What part does ethics play in food marketing - Essay Example

?What Part Does Ethics Play In Food Marketing Table of Contents Section A 3 Section B 6 Section C 12 References 15 Section A Ethics can be defined aswell-founded standards of prescribing what human beings ought to do in terms of rights, benefits to the society, fairness, obligation and specific virtues. Standards of ethics may include virtues of honesty, loyalty and compassion. The development and study of one’s ethical standards is also considered as ethics (Velasquez & Et. Al, 2010). It can be said that food is the most important concern for people since it creates an impact upon individual health and well being. The way companies market their food has been in limelight because of the rising obesity rates that is threatening the industrialized countries’ population. Broader health concerns such as diseases because of addictives and preservatives make marketing ethics in food industry a relevant topic. Food ethics is one of the emerging academic disciplines in the recent times and is considered as one among many in the escalating field of applied ethics. The ethical issues are crucial with regards to the food. The ethical concerns encompass a correspondingly broad range of issues, for instance, the disparity between global food supplies and human nutritional needs. The other ethical concerns are results of the modern agricultural along with the food biotechnologies for human as well as animal welfare (Mepham, 2000). The most important consideration in the food and agricultural products is that ‘production, transformation and distribution’ of such products can be considered as general aspects of daily life around the world. Therefore, these activities may not be addressed in the realm of ethics. However, the economic benefits that are derived by participating in food and agriculture system are considered as a means to an end that are ethical in nature (FAO, 2001). It is evident that the ethical consideration is becoming central in consumer food choices’ unease expressed by consumers regarding the increasing gap between the production processes and consumption. According to the current trend the consumers face three types of ‘ethical concerns’. The first type of the concern is about the substantive issues, for example, animal welfare. The second type of ethical concern covers requirements in relation to reliable information while the third concern covers involvement and participation. The food production system in the recent years possesses certain inherent features. There are different barriers that tend to block ‘ethical conscious consumers’ and ‘producers food choices’. There are four ethical requirements that may be as follows: the need for tax on unhealthy ingredients, the need for labeling and ethical traceability, the need for diversification of the production methods and the need for sufficient prices in case when the price reduction is gained at the expense of ethical values such as increased environmental impairment and compromised animal welfare Along with the significance of all facets of food in the society, there are certain other aspects of food that is beyond the basic nutrition which is becoming increasingly imperative. Therefore, in this regards, it is important to regulate the representation as well as coexistence of these styles of production. When it comes to food industries, the retail outlets need to be more concerned regarding the kind of food products they are delivering to their customers. The consumers are quite concerned regarding few ethically questionable structural traits related to the food chain, for instance, lack of animal welfare, trustworthy information and objectivity on the part of the information sources. It has been evident that the consumers even complain regarding the lack of the involvement with the food chain and rising gap between the food chain and consumers that treats them as strangers and outsiders and excludes them from making any decision regarding the food supply. European consumers tend to focus upon seven ethical issues. These includes quality of food, safety of food, healthiness of food, issues relating to the animal welfare, effect of the ‘food production’ upon the quality of the landscape, fair treatment of the farmers and environmental effects of food production (Korthal, n.d.). Among all the ethical concerns, the most important ones are the complexity and the lack of transparency of today’s food market that creates consumers’ distrust for the producers and the retailers. Being the consumers of food, people experience the food the way it is being served to them. They consider the food more in terms of aesthetic values rather than ethics. It can be revealed that for most of the consumers, the way the food industries bring food from the food stores to the dinner table is much as a closed book that they know little about. It becomes too difficult for them to review the production history as well as anticipate on how their food consumption is going to influence the society and the surroundings around them. Since the food is an ethical subject which is of utmost importance to the concerned parties, it is therefore important for retailers and manufactures to deliver as much transparency as possible to the ultimate consumers (Coff, 2006). Section B There are several retail chains in the European Unions. For this study, the United Kingdom will be taken into account. The four biggest chains in the United Kingdom are ASDA, Morrison’s, Sainsbury and Tesco. It is worth noticing that they collectively account for 67.9% of the grocery market. Among them the market share of Tesco has been 28%. It is the market leader in the UK grocery market and has been successful in maintaining the same position since last twenty five years. Therefore, for this study, Tesco will be considered and its food ethics will be taken into account (Li, 2008). It has been evident that Tesco is in support of Fairtrade. It believes in paying the farmers of the developing nations, the price that will cover the cost of production along with premium that can be spent on the community projects, for example, healthcare, education, sanitation or housing. Tesco’s commercial staffs who are involved in buying for the United Kingdom must understand and reflect ethical consideration in their purchasing practices. Since it is the founder member of the Ethical Trading Initiatives it makes use of the ETI Base Code as the standard for its suppliers across its businesses (Tesco, 2005). The company is the Britain’s biggest supermarket as well as the ‘third largest grocery chain in the world’. It announced in the year 2007 that it would carbon label its product. Since Tesco accounts for one pound in every eight pound of the UK’s retail spending, it can be revealed that the company took a bold move. This would help the sizeable segment of the public to make better ethical choices regarding their food. Because of the fact that Tesco promised to carbon label its product, it decided to pay Oxford University 5 million Pounds in order to think how it would work in reality. This was not only a technical challenge but also an ethical consideration. It is to be noted that the carbon labels are too different from those of the organic and Fair Trade certification. The products that have a smaller carbon footprint can cost more till the cost of fossil fuels are reflected in the production and thereby making it difficult for the poor people to purchase it. In spite of these problems, labeling has important strength as a way of communicating ethics. Labeling has helped the companies to store healthier products along with carbon footprints (MacMillan, 2007). It can be said that in order to communicate regarding the food ethics effectively and in a fair manner, it is essential to build a dialogue within the food chain regarding values and facts. There is also a requirement of something more than labels which depend upon concrete encounters that challenge power relation within the food system (MacMillan, 2007). It was further noted that in the year 2007, the company announced that it would map out the carbon dioxide output involved in getting 30 products to the shelves. It was a bid to develop international labeling standards rating products according to their impact upon climatic change. Once the carbon footprints are developed, consumers will be able to compare similar products in comparison to their impact upon climate change. It will further motivate and encourage the suppliers that include the food and beverage processors supplying private label and branded products to measure and reduce their CO2 emissions. The threat in regards to this can stem from the fact that the sustainability of the company may be at stake (Elamin, 2007). Tesco buys a wide range of products starting from fruits and vegetables to clothing as well as toys from all nations of the world. The trade brings great benefits to the economies around the world. It tries to encourage its suppliers to improve the condition of those who are making these products so that more people can acquire benefit from the trade of Tesco. In order to handle the ethical issues before it arise, the company aims at providing training to its buyers as well as suppliers. This is done to raise the awareness of the ethical issues and the effects that this purchasing practice has upon the labor standards. At Tesco, the ethical issues are handled with due care. The reputation of Tesco lies with the employees of the company. Therefore, the employees need to adhere to the ethical guidelines set by the company. Irrespective of the business, whether domestic or international, it must adhere to all laws and regulations. The company doesn’t tolerate any illegal activity that is conducted for the personal gains or on the behalf of the company. The company tries to minimize the effect of its operation on environment. It tries to meet regulatory and industry standards by adopting appropriate measures in order to access the potential environmental effects (Tesco Corporation, 2004). The company has been successful in tackling various environmental issues such as research into biofuels. This helps the company to emphasize on environmental friendliness of the fuel. It has also been tackling the issue of the seafood sustainability by managing the fisheries responsibly. It has been trying to ban sale of Own Brand Genetically Modified Foods and Genetically Modified feed also disallowed in organic products. It tried to enforce the law of reducing the product packaging by 25% since the year 2010 on its own brand products and branded items (Tesco, 2008). The reduction of the product packaging has provided tremendous benefits to the company. It has led to saving of over 80000 tones of the packaging weight. It included a packaging reduction of 19% in own-label dairy product and a reduction of 34% in own label produce packaging. The chickens where re-launched in a new 68% lighter Form-Shrink pack. This has increased the supply chain initiatives as well (Tesco, 2011). The ethical issues that the company faces can be demonstrated with the help of example. Tesco’s food miles ethics was questioned when it was found that the supermarket giant ships Scottish meat into Essex in order to process and was found shipping it back. The reason behind this was that the Grampian Country Food Group has closed its Banff site where slaughtering used to take place. As a result the Scottish chickens from the Grampian’s Cooper Angus slaughter plant were being sent to the plant in Essex in order to process before shipping back for sale into Scotland. This was completely an ethical issue faced by the food retailer, Tesco. However, this type of issue needs to be handled as soon as possible in order to make the trading process smoother. Tesco has always been handling the ethical issues in an effective manner. It seems to have realized the importance of being ethical to the society and its stakeholders. Therefore, in response to the ethical problem that it encountered, the company’s technical manager of the meat segment reported that the issue would be tackled as soon as possible by the approval of new processing plant in Scotland (The Poultry Site, 2010). It has been found that the company has been forced to adopt an independent auditor in order to assess its ethics in trading with its suppliers after the private investor collected enough support so as to take the issue forward to the company’s agenda in the annual meeting. It was proposed by Ben Birnberg in the annual meeting that the company would take appropriate measures in order to be independently audited. This will be done to make sure that the workers in the factory which is run by its suppliers will be assured decent working condition, job security, collective bargaining, freedom of association and living wages (Muspratt, 2007). The company has been working continuously with its staffs and its customers in order to offer new opportunities so that healthy lives can be encouraged. By making 3.2 million people participate in the Tesco Lotus aerobic competition, it helps its consumers to remain active all round the day. This is part of its ethical activities (Tesco Plc, 2009). The company tries to focus upon recycling, use of energy and water, use of organics and its charity and community initiatives. It has been influencing the society at large by encouraging its employees as well as its customers to be socially responsible. It is of the view that it has a key role to play for the promotion of healthy food among its customers and it strives to make healthy food available at affordable prices as well (Casestudyinc, 2010). The company has nominated champions of ethics within each commercial group who would be responsible to coordinate activities on the ethical issues within their areas. This might include assisting their commercial colleagues on the queries that arises from the individual audits, reporting on the overall progress of their category as well as working with other Ethical Champions. In order to handle the ethical issues the company has set up a Tesco Steering Wheel who is responsible to coordinate the work in all areas of Tesco business and performance. It focuses upon setting the Key Performance Indicators for ethical trading (Ethical Trading initiative, n.d.). Since the company is the retailer of alcohol, ethics has a role to play in this regards. Realizing its role the company touches three core values. They are to understand its customers, meet their needs by providing the proper food and to act in a responsible manner to its communities. It recognizes the fact that there are customers who views alcohol as a normal part of their weekly shopping and consumes it responsibly. The company also recognizes the fact that excess consumption of alcohol may be injurious to health of consumers. Therefore, in this regard, the company takes its responsibilities seriously and tries to work within the stores and with its local organization to make people aware of the benefits of consuming alcohol safely. It also participates in various campaigns and works with the local authorities in order to limit the scope of the new licenses for the dealers of alcohol (Tesco Plc, 2009). Section C One of the increasing social trends in the food industry that has been evident in the European household has been the consumer’s desire for exotic products and services with more diversity in the choices of foods and growing importance of fresh, safe and organic products. This is the biggest challenge for the companies. The other challenge for the companies within the area of quality consciousness is FMCG or most popularly known as convenience meals. Here the methods of effective consumer responses can be used in order to address the offers that need to be individualized and the usage of the effective information system through value chain. The perceived value of the prepared food industry can also be changed to a greater extent in that case. It is now important for the companies to provide its customers quality food products and services in order to increase European consumers. It has been noted that the European countries are faced with several challenges. There has been increasing demand of consumers to restructure their agricultural markets. The role of Agrifood industries has been to render consumers with quality services and safe products. In light of the increasing consumers demand, companies must provide nutritional information regarding its products and anti-diseases modified products as well. The major opportunity for the marketer or the European AgriFood industries will be in the form of increased competitiveness. It will further invoke the companies to produce safe Agrifood products. The most significant social and economic trend that can be relevant to the food industry such as Tesco needs to be analyzed. However, the integration of the consumer’s health impact with other relevant factors such as economic as well as environment impacts can be of greater importance to the company. This can be explained with the help of an example. People are well aware of the genetically modified food. Commercialization of genetically modified food has been a subject of debate among scientific communities and consumers regarding the long term effects of this food upon human beings. This food is perceived as being unnatural by the consumers. Therefore, it can be perceived as being one of the corporate social responsibilities and ethics gap in the food and agriculture industry that didn’t allow time for investigation on the long term affect on the health of the consumers. Thus the consumers are demanding labeling in this regards (Omer & Et. Al, 2010). In order to adjust to this trend, the company needs to adopt various strategies so that it doesn’t get much affected by this trend. It needs to work on the genetically modified food with more attention and must invest on research and development. It also needs to focus upon the current technology that it used to modify the food in order to check what harm the existing technology may bear on the consumers. Continuous monitoring and evaluation is essential in this regard and assessment of the need of alternative technologies can be developed. Consumers can be then made aware of the fact that the food has been modified using the latest technology that will maintain the nutritional values in the food products and will not harm the quality of the product as well. By doing so, the company gets the opportunity to make use of its genetically modified food and also get advantage of the trend that the consumers follow. Tesco will have both economic as well as social benefits in this regards. The economic benefit will stem from the fact that by upgrading the quality of the genetically modified food product, the company will be able to increase its sales volume. The social benefits will stem from the fact that Tesco will be able to make people aware of the genetically modified food products. If the company is able to adapt the social and the economic trend, then the ethics of the company will be well-maintained. The corporate social responsibility must aim to adapt the needs and wants of the consumers. In addition, the companies also need to be concerned regarding its stakeholders in order to be ethically correct from all the sides. References Coff, C. ed. 2006. The Taste For Ethics: An Ethic Of Food Consumption. New York:Springer. Casestudyinc. 2010. CSR Approach and Initiatives. [Online]. Casestudyinc. Available from: http://www.casestudyinc.com/tesco-csr-case-study [Accessed 16 March 2011]. Elamin, A. 2007. Tesco Joins Food Processors In Piloting Carbon Mapping. [Online]. Food Production Daily. Available from: http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Processing/Tesco-joins-food-processors-in-piloting-carbon-mapping [Accessed 16 March 2011]. Ethical Trading Initiative. No Date. Communication Strategies: Get Buy-In ETI Conference 2008, Workshop 1. [Online]. EthicalTrade. 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