The Moral Economy of Food Quality

Have you ever noticed how bottled water is marketed with images of snow capped peaks? It is as if the water inside was melted straight from the Columbia ice-field instead of drawn from a stand-pipe in Richmond B.C. What’s being sold is a quality, both real and perceived.

Last month I motored through the United States. As I stopped to fill up with (still cheaper) American gas, I noticed a sign outside the duty free store advertising “Canadian Jam”. Why, I wondered, would a US merchant be promoting Canadian jam to American tourists? Quality, I concluded. Canadian food products are often seen as being more pure and of higher quality. It might even be true.

As a result of the first Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s wine producers developed a program of quality assurance, the Vintners Quality Alliance. Now a wine buyer can go into any Canadian liquor store and pick out a VQA bottle. This bottle is guaranteed to have 100% of its grapes grown in the identified Canadian region and to be of good quality.

On the other hand, sometimes quality is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Some years ago I dined at the famous Boston restaurant “Legal Seafood”. The menu boasted only the “finest American fish” – nothing imported. I wondered how the store could tell the difference between a Maine lobster and a Nova Scotian lobster? I also wondered how the restaurant could stay in business if it routinely insulted the tourists who ate there? On a visit this spring I noticed this language had changed.

Part of living successfully in a world characterized by cultural diversity is a recognition and acceptance of different cultural, religious and moral values. The word ‘quality’ can refer to culture (some cultures prefer white bread over whole wheat), religion (food that is not prepared according to Jewish Law would be of unacceptable quality to Orthodox Jews) or morality (a casserole made with meat would be morally unacceptable to vegetarians). As consumers become more aware of the geographical distance between their dinner table and the place of production of their food, they will seek to reduce the moral distance by purchasing goods from suppliers they trust. These suppliers must be in a position to guarantee the qualities of the goods they produce.

I recently spoke with a beef operator with a farm near Fort Frances, Ontario. They breed and raise their own stock and then slaughter and market direct to consumers in southern Ontario. It is a closed system (less vulnerable to a BSE outbreak) except for the feed they import from a single farm in the US. It is not an organic operation but a natural one – no growth hormones and antibiotics only for the treatment of disease. People pay a premium for this beef knowing that the farmer has the same values they have.

Quality includes safety from disease but is much more than that. Quality is not singular. There are many qualities about which different populations will need assurance. Canada is not only capable of meeting quality standards; it is well placed to set the standards for the next generation of food producers.

First Published in July 2003