The anatomy of ‘So-called Food-Fraud Scandals’ in the UK 1970–2018: Developing a contextualised understanding.

Smith, Robert, Manning, Louise and McElwee, Gerard (2022) The anatomy of ‘So-called Food-Fraud Scandals’ in the UK 1970–2018: Developing a contextualised understanding. Crime Law and Social Change. ISSN 1573-0751

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Abstract

In the last four decades, the food industry in the United Kingdom has been subject to a considerable number of so-called “food-fraud scandals”. These incidents mainly relate to actual or alleged fraudulent activity which has resulted in public outcries about the criminality and industry malpractices which may underpin them. An analysis of these ‘scandals’ reveals that there is a ‘scripted’ nature to both their revelation and resolution, which can be modelled to help better understand how to investigate and theorise these incidents in context. This approach enables a better, more nuanced understanding of how to read the signs that link an incident to a given modus operandi and as a consequence enables relevant actors to take more appropriate and timely responsive actions, especially in the midst of a scandal narrative. Eight food related incidents are scrutinised, some termed scandals, and others that whilst receiving local or national media attention were not framed in the associated discourse as ‘being scandals.’ These case studies demonstrate the contextualised anatomies of each specific incident to then identify the associated scripted themes and responses. The framework developed as an output from this research is of value in recognising the stages and nuances of a food-fraud scandal narrative.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-021-10000-3 For more information on self archiving of Springer Nature papers https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/policies/journal-policies
Keywords:	food industry, scandals, scripts, narratives, food-fraud, criminality, industry malpractice
Divisions:	Agriculture, Food and Environment
Depositing User:	Users 12 not found.
Date Deposited:	29 Nov 2021 11:45
Last Modified:	23 Jan 2023 05:30
URI:	https://rau.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/16498

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