Voting with Your Fork? Industrial Free-Range Eggs and the Regulatory Construction of Consumer Choice

Abstract

Labeling and information disclosure to support consumer choice are often proposed as attractive policy alternatives to onerous mandatory business regulation. This article argues that choices available to consumers are constructed and constrained by actors in the chains of production, distribution, and exchange who bring products to retail. It traces how “free-range” eggs come to market in Australia, finding that the “industrial free-range” label dominating the market is not substantially different from caged-egg production in the way that it addresses animal welfare, public health, and agro-ecological values. I show how the product choices available to consumers have been constructed not just by the regulation (or nonregulation) of marketing and labeling, but also by the regulatory paths taken and not taken all along the food chain.