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New Zealand and Australian agri-food industries are being restructured both as a consequence of the extension of neoliberal policy settings and as a result of the increasing influence of the global supermarket sector. In the EU, supermarkets have sought to standardise and harmonise compliance, with their influence being felt well beyond European boundaries. EurepGAP (a European standard for ‘Good Agricultural Practices’) is an example of an emerging ‘audit culture’ where strict adherence to set rules of operation emerges as the basis for accreditation of goods and services. It represents the trend towards private sector standardization and assurance schemes, and provides an example of the growing importance of the supermarket sector in sanctioning the on-ground activities that occur in the production and processing of farm-derived outputs.

This chapter highlights the influence of EurepGAP protocols in the reorganisation of the agri-food industries of New Zealand and Australia. It argues that – for industries such as vegetable and fruit production, where Europe is the final destination – compliance with EurepGAP standards has largely become essential. In this sense, EurepGAP has emerged as the standard among producers who wish to export their products. The chapter concludes with an assessment of EurepGAP as a form of global agri-food governance that demonstrates a strong relationship between new audit cultures and neoliberal forms of trade regulation. In both Australia and New Zealand, some production sectors have rapidly adopted EurepGAP – despite extra costs, reduced choices over crop management and a lingering sense of resentment at the internal imposition of yet another production audit – primarily as a solution to the politics of risk in the context of high levels of exposure to market requirements under neoliberalism. The implications of this for Antipodean farming are considered in detail.

German food retailers face a saturated market that is characterized by a high competition environment, dominated by four big retailers. Discounters represent the most important retailing format and German food retailing is often characterized as being “cheap and cheerless.” Retailers offer low-price environments for their customers, because Germans are among the most price sensitive and price-oriented consumers across the world; as a consequence, margins are extremely low. On the other hand, German consumers have the longest tradition worldwide of behaving ecologically and being societally friendly. Being “green,” caring about the ecological footprint, the impact of their own behavior on others, has been for decades the mainstream rather than the exceptional case in Germany. This all leads to all German retailers struggling with the “contradiction” of very price-oriented customers that expect retailers to be sustainable in all possible ways. This chapter discusses how German food retailers respond to these requirements. It presents retailers’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies and activities with regard to the CSR domains of environment, non-domestic operations, product, community support, employee support, and diversity. While all major German retailers have established a high number of CSR activities among all six domains, they often focus on measures that not only improve their CSR image, but also lead to cost reduction by improving efficiency (e.g., reducing energy cost, streamlining supply chains, or improving logistics).

Scholarship on alternative organizations and cooperatives has argued that networks and intermediaries foster organizational form stability and protect collectivist-democratic organizations from rationalization as well as decoupling. This study of field-level organizing among food co-ops in the United States shows that rather than buffering collectivist organizations from conventional market and rationalization pressures, meta-organizations can also serve as a conduit for rationalizing pressures, subjecting vulnerable organizations to what I call quasi-coercive isomorphism. Using interviews of field participants, ethnographic observations of conferences, and content analysis of organizational documents, I examine the formation and impact of National Co+op Grocers, a meta-cooperative created to leverage scale and pool resources among food co-ops. I find that this meta-organization enforced grocery industry-oriented norms of operation, management, and presentation among its member organizations in return for providing mutual liability and economies of scale. This focus on select operationally scalable processes and structures for support generated isomorphic pressures that exposed, rather than sheltered, co-ops, especially smaller, resource-poor ones, from industry standards. The meta-organization thus promoted a sectorized model of more marketized practices for the field’s cooperatives that pushed co-ops to adopt conventional grocery store practices and distanced them from the practices of other cooperative form fields. Moreover, the potential of cooperative form-specific elements for scaling was not realized: collective ownership and democratic governance remained local concerns. These findings suggest that whether meso-level cooperation among cooperatives can support alternative form maintenance is contingent on the structure and scope of the meta-organization and on the perceived scalability of operational and governance elements of the cooperative organizational form.

Life is changing very fast, and its impact is observed in food pattern, consumer behavior and its ultimate market. In these broad outlines, 300 customers were studied in Anand districts of Gujarat. The restaurants and parlors that were studied were franchise models of Gujarat state only. Here in this study, six franchise food retailers were purposively selected. Data were analyzed through cluster analysis techniques. At the end, it was found high quality, better service, convenient location, presentation of food in parlor and restaurants, and zero time delivery are playing key roles for getting customers for the food.

This chapter aims to explore how supermarketization structure consumption of poor people and its sociocultural and moral consequences. In other words, this study expands the role of supermarketization in influencing consumer culture in Turkey.

An action research approach was used to analyze the in-depth interview data and field notes.

Before the supermarketization effect Turkish food retail industry was highly dominated by small, independent, and mostly family-owned single-location retailers: bakkal (neighborhood store which carries a wide range of both food and nonfood items with less than 100 square meters of floor space), manav (greengrocery), kasap (butcher), mandıra (dairy), fırın (bakery), and others. Bakkals – the focus of this research, make an analogy between the mushrooming of chain supermarkets and a cancerous tissue. The findings of this research reveal that not only in economic but also in social, moral, and cultural terms that these subaltern consumers cannot survive without bakkals.

The results of this research will provide some useful coping strategies for poverty confronting marketplace forces by reflecting on the grocery consumption patterns of subalterns. In addition, the findings will yield insights for unemployment among grocers by creating competitive advantage to maintain their existence against the influence of organized retailers.

Any contribution in poverty alleviation shall appease concerns about the role of poverty in fostering undesired consequences such as terrorism. Since poor consumers have scant resources and little education to develop a culture in more legitimized forms, it is likely that they become more vulnerable due to marketization effects on their sociocultural evolution.

Given the level of public interest in organized retailers and subaltern consumers, there has been surprisingly little research on both foreign- and domestic-organized retailers’ impact on traditional small size grocers and subaltern consumers. In addition, sociocultural and moral aspects of retailing and consequences of retailing activities, particularly, on subaltern consumers have not been fully explored.

This chapter presents the case study of Origin Green, the Irish food industry’s national program that committed the entire supply chain to meet sustainability targets and simultaneously branded the efforts and outcomes to increase demand for Irish food products. The brand creation is discussed under headings of building predictability, creating innovative capacity, and facilitating an intimate relationship.

The chapter describes supply chain risk mitigation, brand development, and the relationship between the two, proposing that they should be regarded as simultaneous rather than separate processes. This is followed by the case history of Origin Green.

The literatures on risk mitigation and brand equity development are extended by suggesting that the development of each should be regarded as simultaneous rather than consecutive activities.

The chapter outlines a program for national branding and sustainability and an insight on risk mitigation and branding that should be of interest to policymakers designing such programs and senior leaders considering involvement.

This chapter will be useful to policymakers considering national or industry-wide initiatives. Further, the chapter demonstrates the opportunity and challenges of systemic approaches to sustainability. The opportunity to brand nations and systems and the need to simultaneously build supply chain and brand for such is an original insight that is of value to strategy and planning. Similarly, at firm level, removing risk from the supply chain and building a brand would be of value.

In recent years the production and consumption of food have become both more transnational and diversified. Concurrent with these transformations has been the increasing use of standards to differentiate both agricultural products and processes. Historically standards were understood as “natural market lubricants,” but today they are increasingly viewed as tools for competitive advantage. As the use of standards has proliferated, the need to ensure compliance has also increased. Third-party certification (TPC) is one way to ensure compliance and it is becoming increasingly prominent in the global agrifood system. This chapter examines the complex effects that the widespread implementation of standards and TPC is having on the global agrifood system. What is occurring is not simple standardization and differentiation, but rather differentiated standardization and standardized differentiation. In the first instance, whereas we have standardization, it is differentiated, as multiple options remain. For example, while TPC for food safety and quality is becoming increasingly common, what such certification means continues to have considerable diversity. In the latter case, different kinds of agricultural practices are becoming standardized (i.e., organic). That is, difference (e.g., alternative agriculture) is becoming standardized, so that it is increasingly becoming the same globally. In concluding, we argue that standardization and differentiation are both taking place simultaneously in the global agrifood system, and that analyses of the globalization of food and agriculture must begin to recognize this.

Trading soft commodities has become increasingly challenging with less liquidity in the market, making it very risky and even more costly. Ongoing geopolitical instability, climate change, complex supply chain and fluctuation in demand and supply resulted in a continued price volatility and market uncertainty. Soft commodity trading businesses are under an increasing pressure to adapt to political, economic and social changes. Therefore, this study explores the relationship between brokers and their buyers in the Algerian soft commodities market, with a particular focus on cereals (wheat) products. This study is based on the analysis of secondary data collected from various sources and anecdotal evidences from brokers of soft commodities in Algeria. The overall strategy of Algeria is to limit its reliance on imports. However, political dysfunction coupled with economic instability appears to discourage domestic and foreign investment and inhibit the development of this soft commodities sector. The brokerage firms of soft commodities (wheat, oils, milk powder, rice, coffee, etc.) are operating in a niche market within an environment of intense competition and highly demanding buyers. The striking success of the brokerage function depends on a close relationship formed between the actors (broker, seller and buyer).