Food is a source of nourishment, a cause for celebration, an inducement to temptation and a means of influence, and it signifies good fortune and well-being. Together with other life-enhancing goods such as clean water, unpolluted air, adequate shelter and suitable clothing, food is a basic good which is necessary for human flourishing. Accordingly, when we reflect on the deprivation and suffering which arises from the conditions of, for example, austerity and poverty which lead to hunger and malnutrition, we inevitably experience a sense of injustice. Yet the demands of markets and powerful corporations who determine the shape of our food systems have often worked against the best interests of people. Recent research by the World Food Programme suggests that 815 million people worldwide go to bed on an empty stomach, and one in three suffer from malnutrition (2018). At the same time, constituting a ‘double nutritional burden’, inadequate food provisions and a lack of healthy food lead to an even greater number of people becoming obese. Accordingly, “not only do the consequences of not enough—or the wrong—food cause suffering and poor health, they also slow progress in many other areas of development like education and employment” (World Food Programme, 2018).
Issues of food equity span a variety of social, economic and political structures which determine processing, distribution, marketing, retailing and consumption. Yet, founded on monetary values, the prioritizing of accumulation has resulted in a series of economic, social and environmental externalities that are devastating local economics, harming individuals, families and communities. Such profit-first food strategies have not only damaged the planet, but oppressive and largely unregulated corporate practices in this area have also resulted in the rising incidence of food injustice. In addition, a prolonged period of global fiscal austerity, which has called for massive reductions in spending on social programmes, has not only dominated political discourse but has had an adverse impact on the health and well-being of the poorest members of humanity. It is evident, therefore, that our current food system, from agricultural production right through to the shop sales till, fails to meet the essential criteria of social justice—namely, freedom from want, freedom from oppression and access to equal opportunity.
This chapter addresses what is one of the greatest challenges facing society today—widespread hunger, malnutrition and obesity, particularly in low-income populations—by investigating a series of alternative approaches to food injustice and seeks to articulate an alternative basis for regulatory reform. Questions such as (1) should there be a fundamental human right to healthy food; (2) if so, what would an ethico-legal food system look like and (3) how might it be enshrined and supported in law will be explored according to the ideals of social justice and moral philosophy, and the modification and extension of existing legal provisions.
Eradicating hunger and malnutrition are two of the great challenges of our time. The ‘right to food’ has been recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and in the non-binding declarations of, for example, the World Food Summits of 1974 and 1996. The promotion of good health, nutrition and access to healthy food are also goals of the UN’s 2016 New Urban Agenda, which accords with the UN’s earlier 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which aims to “end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment” (UN General Assembly Resolution, 2015: A/RES/70/1). These and other legal instruments recognize the obligation of the state to respect, protect and guarantee adequate living conditions for each one of its citizens. Whilst such recent proposals refer to food security, the food supply and the availability of sufficient food, they also stipulate the right of access to healthy and nutritional food provisions as a basic good. However, the commodification of the food system has played a big part in militating against the perception of food as a public good and as evidenced by excessive pricing, patents and private land use regulations, which seek to promote and protect private or corporate interests.
Food is viewed as a commercial commodity, subject to free competition, consumer purchasing power and the maximization of profit for growers, producers and retailers, rather than as a universal human right. Unlike gold, steel or Brent Crude, however, food comprises more than simply an opportunity to create another lucrative commercial enterprise. Rather, the primal right to survive makes food a matter of social justice and moral economy. Food is, therefore, the proper object of a fundamental right which calls for the assumption of ethical responsibilities that express the equality of all, especially the poorest. Otherwise, in the words of Adam Smith
[a policy that] hurts in any degree the interest of any one order of citizens, for no other purpose but to promote that of some other, is evidently contrary to that justice and equality of treatment which the sovereign owes to all the different orders of his subjects.
(1981: 271)
The right to an adequate supply of nutritious food is, therefore, not only indispensable for the realization of human rights, but it is also inseparable from social justice as an equitable vision of society. This is a society in which every member is given access to the necessary resources to allow full participation in all aspects of communal life. As suggested by Allen in Mining for Justice in the Food System, “no other public issue is as accessible to people in their daily lives as that of food justice. Everyone—regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or social class—eats. We are all involved and we are all implicated” (2008: 159).
Although access to healthy food is not perfectly correlated with public health outcomes, those with limited access to nutritional foods often suffer most acutely, because individuals who live in areas with access to a retailer selling fresh fruit and vegetables tend to be less obese than those who live in a ‘food desert’ (Shaw, 2014: 28). Healthy food access has also been associated with less obvious social benefits, as diverse as improved educational performance and crime reduction. Consequently, to promote a more favourable attitude towards the consumption of healthy food, there has been a series of public information campaigns in the UK aimed at encouraging the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables. Initiatives, such as ‘5 a Day’ and Change4Life, a social media campaign launched by the Department of Health in 2009, were initially popular; however, it was suggested that the long-term effects on behaviour or attitudes towards a healthy diet were limited (Croker et al, 2012: 404). One of the biggest food system challenges currently in the UK is the proliferation of fast food outlets, as their meals are typically higher in salt, sugar and saturated fats. A recent report by Public Health England found that England’s most deprived areas are also fast food hotspots, with five times more outlets found in these communities than in the most affluent (PHE, 2018). The data indicated that chip shops, burger bars and pizza places account for more than a quarter (26%) of all eateries in England, excluding Indian and Chinese takeaways and kebab shops. In recognition of the scale of the problem and the extent to which the local environment has a major impact on individual behaviour (in that streets heaving with fast food retailers can influence our food choices), some local authorities have produced planning policies which aim to restrict the growth of new takeaways and fast food outlets. These local plans have focused on issues such as the proximity to locations where children and young people congregate such as schools, community centres and playgrounds, and restricting new outlets where there is already an over-concentration and clustering within a particular area. The role that schools can play in promoting healthy food is further explored in Chapter 7.
Although these government-backed initiatives by local planning authorities are useful, it is suggested that they fall short of adequately addressing the wider challenges posed by obesogenic environments. For example, a set of contingent relationships—between particular individuals, food, culture and urban space—create communities with specific characteristics and constitute our foodscapes. However, the “relational constructedness of things” is often ignored or not fully appreciated by policy makers (Massey, 2005: 10). Rather than address the phenomena of food deserts and their consequences, such as obesity, as societal problems—necessitating a holistic and collective approach involving producers, retailers, marketers and law and policy makers—public health promotion pedagogies and strategies tend to hold the individual responsible. In which case, and notwithstanding socio-economic factors which inhibit access to healthy food, individuals are urged to monitor, manage and control their own bodies, and are held accountable for making the ‘right’ decisions to ensure their future health. The corollary of this approach is that people are complicit in perpetuating their own misery and ill health due to making poor lifestyle choices.
Such reasoning ignores the influence of, for example, ‘adaptive preferentism’, whereby poverty and adverse social circumstances tend to distort one’s preferences, and so undermine the impetus for projects intended to maximize their health and well-being. For Bartky, adaptation is subtle and outside the control or awareness of the individual; it leads to ‘deformed desires’ which
fasten us to the established order of domination, for the same system which produces false needs also controls the conditions under which such needs can be satisfied. ‘False needs’, it might be ventured, are produced through indoctrination, psychological manipulation, and the denial of autonomy; they are needs whose possession and satisfaction benefit not the subject who has them but a social order whose interest lies in domination.
(1990: 42)
Whilst the politics of social hierarchy and inequality may cause individuals to conform to particular norms, beliefs or options which are presented as being the only ones available to them, adapting to their predicament does not preclude taking advantage of an opportunity to strive for change. That is to say, there is no reason to believe that individuals who have adapted to reduced circumstances would not be amenable to improving their life choices, should such alternatives be available to them. After all, they are still suffering the ill effects of deprived conditions, but as rational decision makers have chosen to cope to the best of their ability and derive what limited advantage they can from a bad situation. A just institution would recognize and address the need to reduce or remove any barriers to a nutritious diet and healthy lifestyle, by first acknowledging the material conditions which prevent access.
Government initiatives, such as the Department of Health’s 2009 Change4Life campaign, often focus on ‘improving family health’, which invariably means the responsibility for effecting change is placed on the shoulders of women, as occupiers of the traditional caring role in the home. This gendered approach aligns with food marketing in advertisements which commonly depict women as the chief food providers regardless of an increase in single father households, due to inter alia increasing numbers of women entering the workforce. So although women are often pressured into taking control of the family diet, as well as dealing with other often onerous family normative burdens, in fact children are increasingly likely to be cared for by someone other than their mother. Such behavioural beliefs also appeal to a model of responsibility which is bound to a particular conception of moral agency, in which individuals are implicated in their actions according to “a linear chain of relations between free will, knowledge, voluntary action, causality, responsibility and blame” (Barnett et al, 2005: 25). Consequently, in modern popular and legal discourse, the caregiving relationship is continually associated with physical proximity, which focuses on the “relations of responsibility that exist between actors, rather than the [nature and form of the] responsibility that is placed upon them” (Colls & Evans, 2008: 628).
In addition to applying a particular cultural conception of a woman’s role in the household, class is another significant factor. The UK Department of Health’s Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: Consumer Insight Summary, on which Change4Life was based, stated that families defined as having low socio-economic status considered poor diet and low physical activity levels to be a low priority, if not unimportant (Department of Health, 2008: 11). The report continued:
Adopting a healthy lifestyle was seen as hard work, stressful and unrealistic. It was also strongly linked to ‘middle class’ values and activities—yoga classes, gym membership, buying organic food. Many priority cluster families saw healthy living as the preserve of stay-at-home mums who can afford not to work and instead spend their time exercising and shopping for, and cooking, healthy meals.
(DH, 2008: 12)
Yet, in common with Michelle Obama’s 2010 US Internet-based Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity, structural inequalities were disregarded, and mothers were held to be solely responsible for their family’s unhealthy diet and ill health. The campaign comprised a typical neo-liberal discourse which conformed to the cultural notion of the ‘good mother’ and appealed to a class, race, able-bodied and gender biased ideal of citizenship. Working-class women, and particularly mothers, were characterized as both the problem and the solution, letting them shoulder the blame for the nutritional poverty and obesity of their own families, and for societal health in general. For example, in the Department of Health’s Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: Consumer Insight Summary, under the heading “Promoting Healthier Food Choices: making cooking fun”, mothers and children were encouraged to “learn to cook together in cooking clubs” by “using school recipe books comprising recipes created by other mothers” (Department of Health, 2008: 54). Both Let’s Move! and Change4Life aspired to reconfigure familial relations to fit an idealized standard with middle-class overtones, whilst at the same time concealing this objective.
Such campaigns assume a relatively privileged population of educated and reasonably healthy citizens who are more likely to be already participating fully in society, yet people who are classified as living in poverty are often described as being undernourished or malnourished, uneducated, lacking in basic life skills, suffering various levels of deprivation and are generally excluded from social life. In addition, our relationship to food, knowledge of nutrition and mastery of culinary skills is complex, and determined by a range of factors. As 13th-century Persian poet Rumi observed, “The satiated man and the hungry man do not see the same thing when they look upon a loaf of bread”, paraphrased in the 1920’s prohibition era by American gangster and businessman Al Capone, “When I sell liquor, it’s called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it’s called hospitality”. Research into the psychology of food and food cultures has demonstrated the profoundly relative nature of how everyone thinks about food and eating (Shaw, 2014: 42–5). By assuming what amounts to a general, and ultimately untenable, ideal for those families who are likely to need the greatest help in accessing healthy food (and in implementing a healthy diet and regular exercise regime), both campaigns functioned to further marginalize the most disadvantaged members of society.
In modern times, human beings no longer gather their own food or kill what they eat; rather, they survive on a diet of processed food such as ready meals, particularly those of the meat variety, fatty fast food and salty snacks (Shaw, 2017: 210–2). So it is hardly surprising that children and many adults are ignorant as to where their food originates or how it is produced, let alone which foods are more nutritious than others. A recent UK poll of 27,500 school children, cited in The Consuming Geographies of Food, found that “one in ten thought tomatoes grew underground … one in three believed cheese grew on plants, and … one in five children had never visited a farm” (Shaw, 2014: 127). A further point is that since the costs of a food-literate citizenry would almost certainly be prohibitive in terms of having to adhere to a broader set of ethical standards, the prevailing ignorance is useful, if not essential, to the food retail industry, which makes more profit from processed foods than from raw fruit and vegetables.
Social class is, for many sociologists, fundamental to the cultural context within which food practices, rituals, routines and preferences are created. Food not only shapes individual and collective identities but also functions as a medium for the reproduction of class and gender habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). The still widely held perception of a typical—relatively affluent, educated and middle-class—household, with the central figure of a ‘good mother’ as the facilitator of a healthy lifestyle and wholesome diet for her family, is therefore dangerous. It ignores gross social inequalities in life opportunities and the relative capacities of disadvantaged groups to engage in healthy food practices of their choice, and so militates against the ideals of social justice. The deprived and impoverished are often considered to be not doing enough to lift themselves out of poverty. Perceived as disreputable and unworthy, they are not only often blamed and shamed but also frequently blame themselves for their ‘moral and personal failure’, in the belief that they ‘count for nothing’ (Shildrick & MacDonald, 2013: 293; Lister, 2015: 139). However, the more pertinent question arises in relation to the nature of such otherwise affluent societies, whose economic and political systems are responsible for perpetuating so much poverty. The great disparity between the richest and poorest, for example, is understood by many to be a moral problem, if not a moral crisis, for society as a whole. If it is accepted that food is more than a commodity and is a fundamental condition of human flourishing, then a social contract in relation to healthy food rightfully encompasses and requires an enhanced collection of interdependencies. This would rightly appeal to an ideal of social justice which is grounded in a pluralist conception of well-being to be enjoyed by every individual within multiple domains of life.
The current crises of obesity, malnutrition and food poverty are all issues which relate to public policy and social justice, but it is suggested that they would also benefit from being contextualized within a philosophical framework. This is not least of all because many philosophers have explored the notions of equality, fairness and justice, and have attempted to set out what constitutes a good life, and much has been written on the ideal conditions for human flourishing or eudaimonia. Although food ethics as a specific concern of social justice has been given little attention by classical philosophers, Plato, Epicurus and the Stoics all recommended a good diet as necessary for well-being and intellectual activity, and Voltaire and Hume both refer to the sociality of good food. Later work related a lack of food to revolution, for example, the “golden age of English food riots” (1740–1801) began when grain prices doubled or tripled which led to more than 600 food riots across England and Wales (Bohstedt, 2010). For Marx, capitalism could be defined by contrasting agrarian life with industrialization. In each case, it is clear that food plays a constitutive role in social, cultural and political life.
Recognizing the utility of alternative approaches to the prevalent neoliberal trajectory (that asserts a successful and just society can be achieved through the free market with little or no state intervention), recent research has applied a diverse range of philosophical and moral theoretical frameworks to difficult modern social issues, such as the increasing levels of homelessness (Watts, 2014) and healthcare (Daniels, 2001; Cruickshank, 2012). In support of such alternatives to existing ‘considered judgements’, Nussbaum argued that “without an account of the good, however vague, that we can take to be shared, we have no adequate basis for saying what is missing from the lives of the poor or marginalised, or excluded” (1992: 229). Furthermore, the possibility of informed critique is diminished when there is no adequate means by which to justify or interrogate the claim that a particular embedded practice or policy is unjust. Consequently, theoretical applications have produced a deeper understanding of, for example, the redistributive obligations that exist between various actors. They have also helped to elucidate a more holistic framework for addressing current policy gaps and for use in mapping the necessary conditions for promoting a healthy diet and access to fresh fruit and vegetables for all, as primary social goods.
John Rawls was arguably one of the most influential 20th-century thinkers in the fields of ethics, political philosophy and the philosophy of law. In the landmark 1971A Theory of Justice, he presents what is one of the most comprehensive normative egalitarian arguments, setting out why it is important to care about poverty and social justice. He advanced a classical liberal position and resource-oriented account of well-being and justice, which went beyond the fair distribution of material resources to include a wider set of primary social goods to which all individuals were entitled. The primary goods comprised basic rights and liberties, freedom of movement and freedom of choice between a wide range of occupations and access to positions of influence and responsibility, including wealth and income. Although such resources were not considered to be ends in themselves and only means, Rawls conception of a just society requires that all individuals start out with equal access to this set of primary goods. Having the resources for sustaining a good standard of healthcare and access to a regular supply of nutritional food, for example, is the basis for ‘normal functioning’, which, in turn, renders life-enhancing opportunities available to everyone (Daniels, 2001: 2).
These flexible, multi-purpose primary goods, consisting of basic rights, liberties and opportunities, wealth and income, were augmented by the incorporation of a set of social goods comprising ‘the social bases of self-respect’. For Rawls, the importance of self-respect underpinned his idea that a person has an inherent dignity, and intrinsic value, that basic institutional structures should not be allowed to violate, because
the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation. By major institutions I understand the political constitution and the principal economic and social arrangements. Thus the legal protection of freedom of thought and liberty of conscience, competitive markets, and private property in the means of production … are examples of major social institutions.
(1971: 7)
Since the basic structure of society is considered to be ‘institutional’, all major political and social institutions would be held responsible for maintaining a nurturing social environment, within which all citizens would have a sense of self-worth and the confidence to carry out their life plans (Rawls, 2001: 58–9). This would require designing institutions in such a way that they were able to address ‘deep inequalities’, rather than only shallow inequalities such as those relating to individual actions and choices. It would also mean devising strategies to meet basic social inequalities, such as those relating to health and nutrition, especially when all such competing needs cannot be met.
Rawls’ ground-breaking insight was that the construction of a just society ought to be accomplished without regard to what socio-economic position individuals would occupy within it. Consequently, fundamental structural inequalities such as being born into a less advantageous social position, with compromised and unequal life chances, would not be allowed to inhibit or determine an individual’s future life prospects. Behind what he termed the ‘veil of ignorance’, policy makers would not know (or would bracket out their knowledge of) what position they occupied in the social hierarchy and would, rather, seek to choose to develop a society in which each citizen enjoyed a complete set of basic economic rights and benefits (1971: 5). Furthermore, justice requires social collaboration amongst ‘equals’ for their mutual advantage, and for Rawls, this could be realized by increasing the levels of participation of those most affected by poverty in the political processes of decision making, on issues which have a fundamental impact on their life conditions (Rawls, 1971: 14).
As moral agents, for Rawls, all citizens are rendered indistinguishable from one another, and each person must have the capacity to determine “how they are to regulate their claims against one another and what is to be the foundation charter of their society” (Rawls, 1971: 11). This also means, although there is a variety of variables to be completed, taking a broad view of Rawls account of ‘fair equality of opportunity’, “those with similar abilities should have similar life chances” (Rawls, 1971: 63). ‘Similar’ would be best translated as ‘approximate’, because there are elements of well-being (such as happiness and knowledge) which individuals can acquire without depriving others of the same. Realizing the fair equality of opportunity account does not, therefore, necessitate the levelling down of all differences between individuals within the context of each exercisable opportunity they may have in life. Rather, “opportunity is equal for the purposes of the account when certain impediments to opportunity are eliminated for all persons” (Daniels, 2008: 60). So, in cases where individuals have particular skills but their prospects are threatened by, for example, an inferior, or lack of, education, institutional involvement to help advance their prospects would not only be justified but also necessary. Poor health and nutritional poverty would also be possible sources of inequality of opportunity according to the Rawlsian model. Consequently maximizing the possibility of human flourishing or simply ‘normal functioning’ entails an intention to remove significant obstacles to personal progress, as an appropriate aim and obligation of social justice and a just society.
In a less than perfect world, Rawls ideal theory assumes a reasonable level of social benefits for all—aiming to ensure fair equality of opportunity and the fair distribution of social goods—so that every individual has both the necessary freedom and resources to enable them to pursue their personal idea of the good life. This means nobody should suffer from deprivation, such as hunger and malnutrition, which may impair their capacity for moral reasoning. Rawls called for a radical rethinking of the collective mythology in some societies which adheres to the notion of self-reliance; for instance, the perceived divide between good citizens who work and pay their taxes versus socially undesirable dependents who rely on charity and state handouts. This myth disregards the reality that human beings are vulnerable to illness, injury and disability; it also ignores the effect on people of their environment. Accordingly, he rejected the classical utilitarian account, which ignores the needs of ‘minority’ groups for the sake of ‘maximising utility’ for the majority and undervalues the unequal distribution of benefits and burdens in society. Rather, he preferred Immanuel Kant’s categorical moral imperative to treat people as ends in themselves and not merely as a means to collective ends on the basis that
[e]ach person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason, justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many.
(1971: 3)
For Rawls, simply because an individual was born into a rich family, for instance, does not in itself provide any justification for that person to be treated favourably by social institutions. So-called accidents of birth, ethnicity, sex, or having particular talents and abilities are considered to be morally arbitrary characteristics, in that there is no special entitlement to societal goods and privileges because of them. Rather, Rawls focusses on the poorest members of society in the belief that freedom from poverty, as a baseline, is necessary to enable each person without exception to have the capacity for self-determination. Within his conception, individuals should be allowed to compete for influence, wealth and other goods only when competition takes place in the context of fair conditions, because the prevalence of unfair conditions permits vast accumulations of wealth and power to be concentrated in the hands of the few. To this end, his ‘difference principle’ requires that social and economic inequalities be reconfigured to provide the greatest benefit for the least advantaged, so that “the least favoured person can be identified and his rational preference determined” (Rawls, 1971: 77). The ‘least favoured person’ at the heart of Rawls ‘difference principle’ refers to a class, rather than an individual, which means that absolute priority to the interests of the least advantaged is given only in situations where their collective shared interests are in conflict with those of the rest of the population. Although a definition of the most deprived members of the population is not provided, it seems clear that Rawls envisioned this group to be sizeable, perhaps comprising up to one-third of the population.
Rawls distributive theory of justice has been accused of being incomplete or overly simplistic, for example, in failing to allocate appropriate weighting to different primary social goods; although, he resolves this latter issue by referring to a broadly measurable ‘core’ of primary goods (1971: 93). He asserted that income and wealth were already sufficiently correlated with primary goods as ‘impersonal’ social goods—alongside the more ‘personal’ civil rights, political rights and liberties—and thus able to realize and maximize a specific welfare function. Importantly, his account of primary goods originates from the conception of the citizen as free and equal, reasonable and rational. Primary goods were considered to be essential for developing and exercising the two moral powers—“a capacity for a sense of justice and a conception of the good”—and for pursuing a wide range of specific and individual conceptions of the good life.
Notwithstanding his critics, from a seemingly impossible position of irreconcilable divisions, Rawls work imaginatively explores the possibility of public consensus and universality, by first questioning what is social unity, whether a just and stable society is a credible aim in our diverse and homogenous modern environment, and, finally, he explicates the conditions under which social unity may be realizable. Moreover, his recommendations for socio-economic affirmative action, in addressing the issues of fair equality of opportunity, resource maximization and the eradication of involuntary disadvantage, are still relevant to today’s society, where an increasing number of citizens live in nutritional poverty with a lack of adequate institutional intervention. This current state of affairs goes against one of the main ideas behind Rawls conception of justice, which is good governance by a properly administered community—within which each member enjoys meaningful autonomy in developing their institutions and, in turn, this endorses the manner in which these institutions influence them. In this way, the reciprocal influence of society and individuals enables the social institution to function as a self-sustaining system. A Rawlsian conception of a well-ordered and just society, therefore, requires that all “its major institutions are arranged so as to achieve the greatest net balance in satisfaction summed over all individuals belonging to it” (1971: 22).
Even if, in the modern globalized world, the economic prospects of individuals cannot be tied solely to their institutions or to the productivity and co-operative abilities of societal members, in A Theory of Justice, John Rawls demonstrates that an egalitarian understanding of liberal democracy—whose actual expression we can already see in the world to some extent—can be internally consistent. It is suggested that his approach to justice can be used to create new ways of thinking about the development and impact of modern food policy in relation to food poverty and the food retail environment. A Rawlsian account of corporate governance, for example, would not confer a position of privilege and dominance on shareholders vis-à-vis other actors who also share an interest in an organization’s activities. Consequently, the fight for social justice for people living in poverty, without access to life-sustaining affordable and healthy food, could not be waged without their active involvement. It would be ineffective, just as recent policy initiatives have failed, due largely to the poverty debate being framed by politicians and the media. Even the World Bank has conceded that “the poor are the main actors in the fight against poverty” (2001: 12). Rather, the success and very existence of the company would be dependent on serving the interests of multiple stakeholders. In the form of a combination of general laws and modified legal principles, hard and soft regulation, CSR initiatives, and those of other actors such as NGOs, academics and social scientists, all subjects would be entitled to the same level of consideration and be capable of receiving the same level of rights. Furthermore, all companies would be held accountable to a set of duties and obligations that extended their scope of responsibility, to embrace a wider set of stakeholders and their interests. The scope and necessity for involvement of multiple agencies and stakeholders—especially NGOs and the media—in improving the food system, is explored in the concluding chapter, Chapter 8, of this book.
In the wake of large corporate takeovers and mergers (such as Asda UK and Sainsbury’s), and as the reach and influence of multinational enterprises grows, there are increasing calls for corporations to be more transparent and assume more responsibility for the wider impact of their activities. Despite a recent push to ‘harden’ formerly self-driven ‘soft laws’, however, there is still no consensus as to the basic definition of social responsibility in relation to companies (Berger-Walliser & Scott, 2018: 170). Soft law mechanisms are attractive because of their flexibility, and CSR—as a kind of corporate soft law—appeals to private corporate actors for that reason, and because of its voluntary and non-enforceable nature. The perceptions and attitudes of CEOs to CSR also vary, depending on a large number of quantitative and qualitative factors; for example, the organizational context and form, and how contextual conditions and motivations influence the company’s adoption of, and the extent of their engagement with, CSR initiatives. More often than not, CSR tends to be viewed as either a philanthropic gesture that has ethical and normative dimensions or a business strategy that has an instrumental dimension (Porter & Kramer, 2006). This ad hoc approach means it is often difficult to understand the specific underlying processes and conditions under which corporations are able to deliver sustainable outcomes for health, society and the planet.
A variety of sustainability-related accounting models—such as the well-known, triple-bottom-line philosophy of economic, social and environmental performance (Elkington, 1997), further finessed as the ‘4 Ps’, profit, people, planet and provisions (see Chapter 1)—have been suggested as useful yardsticks. However, the disparities in how CSR is defined and measured often go beyond semantics to deeper construct-level differences, ranging from philanthropy to ethics, to health and safety issues, to more composite measures assessed by external rating agencies (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012: 942). What is significant is that the choice of priorities, privileges and appropriate implementation of any guidelines and directives is determined by the company, which can decide how to evaluate the conditions, and whether to devise incentives for compliance and determine a set of punishments for non-compliance. However, to allow corporations to consider CSR as simply another means of value creation ultimately undermines its impact and efficacy. Importantly, in the absence of hard law or statutory regulation, the activities of socially responsible businesses can make the difference between a thriving and healthy community and one dogged by ill health and poor life chances. For that reason, there is a strong public interest in the establishment of particular standards and initiatives, also in the continuing promotion and support of those norms which have already been agreed upon.
The widening gap between shareholder primacy and stakeholder theory is illustrated in a recent report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation entitled Poverty in Wales, which shows that, in the UK, Wales has a higher rate of poverty than England, Scotland and Northern Ireland (Barnard, 2018). There is a healthy-life expectancy gap of around 15 years amongst those who live in the most deprived parts of Wales, such the Valleys, compared to those in far less deprived parts, such as rural Monmouthshire, just a few kilometres away from Valleys towns like Ebbw Vale and Merthyr Tydfil. At the GCSE level in Wales, there is also a substantial attainment gap between those who are eligible for free school meals and those who are not, meaning the former are less likely to achieve five or more good grades (Barnard, 2018: 26–7, 32). Consequently, the schoolchildren who rely on free meals have a greater likelihood of long-term unemployment and an inability to avoid poverty in adulthood. Although the Welsh government has introduced the Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Act 2018 to protect existing social housing stock, the current shortage of affordable and good-quality homes with ease of access to local affordable healthy food retail outlets by low-income households continues to exacerbate the detrimental effects of nutritional poverty and food insecurity more generally.
In some of the UK’s biggest cities, developers are planning huge new residential developments which contain little or no affordable housing. London councils, for example, have granted property developers planning permission to build in excess of 26,000 luxury apartments, priced at more than £1 million each, despite fears that there are already too many half-empty investment properties, or so-called posh ghost towers, in the capital (Neate, 2018: 3). Planning documents show that in Manchester, none of the 15,517 homes granted planning permission by the council’s planning committee in the last two years are set to be affordable, which contravenes the council’s own rules and policies. Some of these enormous new developments comprise in excess of 1,000 apartments, containing swimming pools, tennis courts, cinemas, gyms and concierge facilities. Of a further 19 developments comprising 850 homes granted planning permission by Manchester Council, only 136 will be allocated as social housing. In Sheffield, only 97 homes out of 6,943 (1.4%) approved by planners in 2016 and 2017 met the UK government’s affordable definition, and in Nottingham, where the council has pledged that 20% of all new housing will be affordable, only 3.8% of units approved by council planners met this definition (Pidd, 2018: 15). Many of these new developments will be built in city centres, with the danger that only those on high salaries will be able to afford to live near the myriad amenities and enjoy all the advantages of city centre living, leading critics to accuse council planners of social cleansing. The UK’s supermarkets are also starting to build housing above their sites (Chapter 3). Although some of this provision is ‘social’ or ‘affordable’, many of these units are more likely to be luxury-end apartments, with facilities aimed at the wealthier buyer.
The boom in developments of luxury apartments is taking place as the UK’s cities face a growing crisis in the availability of affordable housing. A process of redevelopment and revitalization means low-income residents are being replaced by high-income dwellers, thereby transforming the character of many neighbourhoods. Often displaced to the peripheries, poorer residents from the city centres are shunted into cheaper areas further from the metropolis. In turn, the buying power of the new residents of these revitalized and gentrified neighbourhoods attracts a new and different selection of retailers in the commercial corridors; for example, the high-quality supermarket chain Waitrose is found in wealthier areas in the UK, and Macknade Fine Foods caters to the residents of affluent Faversham in Kent. The increased housing and tax revenues, changing community institutions and modified cultural composition lead to a variety of supermarkets, independent shops, fresh food retailers, delicatessens and branded chain stores, creating new and exclusive spaces. Rather than alleviating poverty, the displacement and relocation of low-income, long-term residents inevitably leads to the polarization of the urban environment and only serves to highlight the socio-economic gap between the rich and poor. The new neighbourhoods of the latter group are more often characterized by a glut of fast food outlets, charity shops, betting shops and a lack of retail outlets offering healthy, fresh and affordable food choices.
In the final parts of A Theory of Justice, Rawls emphasises the importance of human dignity and respect: the idea that a person has dignity and intrinsic value that social structures should not be allowed to violate. Clearly, whilst the mainstream CSR movement has promoted extra-legal strategies ostensibly in the public interest—for example, by accepting external monitoring and committing to socially responsible investing policies—these often have a limited impact. This is because CSR tends to be conceptualized as a type of self-government which co-exists alongside the public system of governance but without any clear strategic relationship. If it can be agreed that corporate directors ought to give priority to serving the interests of non-shareholders and society in general, as well as aiming to maximize shareholder value, the basis for such a shift of priorities may appropriately be based on a more philosophical school of thought. Otherwise, if businesses lack accountability and the capacity to address matters beyond bare economic interests, this has an obvious impact on important societal matters such as public health.
Making the collective good a legitimate aim of business not only entails companies voluntarily assuming an albeit market-embedded moral responsibility for the flourishing of society in general, but may also require the imposition of certain legal duties. Accordingly, the scope of responsibility for the consequences of an unhealthy diet extends beyond the individual to global corporations, the government, local authorities, food producers, food marketers, the mass media and food retailers. In determining a collective approach to the problem of healthy food access, it is suggested that a new set of ethical priorities be formulated, underpinned by an appropriate regulatory framework, which would impose a series of formal duties and obligations by extending existing public and private law principles. To this end, the following section considers the possibility and configuration of such a legal framework, which would be capable of providing the basis for corporations to maximize the likelihood of their businesses serving, broadly defined, the collective interest.
For each citizen, proper nutrition is vital for optimal development, physical growth, general health and a feeling of well-being, as well as playing an important role in reducing the risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. With full health, their life chances and opportunities for human flourishing are maximized. For the state, an inability to access healthy food adversely impacts on worker productivity, educational achievement, infant mortality and a country’s national income. In which case, ethical and impartial social policies that most closely align with a model of the just society and promotion of the common good have many benefits and advantages for all actors. Yet the separation between markets and politics has produced a fragmented approach to primary social goods, which aligns with Freidman’s maxim that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits” rather than engage in activities to increase social welfare (1970: 122). So whilst governments administer public policy, corporations are encouraged to undertake social duties on a voluntary basis, which may or may not complement governmental acts by filling institutional and legal voids, which constitutes a “dichotomous view of CSR and government” (Moon & Vogel, 2008: 304).
In both historical and relative terms, governments have always been able to exert some level of influence on CSR activities, by, for example, incentivizing companies to promote particular training and employment policies through the allocation of funds, or by threatening to impose an alternative legislative measure on their industries. However, as corporations have grown and become global, or at least transnational, individual states no longer have the power to regulate them across all their activities. It has also been argued that the proliferation of CSR box-ticking exercises has assisted corporations in claiming liberal credentials whilst effectively concealing the exploitative behaviour at the core of many of their activities. This contention underpins recent claims that CSR is a myth (Doane, 2005: Shaw, 2019) in as much as the central concept of the ‘corporate conscience’ or, more commonly, the caring ‘corporate citizen’, is flawed; yet people are persuaded by the promises given in the narratives of CSR statements of vision, mission and values. Even though companies possess many of the same rights and duties as individuals, to paraphrase 18th-century poet and Lord Chancellor Edward, First Baron Thurlow, the non-natural corporation has neither “a body to be kicked nor a soul to be damned”. In The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the legal ‘personhood’ of the corporation was interrogated, asking, “What kind of a person is this?” (Bakan, 2005). In his book, and the accompanying documentary, Bakan concluded that the average corporation was greedy, devious, arrogant, self-serving and, most of all, psychopathic.
The problem with assuming corporate institutions can “do well while at the same time doing good” is that this is not the way in which markets operate. In reality, most CSR initiatives promoted by large corporations are actually attempts to legitimize their power and increase their profit margin. For instance, the growing consumer demand for ecological or ‘green’ goods and vegan and vegetarian meal options in the UK allows corporations to sell such products and business practices as socially responsible when in fact they are simply looking to capture a larger segment of the conscientious consumer market. Even when the intention seems laudable, a corporation often lacks an overview of the bigger picture, being invested in its own sphere of business activity narrowly conceived. For example, McDonald’s decided to sell apples—‘Apple Dippers’, accompanied by a packet of sugary caramel dipping sauce with each portion—in its US outlets to address the challenge of increasing levels of obesity; however, the company’s drive for economies of scale, uniformity and the guarantee of continued supply resulted in a loss of biodiversity in apple production, as they favoured only the ‘Cameo’ variety (Younge, 2005: 15). This, and other well-documented CSR failures, indicates that an ethical and environmentally sustainable basis for developing fair and just food policies which encompass the entire food supply chain is arguably best achieved through a genuinely democratic process, which reaches beyond the often-misleading CSR rhetoric to encompass a wider range of stakeholders.
In The Devil’s Dictionary, a corporation is described as “an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility”, and responsibility is “a detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, fate, fortune, luck or one’s neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it on a star” (Bierce, 1911). Providing the conditions for promoting trade and retailing policies and practices that serve people and their right to safe, healthy, ecologically sustainable and affordable food cannot be left solely to the corporation. Furthermore, having CSR ‘stand in for law’ undermines democratic accountability and is no substitute for the assumption of control by a responsible government over the proper function of economies and institutions through which essential goods and services are delivered and social needs are met. Whilst the CSR movement has achieved some success in advancing environmental and social practices—for example, restricting the use of plastic packaging, reducing food waste and supporting local charities, such as food banks—it is argued that there are limits to improving corporate conduct without the intervention of more extensive and effective government regulation.
There is clearly scope for markets to generate some social and environmental benefits through CSR measures, but the market alone is unlikely to achieve the kind of progressive outcomes which are necessary for human flourishing. There are, however, various advantages to regulation, for example, certainty, predictability and, in many cases, innovation—due to allocating resources to speculative research and development in pursuit of long-term goals—beyond the profit motive. Traditional regulatory models would also impose mandatory rules, along with punishments, to ensure that the company acts in a socially responsible manner. As philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr suggested, “All social co-operation on a scale larger than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. While no state can maintain its unity purely by coercion, neither can it preserve itself without coercion” (1961: 3). Although forcefully resisted by business, social and environmental progress may be more readily achieved through direct regulation rather than relying on the free market to implement policies which have little obvious financial return. One such area is health and safety in relation to food provisions.
It is now mandatory for nutrition information to be declared on pre-packed food to comply with the European Food Information to Consumers Regulation No 1169/2011 (FIC) and the Food Information Regulations 2014 (FIR). Their requirements are binding on food business operators (FBOs) at all stages of the supply chain, where their activities relate to the provision of food information to consumers. The aim of the new rules is to “serve the interests of the internal market by simplifying the law, ensuring legal certainty and reducing [the] administrative burden, and benefit citizens by requiring clear, comprehensible and legible labelling of foods” (FIR: Recital 9). Local authorities must enforce these regulations across the UK. In the case of infringement, an ‘improvement notice’ will be served in the first instance, noting the areas of ‘non-compliance’, and it may be necessary to remove products from sale until the terms of the notice have been satisfied. Failure to comply with an improvement notice constitutes a criminal offence, and an FBO found guilty of an offence under the FIR will be liable to a substantial fine under Section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012. The comprehensive nature of the legislation and uniformity of application renders it more useful, and successful, than any previous soft law initiative in this area, such as the 2006 ‘Guideline Daily Amount’ (GDA, now Reference Intakes) scheme, or ‘traffic light labelling’, which was introduced by the UK government as a voluntary scheme in 2013. The current legislation also means food labels are now much clearer for consumers, with improved nutritional and allergen information. However, considerable difficulties yet remain in relation to implementing a fully informative and accurate system of food labelling, as discussed in Chapter 5.
In the context of various emergent environmental and social challenges— affecting both the natural world and built environment—such as climate change and feeding a growing world population, the relationship between, for instance, the major investors, producers, retailers and regulators is becoming more complicated. Consequently, more research is being undertaken on the broader social effects of, in particular, privately owned assets which impact on essential networks and infrastructures, with a particular focus on the legal structure and obligations of the corporation as a major infrastructure provider. According to US author and former Harvard Business School professor David Korten, companies which serve a well-defined public purpose must be subject to strict rules of public accountability; there is no legitimate reason to give “a group of private investors a legally protected right to aggregate and concentrate virtually unlimited economic power under unified management, to pursue a narrow private interest without regard to broader social and environmental consequences”. He concludes that “the private-benefit corporation is an institutional anomaly, a creation of monarchy that properly shares monarchy’s historic fate” (2015: 26).
Although the current position in Western legal systems is that companies have a primary ‘duty of care’ to their shareholders, which means profit maximization is the norm, social enterprises such as ‘fair trade’ companies have chosen to operate according to a social benefit model. Learning from their successes, new institutional models have been suggested which move social purpose from the periphery to the heart of the company’s operations. The international, multi-stakeholder initiative Corporation 20/20 (Raskin, 2018) is one such model and is based on the following principles:
Launched in 2013, this initiative enshrines social responsibility from the founding of a company, with the aim of motivating the types of enterprises that might be better able to respond to societal challenges, such as food insecurity, nutritional poverty, climate change or protecting biodiversity. Whilst the proposal was well-received and garnered positive publicity, some years later, it remains to be enacted into law. Similar proposals have been put forward by the coalition on corporate accountability (CORE), in relation to the UK. They aim to hold corporations to account by “promoting a stronger regulatory framework, higher standards of conduct, compliance with the law, and improved access to remedy for those harmed by the activities of companies” (CORE, 2018). The coalition recently attempted to influence the scope of the updated Criminal Finances Act 2017, by calling for the introduction of a general offence of “corporate failure to prevent economic crime”, which would require companies to prove they have the correct preventative procedures in place. Although this additional measure was rejected, an amendment to expand provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to those companies complicit in human rights abuses was successful.
All such approaches have in common the desire to hold company directors responsible for a legally sanctioned and comprehensive duty of care, which would extend beyond their obligations to shareholders to other stakeholders. They would be required to identify and take into account the circumstances of this wider group and act in a way that mitigates any destructive effects of their activities on individuals and communities that may be considered likely to be negatively impacted. A duty to report, by providing a public account of the corporation’s activities and the consequences of its actions at regular intervals, would act as an aide-mémoire and may help to avoid the violation of an implied social contract. In short, if CSR and corporate governance are to combat the effects of social inequality and environmental degradation, then they must be more than simply a placebo which generates only a feeling of goodwill and fair outcomes.
In suggesting an alternative to hard or soft regulatory solutions in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Adam Smith argued that a feeling for justice must act as a constraint on the prioritizing of, for instance, economic activity over the welfare of individuals, maintaining that only ‘kindness or beneficence’ cannot “among equals, be extorted by force” (2002: 81). He further recommended that all judgement be preceded by self-reflection or moral-mirroring, which obliged an examination of
our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would imagine it… . It is only by consulting this judge within that we can ever make any proper comparison between our own interests and those of other people.
(Smith, 2002: 128–9)
The corollary of this standpoint is that for a corporation to exercise a genuine commitment to enhancing the development and well-being of a community—of which it is a part, in geographical, economic and/or cultural terms—its directors and managers need to want to cultivate a closeness or proximity that prioritizes mutualism, co-operation and a feeling of neighbourliness.
It is easy to forget that human actions only have meaning in the context of society, in which all members create a world of meaning. Individuals as social beings are dependent on the ideal of community, so that if actions are to have any meaning, they must be recognized by others. Since the world is shaped by everybody who lives in it, all undertakings are defined by their relationships with other projects and, therefore, the target of our ethical obligations is our neighbour—in other words, every single individual in the ‘neighbourhood’. As stated in Chapter 1, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Holy Bible begins by identifying the people who surround us as those with whom we have a necessary and mutually binding obligation of compassionate consideration: “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19: 18). The New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan extends the category of ‘neighbour’ from a particularist definition (people like us, people close to us) to a universalist reading in which, at least in theory, neighbourly consideration is deserved by, and owed to, all human beings (Luke 10: 27–37). In the later configuration, the idea of the neighbour is neither wholly universal nor specific but is framed by proximity and includes the widest group of unknown or absent others who may be rightfully considered to be within our contemplation. The concept of proximity anticipates danger or harm to another who may be adversely affected by our actions and therefore imposes a duty of care.
The recognition of others, especially the stranger or outsider, is the opposite of single-minded self-interest and separation; rather, it is to actively display care, concern and consideration. This universal extension of consideration means the particularity of each individual—his or her economic position or social status—must be abstracted in order to apply to everyone without distinction. As Kierkegaard explains, “When you open the door … and go out the very first person you meet is the neighbour whom you shall love” (1998: 50, 51). This broadened scope of personal responsibility, which for Lévinas emerges from compassion rather than calculation, is described as an ‘ethics of the Other’, which is immediate, non-reciprocal, fluid, open and infinite, and as such can never be satisfied by a lukewarm commitment to an arbitrary goal (1969: 150). Endorsement of the other is an integral part, therefore, of acknowledging the political subject because our identity depends on the recognition of others to the extent that “misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted and reduced mode of being” (Shaw & Shaw, 2015: 238). This struggle for recognition continues to be “the master principle of society” because only by being granted a name, a place and a function within a group or institution can the individual hope to escape the “contingency, finitude, and ultimate absurdity of existence” (Wacquant, 2008: 264).
In recognition of the human need for belonging, for fraternity and familiarity, the corporation cleverly avoids calling itself an institution; rather, it routinely represents itself as a person, a friend or a neighbour, as fundamentally benevolent and caring. Many CSR mission and vision statements have adopted an ersatz language of mutual support, referring to themselves as ‘families’, such as referring to Asda UK as a member of the ‘Walmart family’ (Shaw, 2008: 8). At the same time, such corporations regularly behave unethically, breaching their purported familial bonds. Situated at the opposite end of the spectrum to often arbitrary laws, rules and self-serving voluntary CSR initiatives—which frequently display indifference to the suffering of others—the demand of an alertness to the endless ‘call and command of the other’ is impossible to evade, because of their powerlessness and vulnerability (Lévinas, 1969: 89). This raises the practical question of ‘who is my neighbour’—namely, how is it possible to properly identify the class of persons towards whom a duty of care, in respect of a wider commitment to the common good of ‘the neighbourhood’, is owed?
The legal definition of one’s neighbour is set in Lord Atkin’s formulation of the ‘neighbour principle’, articulated in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 as
persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought to reasonably have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts and omissions which are called into question.
The rule which demands “you are to love your neighbour becomes in law: you must not injure your neighbour”. Whilst this seemingly lesser level of obligation imposes a negative duty of restraint and abstention from harming one’s neighbour, a positive duty is implied, on behalf of corporations providing essential goods and services, in the form of a wider moral obligation to take an active interest in their well-being in order to avoid the violation of an implied social contract. Later in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 571 Lord Macmillan made it clear that it was intended by the courts to introduce the highest standard of a duty of care:
A person who, for gain, engages in the business of manufacturing articles of food and drink intended for consumption by members of the public in the form in which he issues them is under a duty to take care in the manufacture of these articles. That duty, in my opinion, he owes to those whom he intends to consume his products. He manufactures his commodities for human consumption; he intends and contemplates that they shall be consumed. By reason of that very fact he places himself in a relationship with all the potential consumers of his commodities, and that relationship which he assumes and desires for his own ends imposes upon him a duty to take care to avoid injuring them.
Whilst the neighbour principle has been criticized for being vague, it remains the cornerstone of English tort law of negligence. Following Donoghue, an additional two-stage test was acknowledged in Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] AC 728, where it became necessary to ascertain a “sufficient relationship of proximity or neighbourhood” and whether there was ‘reasonable foreseeability’ or a lack of ‘reasonable contemplation of harm’ or ‘carelessness’ as to the likelihood of causing harm to the injured party. Just over a decade later, in Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605, a further three-stage test was proposed. It was decided that, as well as ‘proximity’ and ‘reasonable foresight of harm’, the ‘fairness, justice and reasonableness’ of the imposition of a duty of care should be considered alongside the application of the traditional neighbour principle. When determining whether a duty of care exists in a given situation, the courts can use their discretion as to whether to admit public policy considerations and drive the further evolution of the tort of negligence accordingly.
The consequence of neoliberal policies on international competition above all other considerations has permitted corporations free access to most world markets, enabling them to eliminate or take over competing businesses. The issue of unfair commercial practices and unequal bargaining power between retailers and suppliers, therefore, is an area of ongoing concern. A variety of remedial measures have been implemented, including the use of contract law, self-regulation, private standards, audits and certification schemes. Within the context of international competition law, for example, Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union creates the offence of abuse of a dominant position, yet few European countries have imposed financial penalties. As discussed in Chapter 1, in most developed countries, only a small number of supermarket chains enjoy almost complete market oligopoly. The tort law system, however, already performs a key scrutinizing role where there are, for example, significant public health risks, such as the harmful exposure to toxic substances, unsafe pharmaceuticals, vaccines and medical devices, defective consumer goods and hazardous substances, such as tobacco. By awarding substantial compensatory and punitive damages—such as in the recent US case against Monsanto in which the San Francisco jury awarded $289 million (£226 million) to former school groundsman Dewayne Johnson who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after many years of using ‘Roundup’ weed-killer—the court has the capacity to redress a wide range of different public harms (Bellon, 2018).
As discussed earlier, food policy and the supply chain is an area of growing concern in the 21st century, especially as the existing food regime appears to be undergoing a period of transition. For example, the new political economy of food—globalization, financialization and industrialization of the food system—has resulted in produce which is less food-like due to inter alia intensive growing processes, bio-engineering and genetic modification. Although such changes raise important issues relating to the health and safety of our food supply and affect everyone, higher and volatile food prices have impacted most of all on the poorest in society. With the pending merger between agrichemical conglomerates Bayer AG and Monsanto, and the rise of digital and data-based farming, it is likely that currently independent farmers will be subject to mass data collection and coerced into producing chemically sensitive monocultures to the detriment of biodiversity in the food supply chain. Together, these companies control around 80% of the global vegetable seed market, and a major concern is that the merger will also cause food prices to escalate and put small family farmers out of business.
Clearly, the largely unlimited power of large corporations to control is simultaneously the power to dissemble, reimagine and exclude (Shaw & Shaw, 2016: 38). In the UK grocery retail sector, a small group of large companies exert immense power over their supply chains, which has led to unethical terms and conditions being imposed on a weakened supply base, and subsequent claims of misuse of power. Legislation, such as the Groceries Code Adjudicator Act (GCA) 2013, has been introduced to address some of these concerns and to curb corporate behaviour which undermines upstream suppliers and acts against the long-term interests of the consumer. However, such measures are still only imposed ad hoc and in specific areas of corporate activity. Yet the broad and all-encompassing nature of the three-stage test, and associated punishments, means the ‘duty of care’ concept in tort law has the capacity to act as a powerful disincentive to companies that would disregard the wider societal consequences of their behaviour. It is suggested that it may be formally adapted as an extended, broadly conceived statutory measure (which intersects with company and international law) to support and monitor the implementation and delivery of CSR promises. In this way, it would be possible to hold private enterprises responsible across the entire range of their activities—particularly when these relate to the production of public goods such as social goods—so they can be held accountable, both legally and morally.
The alarming reality and grave conclusion, revealed by recent statistics, is that poverty and particularly food poverty—including food insecurity and nutritional poverty—is not just on the rise but, in some communities, has become the norm. In the wealthiest societies, almost half of Americans have experienced, or will experience, a prolonged period of poverty at some point in their lives. In the current climate of austerity, welfare reforms, poor employment prospects and rising food and fuel costs, the growing use of food banks by middle-class families in the UK, for example, means that charitable trusts are under increasing pressure. They are having to assist more and more people each week in response to an unprecedented upsurge in the need for emergency food aid, and as Lambie-Mumford and Dowler have pointed out, “there is no sign that increasing uptake in food aid is abating” (2014: 1422). That food poverty exists in developed nations, such as the US and the UK, has not only been a major cause for alarm, but indicates the failure of a complex interplay of social, economic, political, planning, cultural and educational influences.
The response to the urban food crisis—via ad hoc CSR initiatives, food bank collection boxes, recipe advice on healthy eating and clear labelling of high sugar and fat foods, and similar contributions by other actors from voluntary and NGOs—is often uncoordinated, limited to particular locales and time-bound. Such initiatives frequently offer merely temporary transient sticking plaster solutions and fail to address the more serious, complex, wide-reaching and systemic nature of the urban food insecurity, poor nutrition and associated ill-health problems. The enormous and multifaceted task of attempting to ameliorate the current healthy food crisis presents something of a financial hurdle in this era of globalization and centrally imposed austerity measures. It is suggested, however, that crisis situations often present the perfect opportunity to experiment with fundamentally different models in such areas as social innovation, progressive policies and public-social alliances, and should not deter the development of new partnerships and novel regulatory frameworks.
After all, access to healthy food is more than just a privilege; it is a right that ought to apply to every individual so that he or she is able to function, flourish and fully participate in all aspects of social life. In Boswell’s 1791 Life of Samuel Johnson, the famous essayist, literary historian and cultural critic is quoted as saying, “Where a great proportion of the people are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization” (Boswell, 2008: 446). In relation to urban food access and dietary requirements, neglecting the needs of disadvantaged socio-economic groups is producing a generation of people who are malnourished and food insecure. If governments are to be perceived as civilized and civilizing forces, they must take a holistic approach to addressing the underlying and systemic economic and social injustices which produce inequality, and undertake an appropriately nuanced and reflexive approach to confronting the causes of those inequalities. This requires a coordinated, determined and sustained approach which looks to reform the urban food system at the local level—in terms of accessibility, availability and affordability—and at the more complex level of interaction and collaboration with producers, suppliers, retailers and consumers.
It is not by the application of soft and hard laws, CSR initiatives or via the application of reason or abstract universal principles alone that we may respond to what Emmanuel Lévinas refers to as ‘the call of the other’; rather, the voluntary assumption of responsibility for another by an institution and its CEO and chief operating officers in respect of those interests for which they might ‘rightfully’ assume responsibility is only possible after eliciting the right motivation. Finding a solution that upholds and protects a broader set of public interests—specifically in relation to the human right to healthy food—depends upon a commitment to producing novel methodologies, ideas, carefully formulated hypotheses and, most importantly, a comprehensive and inclusive plan of action. Such theories and policies for social transformation must be both broad in scope and sufficiently detailed to be practicable. This would be achieved, in the first instance, by liaising with local communities, voluntary agencies, ‘local’ retailers and researchers—those already in close proximity to, and having a vested interest in, the most representative group of ‘neighbour’ stakeholders—in order to reveal and map the complex interrelationships between food, diet, health and their environments. Only by engaging in the widest possible participatory exercise and reflecting on the urban locale in novel, material and cultural ways is it possible to uncover new directions in understanding, framing and tackling the modern phenomena of food deserts, nutritional poverty and food injustice. The following chapters will address the performance of the major supermarkets—in the UK and elsewhere—in the specific areas of society, employment and the economy, the environment, food suppliers, the local community and consumer health.