Selective (E)valuations: The Production of Opacity and Transparency of Values in the Swedish Meat Supply Chain

(E)valuative technologies such as standards and conventionalized (e)valuative practices, some including the use of technological devices, govern the production of food in the global north. Food supply chains consist of multiple interrelated markets, where goods are (e)valuated to distinguish their qualities and prices. Qualities and prices that are transformed as the raw materials move through the supply chain towards the end consumer, or eater. The (e)valuation of food in supply chains is an important aspect of how food is governed, given that the qualities and prices are transformed, depending on how and when standards and conventionalized (e)valuative practices are employed in and in-between a supply chain’s markets.
The paper draws on ethnographic work from the Swedish meat supply chain (farms, abattoirs, cutting facilities and retail outlets), where hogs and cattle are (e)valuated according to a public quality standard, while wholesale and retail meat are priced according to conventionalized understandings of economic and non-economic values. In effect, some values are made transparent, communicated between buyer and seller, while others are obscured, absent from the buyer-seller communication.
The paper outlines how the objectivity promised by technoscientific standards may not realized as the selective communication of values, and the selective use of standards vis-à-vis conventionalized (e)valuative practices, while still governing the production practices of farmers, food industry workers, and retailers. The production of transparency and opacity in food supply chains governs what food that becomes economically and culturally valuable – and not.