Resisting food crime and the problem of the ‘food police’

Introduction It is no accident that many published articles about food, food processing and food distribution fail to reference the crimes and harms committed by the food industry – that is, the darker side of food (see Holtzman, 2013). Nonetheless, as this volume outlines, there are a myriad of ways in which foodstuffs and food processes are entwined with immoral, unjust, harmful and illegal (in)actions. This chapter focuses on the forms of activism and food movements that react to these crimes and harms, including retort and backlash by food corporations. The first part of the chapter conceptualises the contemporary global food system as the ‘risky food regime’ and outlines its role in the production of food crimes and harms, and the consequences on foodstuffs and consumers. Grounded in this context, the chapter then includes a sketch of how various agents and organisations respond to these problems, including how food corporations counter these food movements and food activism through specific defence strategies. The chapter closes with a discussion of how the ‘food police’ are mitigating – that is, threatening – food choice, and argues that food corporations are simultaneously (and ironically) key facilitators of food crime and the food police. A risky food regime The way humanity relates to food has shifted over time, across cultures, and continues to be a largely heterogeneous personal experience for individuals. However, many researchers analysing the structural patterns of production and consumption argue that the current food system can be broadly characterised as a corporate-industrial food regime or era. Based on the work of Friedmann and McMichael (1989), McMichael (2009) defines the contemporary food system, which originated in the 1970s and gained traction in the 1980s, as being global in scope and expressed by trends of national deregulation of production systems. Termed the ‘corporate food regime’, it is characterised by food companies and agribusinesses holding and wielding increasing power across food chains (McMichael, 2009; Clendenning et al, 2016), where ‘agrofood corporations are the major agents attempting to regulate agrofood conditions’ (Friedmann, 2003, p 52). Such corporate organisation is maintained by what Pechlaner and Otero (2010) call ‘neoregulation’, where states actively facilitate the self-regulating mechanism of the economic market, producing a ‘neoliberal food regime’ encompassing both private and public sectors. Research supports this classification, with particular attention to the increasing role of retailers.

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