Dairy Products and Shifts in Western Models of Food Consumption since 1950: A Spanish Perspective

Abstract

Abstract:Through a case study of dairy products in Spain, this article discusses the evolution of what economist Louis Malassis called ‘food consumption models’ in the West from the Second World War. Two distinct consumption models are identified: a first model based on the massification of milk consumption, and a second model featuring decreasing dairy consumption, an increasing role for second-degree processed products and the emergence of new consumer segmentations. Rather than a sudden shift from the first to the second model, there was a punctuated sequence comprising an intermediate transition period in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Using an evolutionary political economy approach, I argue that the key to this transition was a transformation in consumer preferences resulting not only from changes in nutritional discourse, but also from changes in the profit making strategies of dairy agribusinesses and from the interaction of both trajectories of structural change with consumer agency.

Distributing legitimacy: the politics of milk in post-World War II Venezuela

“…(By comparison, annual fresh milk consumption in 1930 London was 139 liters per year, and in Zurich 230 liters per year). 11 Venezuela's first-and for several decades, only-milk processing plant equipped with modern technology was built in 1915. It was owned by the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, who treated the business much like his other enterprises, using the reins of the state to ensure monopoly power and distributing the firm's profits to cronies who in turn assured Gómez's political power.…”

From organized to disorganized capitalism? Market versus nonmarket coordination in Spain's dairy chain

“…At the same time, a transition took place between a very expansive model of dairy consumption to a much less expansive model in which growth in the demand for cheese and refrigerated desserts could hardly compensate for the fall in the demand for liquid milk (Table ; see Collantes, , for details). In combination with a new round of technological innovation in processing and farming, this created strong pressure for the restructuring of both sectors (Table and Figure ).…”

Nutritional transitions and the food system: expensive milk, selective lactophiles and diet change in Spain, 1950-65

“…A cross-section estimation made for 1964 finds an incomeelasticity of milk consumption that is consistent with this (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 1965-69). It was not until the 1980s when, in the context of the transition towards an entirely different model of food consumption (Collantes, 2015a), the responsiveness factor would turn negative and the product life cycle of liquid milk (or, perhaps more precisely, of liquid milk that was full-fat and without any additives) would begin to come to a close. Notes: (1) r (C)/r (P), where r is annual compound rate of change, C is consumption and P is price-adjusted purchasing power as defined in Table 3; (2) household income and consumer prices were proxied by GDP per capita and wholesale prices respectively.…”

“…However, during our period there was an intensification of the activity that since the early twentieth century physicians and public institutions had been carrying out in order to turn the social image of milk into that of a product that should be consumed regularly and massively. State involvement in demand promotion included many actions of dairy propaganda, the launching of a school milk programme and a broader programme of nutritional education (EDALNU, the Spanish acronym for Education in Food Consumption and Nutrition), and the use of the mass media in order to spread the message (Collantes, 2015a;Díaz Méndez & Gómez Benito, 2010). Of course, not all of these actions were similarly effective across social groups.…”

“…Even so, calcium deficiency was perhaps the main shortcoming of the Spanish diet at a time when hunger and malnutrition had already been left behind (Cussó, 2005;Casares, 1958). The massification of dairy consumption would only take place after the mid-1960s (Collantes, 2015a: fig. 1).…”