capture of animal welfare standards setting by primary industries in Australia in the context of literature on corporate influence over food system governance. We argue that the development of food labelling policy is a contested “regulatory space” in the contemporary retail dominated food system, and we outline our policy analytic framework for evaluating the influence of industry, government and civil society in the unfolding debate over the mandatory free range information standard. The third section goes on to describe the data and methodology used for this study.

The fourth section presents our findings. We show how a consumer advocacy group, Choice, opened the initial “policy window”, creating the opportunity for the free range standard. Yet, when a second policy window was opened through a consultation on the standard, the egg industry was able to establish an advocacy coalition (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999) with primary industries ministers that successfully reframed the policy problem (Weiss, 1989) as one of industry (not consumer) uncertainty. Crucially, the proposal put forward by the egg industry coalition mirrored the requirements of the major Australian retailers. Thus the labelling reform process shifted from one originally intended to halt misleading “industrial” free range claims on egg cartons (The Treasury, 2015) to one that enshrined “industrial” free range as the regulatory standard for free range eggs. The final section discusses the implications of these findings and the possibility of further contestation and change in the future.

Section snippets

Contestation of “free range” egg labelling

Production systems labelled “free range” emerged in Australia in the 1980s in response to increasing consumer concern about animals being held in confinement (Parker et al., 2017; see also Miele, 2011). In some countries, notably the European Union (EU Council, 1999; see also NAWC, 2012, Mench et al., 2011), animal welfare concerns led to a ban on conventional cages. In Australia, by contrast, governments responded to industry lobbying and rejected a ban on conventional cages in 2000. Instead

Corporate power in food system governance

The highly concentrated nature of both Australia's egg industry and supermarket sector is consistent with the more general observation of corporate concentration of power across all sectors of the food system in recent decades (Lang and Heasman, 2015, Stucker and Nestle, 2012, Clapp, 2012). Increased market power has led to increased influence over the regulatory structures and institutions that govern the rules by which agrifood corporations operate (Clapp and Fuchs, 2009). Evidence has

Data collection

Data were collected from a range of policy documents related to the national information standard for free range egg labelling. Documents were collected from 2012 (when the ACCC rejected an application from the national egg industry body for certification for free range labelling), to March 2016, when federal and state consumer affairs ministers (the Consumer Affairs Forum) announced their preferred approach to the development of the national information standard. The documents included media

Results

A significant shift took place in the definition of the policy problem in defining free range eggs – from a problem of “consumer uncertainty” to a problem of “industry uncertainty” - through four key stages in the policy development process, described in each of the four subsections below. The announcement that a national information standard was to be prepared in response to Choice's super-complaint opened a policy window (section 5.1); and the release of the Consultation RIS defined the

Capturing the meaning of free range

The outcome of the policy process to develop Australia's national information standard for free range egg labelling has the hallmarks of a straightforward case of “regulatory capture” (Dal Bo, 2006). However, our analysis reveals a more complex story. The development of a food labelling policy is a highly contested “regulatory space”, and the outcomes of the policy process to develop a new standard will reflect the power relations between stakeholders within that space. The influence of the egg

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council (Grant number DP 150102168).

References (94)

  • J. Mench et al.

    Sustainability of egg production in the United States – the policy and market context

    Poult. Sci.

    (2011)
  • ACCC

    ACCC Enforcement Guidance – Free Range Hen Egg Claims

    (2015)
  • ACCC
  • ACCC

    Initial Assessment of Certification Trademark Application CTM1390450 Filed by the Australian Egg Corporation Limited

    (2012)
  • ACCC

    Report of the ACCC Inquiry into the Competitiveness of Retail Prices for Standard Groceries, Commonwealth of Australia

    (2008)
  • Animals Australia

    Submission in Relation to Free Range Egg Labelling Consultation Paper

    (2015)
  • C. Bettles

    Keogh rejects ‘ridiculous’ ACCC claims

  • C. Bettles

    RSPCA slam free range egg labelling standards

  • T. Birkland

    Agenda Setting, Power and Interest Groups: an Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts and Models of Public Policy Making

    (2011)
  • N. Blewett et al.

    Labelling Logic Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy

    (2011)
  • J. Brett

    Fair Share: Country and City in Australia

    (2011)
  • E. Burkard et al.

    Transnational business governance interactions: conceptualization and framework for analysis

    Regul. Gov.

    (2014)
  • B. Burke

    Free Range Egg Labelling. Letter to the Australian Treasury

    (2015)
  • CAF

    Joint Communique. Meeting of Ministers for Consumer Affairs. Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs

    (2015)
  • CAF

    Joint Communique. Meeting of Ministers for Consumer Affairs. Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs

    (2016)
  • R. Carey et al.

    Opportunities and challenges in developing a whole-of-government national food and nutrition policy: lessons from Australia's national food plan

    Public Health Nutr.

    (2016)
  • D. Carpenter et al.

    Introduction

  • P. Chen

    Animal Welfare in Australia: Politics and Policy

    (2016)
  • Choice

    Still on the Shelf. Media Release 31 March 2016

    (2016)
  • Choice

    Ministers Make Free Range Eggs Meaningless: Choice Calls for Boycott of Bad Eggs after New Standard Rubber Stamps Rip off. Media Release 31 March 2016

    (2016)
  • Choice

    Free Range Eggs: the Consumer Perspective. Submission to Consumer Affairs Australia and New Zealand

    (2015)
  • Choice

    Free Range Egg Claims in NSW: Super-complaint to NSW Fair Trading

    (2013)
  • Choice

    Survey on Consumer Expectations of Free Range Egg Labelling

    (2012)
  • J. Clapp

    Food

    (2012)
  • J. Clapp et al.

    Agrifood corporations, global governance and sustainability: a framework for analysis

  • J. Clapp et al.

    Big food, nutritionism, and corporate power

    Globalizations

    (2017)
  • Coles

    Submission to the Free Range Egg Labelling Consultation Paper

    (2015)
  • Commercial Egg Producers Association of WA

    Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement for Free Range Egg Labelling. Consumer Affairs Australia New Zealand

    (2015)
  • Commission of the European Communities
    (2009)
  • Commonwealth of Australia

    Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper

    (2015)
  • J. Curtin

    The Voice and the Vote of the Bush: the Representation of Rural and Regional Australia in the Federal Parliament

    (2000)
  • E. Dal Bo

    Regulatory capture: a review

    Oxf. Rev. Econ. Policy

    (2006)
  • J. Dixon

    Authority, power and value in contemporary industrial food systems

    Int. J. Sociol. Agric. Food

    (2003)
  • DPMC

    The Australian Government Guide to Regulation

    (2014)
  • Egg Farmers of Australia

    New Definition of Free Range. Media Release 10 June 2015

    (2015)
  • Egg Farmers of Australia

    Submission to the Treasury Free Range Labelling Regulatory Impact Statement

    (2015)
  • EU Council

    EU Council Directive 1999/74/EC of 19 July 1999 Laying Down Minimal Standards for the Protection of Laying Hens [1999] OJ L 203/53

    (1999)
  • FAWC

    Report on Welfare Labelling

    (2006)
  • Fleurieu Free Range Eggs

    Submission to the Free Range Egg Labelling Consultation

    (2015)
  • D. Fuchs et al.

    Retail power, private standards and sustainability in the global food system

  • M. Fyfe et al.

    10,000 Hens to a Hectare Is No Free Range: ACCC

    (2013)
  • J. Goodfellow

    Regulatory capture and the welfare of farm animals in Australia

  • I. Gray et al.

    A Future for Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune

    (2004)
  • Greens NSW

    Greens NSW Response to the Regulation Impact Statement: Free Range Egg Labelling

    (2015)
  • G. Guest et al.

    Applied Thematic Analysis

    (2012)
  • J. Guthmann

    The Polanyian Way? Voluntary Food Labels as Neoliberal Governance. Antipode

    (2007)
  • E. Han

    New appointee will scramble ACCC's free range egg work, animal activists claim

  • Cited by (20)

    • Facilitating international animal welfare standards implementation in national contexts: The role of intermediaries in Brazilian pig production

      2022, Journal of Rural Studies
      Citation Excerpt :

      We now further discuss these main findings and distil implications for theory and practice. Previous literature emphasized that the building of contextualized strategies for animal welfare standards implementation relies on the emergence of particular socio-technical arrangements for mid- or long-term horizons (Huertas et al., 2014; Gocsik et al., 2016; Carey et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2019). Scholars also highlighted that individuals and organizations that play a role as enablers within these arrangements are crucial to operationalize contextualized strategies (Stafford and Mellor 2009; Yang 2013; Klerkx et al., 2014; Koutsouris 2014; Ortega and Wolf 2018).

    • From surplus-to-waste: A study of systemic overproduction, surplus and food waste in horticultural supply chains

      2021, Journal of Cleaner Production
      Citation Excerpt :

      Rather, Australia’s relatively weak competition laws and comprehensive industry de-regulation have allowed supermarkets to accrue disproportionate power compared to other supply chain actors. The institutional lock-in occurs when Australian governments refrain from regulating supermarket standards, but also from the pivotal role private supermarket governance has assumed in regulating the Australian food industry (Carey et al., 2017). As such, the state reliance on private actors to set and enforce standards serves to further exacerbate institutional lock-in and transition resistance.

    • ‘Herding is his favourite thing in the world’: Convivial world-making on a multispecies farm

      2019, Journal of Rural Studies
      Citation Excerpt :

      Ironically this price war has run alongside increasing public discourse and consumer concern about animal welfare. The poultry industry (particularly the egg lobby) and major retailers have been at pains to shape their own voluntary standards for free-range production, many of which bear only a distant semblance to what consumers might reasonably imagine a free-range system to be (Carey et al., 2017). Where 'free-range' is concerned, confusion and increasingly skepticism reign.

    • Completion task to uncover consumer's perception: A case study using distinct types of hen's eggs

      2018, Poultry Science
      Citation Excerpt :

      This confusion can prevent consumers to recognize their quality, and therefore, accept these products (Gleim et al., 2013). It is recently occurring a movement to reduce the classification of “free birds,” as the free-range hen fits this breeding system, but still far from the ideals of well-being believed by consumers (Carey et al., 2017). For many consumers, the flavor and appearance of the brown free-range egg's eggshell and yolk is what calls the attention at the buying time, because many cannot differentiate the types of eggs (Osei-Amponsah et al., 2014).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text