Between farms and chopsticks : the role of brands in (re)organising the fresh food sector in China

This thesis explores how brands have come to (re)organise the fresh food sector in China, investigating how brands have increasingly intervened in the way in which fresh food is produced, distributed, exchanged and consumed in China in recent years. While there has been some literature examining the role of brands in the fresh food sector, little attention has been paid to it in the East and emerging countries. Until recently, most fresh food products were treated as ordinary commodity items in China, sold in wet markets or other traditional channels without any brand information, but in recent years brands have begun to enter the fresh food sector. This thesis explores the brand as a significant object of mediation that assembles and intermediates a series of actors, materials, practices, associations, values and norms between food production and consumption, operating alongside wet markets. This innovative understanding of brands and fresh food branding uses a socio-cultural framework for assessing the transformation of the food sector in China, as well as expanding the field of brand studies. Through an analysis of a selection of government policies and documents on regulating agriculture and food, the thesis describes the recent history of the state-led transformation of the food sector, developing an analysis of the political and economic context in which brands emerged in China's fresh food sector. The thesis also presents a multi-case study of four brands, analysing the specific ways in which they (re)organise the fresh food sector. The conclusions propose that brands, as significant social mediators, are adaptable to various political, economic, social and cultural contexts.