Negotiating Innovation in a Market Economy: Foodstuffs and Beverages Adulteration in Nineteenth-Century France

Abstract

In France, between 1870 and 1914, the business world was very concerned with the increase in “fraud” and “counterfeiting” in beverages and foodstuffs. This paper explores the origin and significance of this phenomenon. Three main products and markets are analyzed: wine, butter, and milk. On the basis of primary research, the paper contests the traditional interpretation according to which adulteration was linked to an increasing demand for food by low-income classes in highly imperfect markets. The paper adopts a radically different approach by questioning the way innovation is defined and perceived in a market economy: why is it common to speak of “innovation” for manufactures while evoking the term “adulteration” when food and drinks are concerned? The argument is that food and drink adulteration had its origins in technical progress (the introduction of chemistry into the food industry), urbanization, and the internationalization of the economy. As such, adulteration was a juridical category that was mobilized on occasions by economic lobbies in order to benefit from rents in the market, while continuously regulating innovation by agreement and compromise.One clear implication is that quality is not an objective, ahistorical category but that at different times different definitions of an item's quality compete with one another. It was only after the institutional and legal framework had been defined that social conventions and consumers' choices could take effect.