‘What are ‘they’ Doing to our Food?’: Public Concerns about Food in the UK

Abstract

This paper explores ‘expert’ constructions of public concerns about food within a sociological framework. Concerns about potential risks in food have become controversial social and political issues in Britain in recent years. This paper reflects on these wider debates, and on sociological work on food, ‘risk’ and science, which provide the backdrop for qualitative research studying ‘expert’ and ‘lay’ understandings of food risks. The first phase of this exploratory research consisted of a series of ‘key informant’ interviews with a range of ‘experts’ in the arena of food. The interview data serve to ‘map out’ the key issues in current debates about food. However, they also enable insight into the ways different involved ‘experts’ construct accounts of public concerns about food. From the data, several key issues and themes relating to ‘expert’ views of public understandings and concerns about food emerged. These included, a ‘rolling issue’ of food concerns, public questioning of the origins and integrity of food, increased involvement of ‘external people’ in food, the extent of public understandings of microbiological food safety; public understandings of risk in the BSE crisis, and public knowledge and acceptance of genetically-modified food. These data set the scene for further research directly exploring the views of food consumers. The issues and themes from the ‘expert’ accounts are being followed-up by the author through research in progress, which seeks to uncover the range of rich, intuitive understandings of food risks held by a diverse range of people who make up ‘the public’.