Melbourne Law School - Research Publications
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ItemHow Free Is Sow Stall Free? Incremental Regulatory Reform and Industry Co-optation of Activism(WILEY, 2020-07)This article critically examines how interactions between social movement activism, supermarkets, and the pork industry led to the voluntary adoption of “sow stall free” standards in Australia. We “backwards map” the regulatory space behind “sow stall free” products to show how the movement against factory farming became selectively focused on the abolition of one form of confinement for sows rather than on other forms of confinement and the conditions of the sows’ offspring, the piglets that are consumed. We argue that this facilitated an incremental shift to “sow stall free” production, allowing the concept of pig welfare to be corporatized in a way that maintains the dominant model of factory farmed pig meat production.
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ItemOut of the Cage and into the Barn: Supermarket Power Food System Governance and the Regulation of Free Range Eggs(Griffith University Law School, 2014)The highly concentrated nature of food retailing in Australia gives supermarkets considerable control over the interface between consumers and producers. Legal and regulatory commentary debates what can and should be done about the market dimensions of supermarket power. This article shows that Australian supermarkets are amassing not only economic power but also political power in the food system. The article makes this argument by reference to two major supermarkets’ initiatives in the regulatory space around food labelling, specifically the contested meaning of free range eggs. The article examines how the supermarkets are using their market power to create private standards for suppliers of own brand products that set the meaning of ‘free range’ for consumers too. This entrenches supermarkets’ market share as well as their political power as food authorities.
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ItemFront-of-Pack Food Labeling and the Politics of Nutritional Nudges(Wiley, 2016)This paper examines the potential for new front-of-pack nutrition labelling initiatives to “nudge” consumers towards healthier food choices. The libertarian-paternalist approach to policy known as nudge initially developed by Thaler and Sunstein is discussed, with its emphasis on designing spaces (including the space of the food label) to shape the behaviour of individuals while not restricting consumer choice or imposing restrictions or penalties on producers. In the context of concerns over diet-related chronic diseases and obesity, new front-of-pack interpretive nutrition labels have been proposed or implemented in an attempt to shift consumer dietary choices, including the multiple traffic light labelling system (MTL) in the U.K. and the Health Star Rating (HSR) system in Australia. We identify some of the characteristics, the underlying nutritional philosophies and the limitations of these front-of-pack labelling schemes. We suggest that the potential of these schemes is compromised by the co-existence on the food label of many other forms of nutrition information and food marketing. Some alternative ways of labelling and communicating the nutritional quality of foods are also discussed.
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ItemCan the Hidden Hand of the Market be an Effective and Legitimate Regulator?: The Case of Animal Welfare Under a Labeling for Consumer Choice Policy Approach(Wiley, 2017)In Australia, labeling for consumer choice, rather than higher government regulation, has become an important strand of the policy approach to addressing food animal welfare. This paper illustrates the usefulness of “regulatory network analysis” to uncover the potentials and limitations of market‐based governance to address contentious yet significant issues like animal welfare. We analyzed the content of newspaper articles from major Australian newspapers and official policy documents between 1990 and 2014 to show how the regulatory network influenced the framing of the regulatory problem, and the capacity and legitimacy of different regulatory actors at three “flashpoints” of decisionmaking about layer hen welfare in egg production. We suggest that the government policy of offering consumers the choice to buy cage free in the market allowed large‐scale industry to continue the egg laying business as usual with incremental innovation and adjustment. These incremental improvements only apply to the 20 percent or so of hens producing “free‐range” eggs. We conclude with a discussion of when and how labeling for consumer choice might create markets and public discourses that make possible more effective and legitimate regulation of issues such as layer hen welfare.
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ItemCapturing the meaning of "free range": The contest between producers, supermarkets and consumers for the higher welfare egg label in Australia(PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2017-08)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.
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ItemA Public Appetite for Poultry Welfare Regulation Reform: Why Higher Welfare Labelling is not Enough(Sage Publications, 2018)This article argues that the growth of free-range labelled egg and chicken shows that the public wish to buy foods produced via higher welfare standards. It summarises the main reasons for dissatisfaction with the current regulation of animal welfare standards in Australia and shows that labelling for consumer choice is not enough to address public concerns. It critically evaluates the degree to which recently proposed new animal welfare standards and guidelines for poultry would address these problems and concludes that the new standards are not sufficient and that more responsive, effective and independent government regulation of animal welfare is required.
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ItemThe Meat in the Sandwich: Welfare Labelling and the Governance of Meat-chicken Production in Australia(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2018)This article critically examines the degree to which higher-animal welfare label claims change animal welfare regulation and governance within intense meat-chicken ('broiler') production in Australia. It argues that ethical labelling claims on food and other products can be seen as a 'governance space' in which various government, industry and civil society actors compete and collaborate for regulatory impact. It concludes that ethical labelling can act as a pathway for re-embedding social concerns in the market, but only when it prompts changes that become enshrined in standard practice and possibly the law itself. Moreover, the changes wrought by ethical labelling are small and incremental. Nevertheless, labelling may create ongoing productive tension and 'overflow' that challenges the market to listen to and accommodate actors (including animals) on the margins to create ongoing incremental changes.
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ItemThe Consumer Labelling Turn in Farmed Animal Welfare Politics: From the Margins of Animal Advocacy to Mainstream Supermarket Shelves(Routledge, 2019)“Free range” and other higher welfare label claims are increasingly visible on Australian egg, pork and chicken meat products. This paper critically examines the way in which these claims have shifted animal welfare concerns from the “margins” of the animal advocacy movement to the “mainstream” of everyday consumer choice. It asks what has been lost and what gained as mainstream producers and retailers have adopted these label claims. The chapter argues that the growing market share of higher welfare labelled foods and the increasing public discussion and contestation of the meaning of terms such as “free range”, “free to roam” and “bred free range” does represent the success of animal advocacy campaigns aimed at activating mainstream consumers to express their concern about animal welfare. At the same time label claims also exhibit the creativity of industry and retailers in appropriating and accommodating civil society critiques of dominant production and distribution systems by narrowing down the range of contested issues, and sentimentalising, simplifying and de-radicalising potential solutions. This indicates a governance gap - a chasm between what can be achieved via voluntary certification and labelling and the need for a more inclusive, sustainable and official government regulation of animal welfare.
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ItemHigher welfare labelling for eggs: A summary of findings from the project Regulating Food Labels: The case of free range food products in Australia(The University of Melbourne, 2018)A summary of findings from the project Regulating Food Labels: The case of free range food products in Australia