Ethical principles and practice in organic processing: governance and corporate responsibility

This paper will give a short introduction to the historical roots of the organic production in Denmark. The organic production has gone from a pioneer phase with few dedicated actors, to an institutionalized and standardized food production system. The institutionalization has opened the organic market for new actors – especially this paper will concentrate on the processing companies who, for a large part, took interest in the organic production after the ending of the pioneer phase. The authors emphasize the importance of reflecting values in relation to organic food production especially because both the standards for organic food processing and the value discussion are almost non-existing related to processing. There are two main claims in this paper. One claim is that there could be reluctance from the companies in discussing organic values because they fear to be associated with the organic pioneer movement and subsequently exclusion from mainstream. Another claim is that there is a need for upgrading the existing networks or maybe invite to creation of new networks around reflection on values since this issue need qualification in order to be used as an active for the companies. One way into discussing values without leading to exclusion could be to use the concept Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which is getting an increasing attention also in Denmark. Some tendencies show that consumers are still more critical and therefore it can be an attractive way of improving credibility. A possible combination between CSR and organic food is presented and the preconditions for this combination are briefly touched.