Provenance in the Food Market
- March 2005
This Opinion was featured in the March 2005 issue of the the Anglia Farmer
Experts can distinguish original artworks from forgeries. David Walker wonders about the implications for food.
Provenance is not only an ugly sounding word, but has an ugly connotation, as in "As I don’t know you, I don’t trust you." Unfortunately, it seems to have become a fixture in the farm and food lexicon.
If putting a farmer’s name on the produce bag or wrapper adds value, it might seem a legitimate exercise and one that appears to have a high profile precedent in the art world. But there are differences between the two markets beyond the very obvious one that the taste of food is material, while that of art is mental.
Anybody paying a six and seven-figure sum to a relative stranger for a work of art can be forgiven for requesting some kind of proof, or provenance, that they are getting what they are paying for. But as food is bought in small quantities on a regular basis this should allow confidence to be developed by the buyer in the source without such formalities.
Buyers who can afford that sort of money for a work of art are probably seldom those with the expertise to assess authenticity, unless they are buying for someone else, in which case they are likely to be well practised at looking after their own interests by dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.
Here, there are some interesting parallels between art and food. The full time homemaker who has the time and experience to judge food is an endangered species. The "on the way home from work" food buyer is, like the art collector, surely looking for help when assessing food. Food processors, who are really buying for others, have farm assurance programmes in the same way as art dealers have provenance as protection.
But when it comes to what is being bought and sold there are some fundamental differences between art and food. The work of artists and counterfeiters can be distinguished by those with expertise.
But are one farmer’s eggs really any different from another and can they be distinguished? Surely, any stall holder whether at a farm gate or a farmer’s market with the gift of the gab can add value to a tray of eggs, regardless of their source. Although this personal input provides implicit provenance, it is likely the entertainment that makes the sale.
A farmer’s name on a branded package of mushrooms in a supermarket, however, provides little in the way of entertainment. The value must lie somewhere else. And it is very different to the provenance of the art world.
When a work of art does not meet the buyer’s expectations, for whatever reason, if the work is authentic that the end of the issue. The buyer is left with what he judges to be a lesser work of the probably long dead artist. In the case of the food market, however, the farmer, in this day and age, could find himself subject to litigation - another ugly dimension to provenance. This style of provenance effectively provides an implicit guarantee of quality.
One sincerely hopes that farmers, who allow their names to put on packaging and wrappers, are rewarded by more than prestige. And that the reward at least covers the cost of liability insurance.
March 2005
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