Discursive Power: Trade Over Health in CARICOM Food Labelling Policy

Abstract

Moving towards a more sustainable, healthier, and equitable food future requires a significant system transformation. Policies to achieve this transformation are notoriously difficult to achieve, especially where actors with conflicts of interest are involved in governance. In this paper, I analyze how corporate actors frame issues inside a process to develop Front-of-Pack Labelling across the Caribbean. Focusing on three major framing strategies, I show how industry actors argued 1) (falsely) that FOPL would privilege Chilean food suppliers; 2) that FOPL would constitute a major transgression of international trade law; and 3) that a regional public health organization (the Pan-American Health Organization) is an illegitimate influence on the policy. Together, these three framing strategies reconstruct the policy problem as one of trade rather than public health. I argue that the resulting narrative is both a product and a function of the discursive power food companies wield in the standard-setting process and provide empirical detail about how food companies act to prevent policy attempts facilitating food systems transformation.

Framing Political Issues in Food System Transformative Changes

“…Articles on food, power, and health center their analysis on the economic and political power exercised by Big Food, which is the name given to the transnational corporations that drives the global consumption of unhealthy ultra-processed food and beverages (Baker et al 2021b). Market and political practices by Big Food serve to shape consump-tion patterns in the processes of food system transformations in developing countries (Baker and Friel 2016) and to influence policy and decision making in the field of food safety regulation (Clapp and Scrinis 2017;Hinton 2022;Miller and Harkins 2010). Big Food also enters trade disputes to reach their goals in battles around state discrepancies in the safety and acceptability of food standards and technological innovation (Quark 2016;Schram and Townsend 2020).…”

Navigating the politics and processes of food systems transformation: guidance from a holistic framework

“…We supplement those with an in-depth thematic review of political actions and practices that have been or are being used to transform food systems. We approach this review from a holistic perspective, drawing on transformation-relevant processes rooted in the traditional political economy analysis of structural issues and power dynamics (IPES-Food, 2017;Leach et al, 2020), complemented by more sociological locations of politics/power as embedded in discursive practices (Hinton, 2022), technological innovations (Hutter and Lawrence, 2021), knowledge (Szanton, 2004), and consumption choices (Boström and Micheletti, 2019). As such, the review is non-exhaustive but thorough (1,011 documents identified through Web of Science and Google Scholar were initially reviewed after searching with keywords corresponding to the Framework's themes).…”