Choice editing best option for ethical foods

The food industry should screen out unethically produced products, rather than using particular logos to designate certain foods as ethically manufactured, according to Paul Steedman, research fellow at the Food Ethics Council.

Providing follow-up comments to the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum keynote seminar ‘Food labelling policy - evaluating the Commission proposals and assessing future action’, Steedman referred to several labelling schemes under development.

He commended one logo being developed by Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming methods, where each petal of a daisy represented an ethical issue and was coloured red, amber or green to indicate performance. And he said proposals for on-trolley scanners that can reveal information about a product’s provenance, being developed by grocery think tank IGD and IT firm EDS, had advantages.

But he added: “While clearer consumer information is to be applauded, there remains a bigger (ethical) question about where responsibility for ethical choices should lie. If producers and retailers simply say ‘we’ve labelled our products, now it’s up to consumers to decide whether to buy sustainably’, is that really an ethical position?”

He said ethical labels were also being used as an excuse to market products at premium price points. “But an ethical framework requires that it shouldn’t be ethical food for a wealthy niche and unethical food for everyone else.”

He concluded: “Consequently, it would seem that ‘choice editing’ for ethics - that is, simply not producing or stocking unethical products - on the part of the industry and policymakers is an essential approach to achieving a more ethical food system.”