Who are the Drivers of Change? On the Growing Role of Retailers in Ongoing Attempts to Reorient Markets for Animal Welfare

ABSTRACT

Through their assortment and merchandising decision-making retailers influence consumers choice by adjusting the choices available to them. Anchored in a market practice view, this article studies the role retailers play in shaping markets through their assortment building efforts. It demonstrates that retailers are not just reacting to changes in consumer demand but are becoming more proactive and actively try to change consumer demand in certain ways as retailers strive to be good corporate citizens. We show that trying to change how markets function is fraught with difficulties, as actors in the value chain must coordinate their expectations about what the market will look like in future.

KEYWORDS:

• Retailer assortment building
• market practices
• animal welfare

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Pig Levy Foundation under Grant number 2018-66. The Pig Levy Foundation is the English name for the Danish funder, Svineafgiftsfonden. See: https://svineafgiftsfonden.dk/

Notes on contributors

Lars Esbjerg

Lars Esbjerg is associate professor of retailing at Department of Management, Aarhus University. He has studied alternative food networks, business model development, collaborative innovation, inter-organisational relations, retailer decision-making and transnational value chains in the food sector. His current research interests are related to how market practices constitute markets for food and drink – both in subsistence markets and on developed markets; how actors make sense of their ongoing experience; the role of third-party certification on production and marketing of food and drink; inter-organisational relationships in value chains; and how transnational food supply chains are organised and function.

Klaus Brønd Laursen

Lars Esbjerg is associate professor of retailing at Department of Management, Aarhus University. He has studied alternative food networks, business model development, collaborative innovation, inter-organisational relations, retailer decision-making and transnational value chains in the food sector. His current research interests are related to how market practices constitute markets for food and drink – both in subsistence markets and on developed markets; how actors make sense of their ongoing experience; the role of third-party certification on production and marketing of food and drink; inter-organisational relationships in value chains; and how transnational food supply chains are organised and function.

Klaus Brønd Laursen is a senior research fellow of the Next Society Institute, Kazimieras Simonavicius University, Vilnius, Lithuania. His research interests include market studies, value chain, animal welfare and business-to-business relations. His research includes a focus on how animal welfare is developing in primary production and how the initiatives instigated are transferred throughout the value chain. He is especially interested in the role of intermedia’s role in these processes within a value chain.

Maureen Schulze

Maureen Schulze is a postdoc in agricultural science with a focus on economics and marketing. During her doctoral studies, Maureen spent two months at the Aarhus University (Denmark) where she explored the implementation of sustainable practices in food retail. Since November 2021, Maureen has been a research associate at the Department of Management, Society and Communication at Copenhagen Business School. Her current research focuses on the green transition of the food and agricultural system, particularly on interventions for consumers preferences and attitudes and involved stakeholders to help build a sustainable food system.