TraceConsult™ ::: Advising Industry on Practical Ethics from Farm to Fork

Based on a decade of experience with, involvement in and close-up observation of operators in the entire supply chain leading to food products offered in supermarkets worldwide, we have come to realize that a lot of "brownie points" available to many of these players in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Ethical Governance go unclaimed.

Whether the origin are the Junior Girl Scouts, the Brownies, or a New York State railroad in the 19th century - brownie points are points of merit for good deeds done!

The reasons are mostly lack of information or insight into the way of doing things of other stakeholders. In addition, ways and methods of doing things in a better way would achieve better results. Bridging these gaps is our objective!

Commercial Enterprises started focusing on CSR as early as the 1970s. Interest from the areas of food and agriculture increased significantly in the late 1990s and lately players in the food supply chain from, for instance, Brazilian soybean growers to major retailers in Europe have even gone beyond CSR by setting up criteria for Ethical Governance. This development gives rise to novel accents in marketing as companies realize their competitive advantage.

Private Consumers like to learn about these novel approaches and better trends around their daily food. It is the production conditions and the environment of what they eat that are improving. Not only the nutritious value of food products but, at a sharply increasing rate, also environmental, social, and even ethical aspects of food production have become important to consumers. Since the turn of the century, topics such as rain forest protection, genetic modification and the greenhouse effect have stirred consumers in many countries to a great extent.

Abe Lincoln’s top hat – guaranteed and certified!

This is also reflected by the distinct positions taken by organizations making up the Civil Society in different parts of theworld. Publicly funded consumer councils, regional and the global NGOs as well as farmers associations pick up on consumer concerns and call for improved methods and conditions in the production of food.

Yet, at the same time, enterprises had better beware of being perceived by consumers as being involved in greenwashing activities. Since the rising importance given to issues of sustainability and ethics in food production, enough companies have been caught “green”-handedly. As U.S. President Abraham Lincoln would say, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”