315: Who Really Has the Final Say on Quality?

by Posted on

Foodthink Says

315 refers to Consumer Rights Day. Each year on this date, the public habitually turns its attention to what new fakes CCTV has exposed. Yet in everyday life, products are not merely a matter of being genuine or counterfeit. Consumers also care about quality and whether they are truly getting value for money. According to Dr Li Shumeng, a researcher in economic sociology, quality is not an inherent attribute but a concept shaped by various social groups and factors. To understand a product’s quality, one must consider who holds the authority to define it and how that authority is constructed. So how can consumers truly claim this power for themselves? What forces are eroding or even stripping it away? In this article, Shumeng uses food as a case study to map out the struggle for authority in food consumption.

For further discussion on consumer rights, click the link: 315: Beyond Just Waiting for Anti-Counterfeit Exposés, How Can Consumers Truly ‘Spot the Genuine’?

I. The Formation of Value Chains

How do consumers assess the quality of a given product or service? My interest in this question stems from a long-standing focus in my research: how do we define the value of a particular type of labour or skill? As consumers, we all want the price we pay to represent good value. Therefore, understanding what truly constitutes good, worthwhile quality directly influences every purchasing decision we make. When it comes to food, most consumers expect it to be safe first and foremost, and enjoyable to eat second. But where do our notions of ‘safe’ and ‘delicious’ come from, and what factors shape them?

● In Shunde’s wet markets, vegetables carry no quality information beyond their price, nor do they command much of a premium. Image source: Foodthink

Technically speaking, place of origin and production methods exert the most direct influence on safety and flavour.Yet most consumers simply lack a deep understanding of these factors. Instead, it is differing marketing narratives that most directly shape their conception of quality.Consider the same variety and batch of fruit procured from the Xinfadi Wholesale Market. Depending on the retail channel it enters, it can fetch a higher price in a boutique supermarket than in a local neighbourhood shop. This occurs simply because the curated retail environment of the former conveys and reinforces the idea that “more expensive and more refined means better quality,” a notion consumers readily accept, taking for granted that fruit here deserves to cost more than at the wet market.

This is an inevitable consequence of the prevailing market structure. Within a highly segmented division of labour, countless intermediaries separate food producers from consumers, leaving buyers unable to directly comprehend what transpires at the production stage.This information asymmetry endows these intermediaries with greater influence over how consumers view the product.Consequently, a lengthy value chain takes shape. The food’s basic form remains unchanged, yet each intermediary layer bolsters its worth through supplementary packaging and marketing. Stripping away necessary costs such as transport, storage, and sales, a portion of the final price ultimately funds these marketing narratives.

● Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market in Hong Kong is a renowned hub for imported fruit, where produce from across the globe naturally commands premium prices. Even Japanese strawberries are subject to a status hierarchy based on their region of origin and variety. Image: Foodthink

Yet this power structure is hardly equitable for consumers or small-scale growers. For consumers, we are all too easily led by the nose by marketing rhetoric, making it difficult to develop our own reference points and leaving us without the confidence to challenge such narratives. Meanwhile, small producers, lacking the capital and bandwidth for marketing, find themselves unable to showcase the practical skills and knowledge honed at the production front line.

Take the coffee flavour wheel, previously discussed by Foodthink, as an example. Under industry standards established by the Specialty Coffee Association, coffee beans are classified and graded according to aroma, with certain growing regions gaining prestige for yielding beans with specific scent profiles. Yet these aromatic definitions are rooted in the olfactory framework of the American industrial food system. Who would have guessed that the peach note on the coffee flavour wheel is directly modelled on peach-flavoured jelly?! (A Foodthink writer from the Lingnan region, currently pursuing advanced studies in gastronomy in Italy, observed that the lychee note in coffee aligns more closely with the taste of canned lychees than with any fresh lychee variety she is familiar with.)

● The authoritative coffee flavour wheel is widely recognised, but few know that its standard flavour references are largely drawn from processed foods familiar to Americans—such as jams and fruit juices—rather than fresh ingredients. Image: World Coffee Research

At the same time, the vast majority of growers supplying specialty coffee are smallholder farmers in developing nations. While their cultivation methods directly shape the physical properties of the beans, they remain entirely excluded from the process of developing the flavour wheel.

It prompts us to ask: why are certain aromas admitted to the flavour wheel while others are left out? Why are we expected to evaluate coffee through the lens of the wheel rather than trusting our own palate? And if we genuinely accept that growing regions play a decisive role in shaping a coffee’s flavour, why have trade associations based in Europe and North America superseded the local knowledge of producing countries, ultimately dictating how we appreciate coffee?

Consider, for instance, how dietary perceptions have shifted. In times of widespread scarcity, refined carbohydrates such as white rice and wheat flour, alongside the rich proteins and fats of fish and meat, were luxuries reserved for the privileged—a clear marker of social standing. Yet today, amid the rise of wellness culture and nutritional science, these very staples are often vilified as the root of all ills. Meanwhile, once-dismissed staples like sweet potatoes and wild foraged greens—formerly deemed “the food of the poor”—have been rebranded as wholesome “wholegrains”, low-GI, and naturally “superior”, gaining a respectable place on the modern table. In certain dietary philosophies, wheat and grain products are even labelled “toxic”, and dairy, eggs, and meat are shunned entirely by many vegetarians and plant-based advocates.

● Steamed alongside red and brown rice, sweet potatoes were once considered a poor man’s staple decades ago; today, they are celebrated as a health food. Image credit: Foodthink
Over the past two decades, the international academic community has widely agreed that in agricultural markets, control over market-access channels dictates influence over the definition of quality, thereby securing a commanding position in value distribution. The contest over differing perceptions of quality is, in essence, a struggle for market influence. The process is complex and protracted—encompassing the formulation of production rules, the enforcement of market-access standards, and the oversight of market regulators. Producers, retailers, public authorities, and consumers all find themselves, willingly or not, drawn into this dynamic.

II. Opaque Legislative and Regulatory Mechanisms

In conventional markets, consumers are frequently compelled to passively accept quality standards that have already been set. How these standards are enacted into law and subsequently enforced remains a matter of significant public concern, yet one in which the public struggles to have a say, given that both the legislative and enforcement processes lack transparency.

Let’s begin with legislation concerning quality certification. In Europe and North America, major food and agricultural corporations lobby politicians through trade associations and similar channels to shape legislation that favours large enterprises. Ordinary consumers and small-scale producers are marginalised in this process.

In China, the process is state-led. While extensive industry research is conducted in the early stages and experts are brought in, the concerns of consumers and small-scale producers seldom resonate. Large enterprises, by contrast, are afforded greater opportunities to take part.

However, whether at home or abroad, even if consumers can be mobilised to take part in legislation or industry standards, they cannot overcome the profound information asymmetry wrought by excessively long production chains.

Overall, consumers still face a steep cognitive barrier to participating in the formulation and oversight of quality standards. This is directly tied to the increasingly specialised division of labour, ever-lengthening supply chains, and complex regulatory frameworks of today.

Consumers are increasingly removed from the production process, and the knowledge required to understand each stage grows ever more specialised. To gauge how various standards affect them, consumers would essentially need to become experts themselves. Even armed with expert-level knowledge, they would still need to verify the veracity of information disclosed by producers and market regulators (usually public authorities). Not only would they have to understand the production process, but they would also have to oversee the overseers. For the average consumer, this is virtually an impossible task.

III. The Limitations of Certification Systems

To counteract information opacity across supply chains, numerous institutional and technological innovations have emerged globally. Third-party certification schemes are designed precisely to tackle this issue. The approach involves recording production data in a highly standardised and formalised manner, using these records as the basis for evaluating agricultural practices, with an independent body conducting the verification. In the United States, for instance, at Whole Foods Market, it is common to see not only organic labels but also certifications for fair trade, rainforest conservation, indigenous sourcing, and more.

Over the past twenty years, the certification market has flourished. For virtually every consumer concern and demand regarding quality—from dietary restrictions and food safety to environmental sustainability and animal welfare—a corresponding certification scheme has been developed. The latest development involves blockchain-based certification, which records production data through layered encryption, significantly raising the barrier to data tampering. Foodthink has previously published articles exploring this topic and raising scepticism about its efficacy.

 

Yet whether we are talking about certification or blockchain, both share a common premise: they employ a specific, ostensibly objective framework to gauge production processes, operating on the assumption that oversight ultimately hinges upon this particular metric. The logic follows that if the measurement method is rigorous, the outcomes must be sound. However, neither certification nor blockchain adequately addresses the following questions.

From the consumer’s standpoint, first and foremost, certification regimes often reduce buyers to passive recipients of a pre-defined notion of quality. Take US organic certification as an example: the very definition of ‘organic’ is largely shaped by competing producer interests, while small- and medium-sized farmers are frequently marginalised in the process. Consequently, consumers are left to choose only within a framework of rules already drawn up for them.

Secondly, under third-party certification, consumers rarely know how these standards are actually enforced. They remain alienated from the information-gathering stage of production, with no insight into what data is being collected or how. Once certification itself evolves into a commercial industry, it invariably perpetuates a lack of transparency. Moreover, it concentrates the power to define value squarely in the hands of those who design the certification frameworks and administer the schemes.

From the producer’s angle, third-party certification is ultimately a market commodity. As such, certifying bodies have an inherent incentive to promote standards that are easily scalable and replicable, thereby expanding their market share. Broad adoption necessitates standardisation, which inherently fails to accommodate diverse, context-specific farming systems. This suggests that the ‘food value’ endorsed by certification may become entirely divorced from the practical knowledge, skills, and ecological conditions of frontline producers. As food travels from farm to fork, it passes through successive stages of sorting, processing, and packaging. Throughout this journey, the supply chain and marketing apparatus exert far greater influence over the construction and control of food value than the majority of small producers. Meanwhile, consumers remain largely in the dark about these dynamics, leaving their purchasing decisions subject to marketing narratives.

So are consumers simply left powerless? With March 15 Consumer Rights Day approaching, I will continue this discussion tomorrow by examining a case study I have been closely following. In this instance, consumers are actively involved in determining quality, though they undoubtedly face significant challenges along the way.

Foodthink author

Li Shumeng

PhD in Sociology from Cornell University, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Her research primarily focuses on value distribution in food production and consumption ethics.

 

 

Editor: Tianle

Published by Foodthink