Abstract .uk



The entanglement of consumer expectations and (eco) innovation sequences: the case of orange juiceFoster, C., McMeekin, A., Mylan, J. Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Sustainable Consumption Institute, Manchester Business School, Manchester, UKAbstractProspects for future innovation to reduce the carbon intensity of everyday consumer products rest significantly on the path dependent processes that have caused current products with their associated modes of provision and practices of consumption to be as they are. We use the history of orange juice to examine the dynamics of innovation sequences that have emerged to solve a series of ‘problems’ associated with the production and consumption of orange juice, the latest being the carbon problem. In particular, we focus on the interdependencies between consumer expectations of what constitutes ‘good orange juice’, changes in the product itself and in the system through which it is provisioned. We conclude with a discussion of how historical, path dependent processes lead to alternative framings of the new problem to be solved and different strategies for pursuing innovative solutions.IntroductionThe ecological impacts of goods and services sold for everyday consumption are now subject to intensifying scrutiny. Life cycle analyses have been conducted to identify where, in the chain of production, distribution and consumption, the major ecological impacts occur (Tukker et al 2005, Foster et al 2006). It is hoped that this new knowledge can be used to focus attention on where innovations could most effectively reduce these impacts, and many corporations have established programmes to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the goods they sell. But understanding the location of ecological hotspots is not sufficient in itself for these programmes to be successful. At least as important is an understanding of the social and economic processes which underpin innovation pathways and shape how they are likely to proceed. This involves analysis of the processes through which consumer goods have come to take their present forms and have become normalised and absorbed into practices of everyday consumption. Such analysis also involves understanding the processes that have carried provisioning systems to their current states, in terms of technological infrastructure, the organisation and distribution of power across actors constituting value chains and their associated regulatory environments. In the case presented in this paper, the way that specific product qualities are established and how these come to be expected by consumers is of particular interest.In this paper, we study the case of orange juice (OJ), which has become a normal part of everyday consumption across much of the (richer) world. We seek to establish how particular varieties of orange juice became dominant, certainly in the USA and UK. Specifically, how did OJ sold, stored and served chilled as not-from-concentrate (NFC) come to be the preferred form? This is significant for eco-innovation because chilled not-from-concentrate OJ carries higher environmental impacts – notably as measured by cumulative greenhouse gas emissions (“carbon footprint”) – than other OJ forms. We track the evolution of consumer expectations around specific qualities of OJ, including: its nutritional value the temperature at which it is sold, stored and served and the association of this with expectations of freshness; flavour expectations for ‘good’ orange juice and their relationship with perceptions of the degree to which the orange juice has been processed.We highlight connections between this OJ specific process and some aspects of the wider development of cultural conventions related to domestic food consumption in the West. We also examine dynamics on the provisioning side. How did OJ become embedded in the broader trend towards provisioning food through an integrated ‘cold chain’, relying on extensive investments in refrigeration technology for storage and distribution? How has the organisation of the value chain evolved so that certain actors have assumed dominant positions and can now be seen as focal organisations that can either block or instigate further ecologically-sensitive innovation?Studying the historical development of OJ serves as a probe to better understand key social and economic dynamics at a more general level, particularly in relation to consumer goods. Orange juice has become a relatively mundane element of everyday life. We touch on some of the forces behind this normalisation, which is part of our interest. But if OJ is perhaps socially unremarkable, it remains of significant interest to retailers and food businesses as a consumer product; sales of packaged OJ across Europe exceeded 2 billion litres in 2003 (Euromonitor 2010) which represents around GBP3billion of retail sales at current retail prices. The 2 million tonnes or so of “embedded carbon” associated with this volume illustrates the scale of the environmental burden posed by this mundane consumption.In the next section, we elaborate a conceptual framework for studying the OJ case, before turning to the case itself and an analytical discussion. By way of conclusion, we reflect on why the entanglement of consumers’ expectations and innovation sequences matters for understanding prospects for reducing the carbon footprint of everyday products. Problem sequences, normalisation and evolving systems of provision The ecological problems of today are the result of historical innovation trajectories that have carried provision and consumption systems to their current form. We build on the idea of problem sequences (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008; Gee and McMeekin 2011) to understand how OJ evolved into the form it takes today. From its introduction in the early 20th century in Florida, a massive global industry has grown around OJ. In that process, the product has changed significantly, as have the technical means by which it is produced, preserved, distributed and sold. Shifts in what consumers expect from OJ are associated with these innovations. As such, we can characterise the history of OJ in terms of innovation responses to “problems” associated with both changing “consumer expectations” and the development of a commercially viable OJ business. That the scaling up of a global system of OJ provision involved solving a series of problems – related to preserving, storing and transporting a perishable liquid over ever greater distances and at ever increasing scales - would seem fairly straightforward. The idea of problems associated with consumer expectations is perhaps a little more opaque, and the problems themselves more abstract. But firms producing and supplying retail goods must anticipate what consumers will need, want or desire. In the perspective adopted here firms in the orange juice provisioning system translate such anticipations into problems that can be solved through technological, organisational or marketing innovations, which in turn affect the product qualities considered to be important by consumers. We understand consumers’ needs, wants and desires as emanating from, or anticipated within the context of, the changing practices of eating and drinking. An outcome of this problem–innovation sequence is the emergence of new ‘qualities’ (Harvey et al, 2004; Callon et al, 2002) associated with what is considered to be good orange juice.In the case of OJ, we find that the problems and the new qualities that emerge from innovation sequences have both objective and subjective dimensions and are therefore subject to reinterpretation as understandings evolve. These problems therefore endure and interact with each other and we find it useful to think of them as forming a “problem space”. The problems that form the space are rarely fully solved, and are “solved” differently for different groups of consumers, leading to observable patterns of product differentiation and tied to heterogeneous practices of consumption. These partial solutions themselves contribute to the evolution (re-definition) of consumer expectations, while allowing for subsequent re-interpretation of the problems by later innovators. Isaiah Berlin noted that “any study of society shows that every solution creates a new situation which breeds its own new needs and problems” (quoted in Metcalfe 2001, p.561), and here we regard the different forms of OJ as representing different “situations” in Berlin’s sense. In other words, each partial solution within the problem space simply renews the search for further innovations, while, over time, new knowledge becomes available to create innovations that solve one or more of the problems in new ways. The evolutionary dynamic thus created allows us to characterise the history of OJ in terms of efforts to solve the problems of preserving a perishable product, achieving a desirable flavour, distributing the product over large distances, delivering nutrition and providing convenience and pleasure. An additional layer of complexity results from the interdependent nature of the problems; for example processing for preservation purposes can have detrimental effects on flavour. Considering the acceptance of OJ over the past 80 years as an everyday product, we see analogies with other detailed studies of the embedding of food and drink products in consumer culture over long time frames, for example those of sugar (Mintz 1985), and tomatoes (Harvey, Quilley and Beynon 2002). More broadly, our focus on flavour, temperature and nutrition in the OJ case has clear connections to accounts of how the cultural conventions of comfort, cleanliness and convenience emerged in relation to laundry, showering and eating practices (Shove 2003; Shove and Southerton 2000; Hand, Shove and Southerton 2005; Pantzar 1997). Our analysis of how specific qualities of OJ became normalised draws on several types of data: first we use sales data and market analysis reports as evidence of the relative enthusiasm with which consumers have responded to the different forms of OJ made available by producers; second, we use historical evidence about the marketing strategies and the product marketing material of the key firms to establish the qualities that they anticipated to be important for consumers; finally, we contextualise the OJ story using more general historical material on the development of household food and drink consumption practices over the twentieth century.We also analyse the changing commodity-centric system of provision (Fine and Leopold 1993) that connects the production and consumption of OJ. This approach suggests that the structure of ‘vertical’ commodity chains creates a unity of social and economic processes linking the logics of production and consumption in specific ways for particular commodities. These “unities of processes” can also be seen in the Global Value Chains (GVC) analysed by Gereffi et al (2005), who stress the spatial distribution of commodity chains and the distribution of economic power across the actors that constitute them. We are particularly interested in how chains of production, distribution and retailing have evolved to confer greater power on some actors than others. We suggest this is important because powerful, incumbent actors may well exert considerable influence on the prospects for future eco-innovations. We term those powerful, incumbent organisations possessing buying power that can be mobilised to orchestrate (or block) system innovation “focal organisations”.Practices of consumption and systems of provision are interwoven with technologies. These connections constitute a core part of what are described as socio-technical systems which can remain dynamically stable over long periods of time (Rip and Kemp 1998; Geels 2002). This leads us to question how, and to what extent the actors and technologies that constitute socio-technical systems have become entrenched and locked-in to particular pathways of development (Unruh 2000) and how such lock-in can be escaped (Cowan and Hultén 1996). Hughes (1983) described how systems can gain momentum along particular trajectories and in this paper we focus on specific aspects of the dynamics that generate such patterns: namely, how the co-evolutionary feedback that occurs between practices of consumption and provisioning systems creates momentum around certain qualities of OJ as a product, entrenching a particular system of provision - and an associated configuration of the “problem space”. Breaking out of such a position can be disruptive and challenging for consumers and producers; the emergence of ecological problems may require such a response, by virtue of the changes they bring to the problem space. The Story of Orange JuiceThis section recounts the history of orange juice (OJ), which is presented in a sequence of five eras. For each era, changes occurring in production methods, consumption patterns and the form of the product are described. The description is selective, focusing on changes that have contributed to momentum or stability in particular consumer expectations associated with OJ, the technologies used to produce and distribute it, the nature of the product and the relative power of particular actors in the system of provision. From Fruit to Juice: 1910-1940The processed OJ sector was born in Florida soon after the end of WW1 in response to problems associated with increasing supply in the market for oranges. These problems became an opportunity for orange growers, leading to diversification and the development of a complementary product sector. Initial developments aimed to make use of ‘eliminated’ oranges: those of the wrong size or quality for sale as fruit. The significance of ‘eliminated’ oranges grew in parallel with orange production in Florida and orange consumption throughout the USA. So the first OJ production plants were opened by orange grower-packer cooperatives to deal with this wasted fruit. The first processed OJ was boiled, concentrated, canned and distributed at ambient temperature for home dilution. Although at this time it was the only widely available processed juice, it accounted for a very small proportion of orange production (Hamilton 2009) and its flavour bore little resemblance to that of just-squeezed oranges (Hamilton 2009; Morris 2010). Rising orange production and concern over the devaluing of fruit elicited an alternative response from another group of orange growers. In the mid-1920s the Florida Citrus Exchange, a cooperative of orange growers, distributed orange juice extractors throughout the USA. This programme equipped 16,000 households with juice extractors between 1924-1926 (Hamilton 2009) and represents the first systematic effort to stimulate OJ consumption, in this case on behalf of the orange growers of Florida. Further impetus for developing the OJ market came in the 1930s with rising concerns about vitamin intake and nutrition among US citizens (Fernández-Armesto 2001). This represented an opportunity for juice producers to develop the fledgling market, by capitalising on its vitamin C content. This aligned juice producers with the trend in the wider American food industry of increasing capacity to supply more nutritious foods. For example, quick-freezing of white fish and green vegetables had been introduced (Cox, Mowatt and Prevezer n.d; Coppock 1978), preserving more nutrients and more flavour than competing preservation techniques (Friedland 1994; Shove and Southerton 2000). The 1930s also saw the introduction of a chilled concentrated form of orange juice in addition to tinned juice. This helped to create demand for refrigerated railway wagons operating at lower temperatures than were achievable with the prevailing ice-cooling technique (White 1986). The capacity of the US consumer to accommodate chilled products was on the rise too, with a refrigerator present in 50% of US households by 1938 (Bowden and Offer 1994). By the end of the 1930s, 20% of Florida oranges were being processed, representing a tenfold increase over the decade (US Department of Agriculture1945). The miracle product: Mid-1940s-1960s: Following the Second World War, OJ production and the wider refrigerated food system continued to grow together. The mid-1940s saw the development and commercialisation of a process for producing frozen concentrated orange juice - soon to become known as “the miracle product”. This was a turning point for the industry and by the beginning of the 1960s the volume of OJ produced in Florida had increased by over 500 times: from 226,000 concentrate gallons in 1945/6 to 116 million concentrate gallons by 1961/2 (Florida Canners Association 1963 in Morris 2010). Frozen concentrated OJ accounted for the vast majority of consumption: 70 million gallons according to White (1986). Compared to the earlier tinned version, the flavour of frozen concentrated OJ far more closely resembled that of just-squeezed juice (Morris 2010). The product was quality-stable when kept cold, so requiring both distribution to consumers and home storage in its frozen form. This development clearly established for the first time an association between the logic of OJ processing and consumer expectations about what constitutes ‘good’ orange juice. By the late 1940s, ‘cooling’ infrastructures were becoming well-established in both the US food provisioning and food consumption domains. Three quarters of US households had a refrigerator (Bowden & Offer 1994) and refrigerated railcars with mechanical refrigeration plant installed had been introduced. The further spread of other refrigerated food products, such as those from Birdseye’s quick freeze process, helped to support the development of this infrastructure (White 1986). In general, marketing campaigns for packaged foods in the US intensified during the first half of the twentieth century (Strasser, 1989) and OJ was no exception. Both generic and branded marketing campaigns promoted the health benefits, naturalness, affordability and convenience of frozen concentrated OJ; it was these qualities that led to its description as “the miracle product”. The Florida Department of Citrus (FDC), an agency of the state government established in 1935 to protect the interests of Florida orange growers, sponsored wide-reaching generic advertising campaigns. Early marketing programmes run by Florida Foods (later to become Minute Maid) included radio advertisements featuring that icon of American wholesomeness Bing Crosby, as well as door-to-door product demonstrations. In addition to its marketing activities the FDC coordinated research into citrus growing and processing, and passed regulations to promote improvement in juice quality (Morris 2010), so stimulating incremental improvements in the “cut-back” process. Over this period, OJ became a leading seller among food products in the US (Morris 2010). However its suggested qualities of “naturalness” and “freshness” were absorbed and perhaps unquestioningly assumed by US consumers to such an extent that in 1961, the US Food and Drugs Administration intervened on the basis that consumers may not properly understand the characteristics of the product they were drinking. Following “Standards of Identity” for OJ, US juice processors admitted that use of the word "fresh" on juice products was inappropriate and removed it from their packaging (Hamilton 2009). This represents a key moment of intervention in the process by which OJ came to be associated with particular consumer expectations, highlighting the contested attribution of specific ‘qualities’ to the product.While orange juice was promoted in 1940s America on the basis of its nutritional value in combination with other qualities, in the UK the link with health was more directly forged. Initially exported from the US to the UK as part of the post WWII “Marshall Plan”, OJ was offered to mothers and infants through welfare clinics because of its high vitamin C content. Distributed in small, glass, medicine-like bottles, the “Welfare Juice” would have been many of the UK baby boom generation’s first encounter with OJ. So for the USA this era involved the development of a new orange juice product representing convenience, enhanced flavour and nutritional value. It saw the emergence of Tropicana and Minute-Maid (as Florida Foods) on the processing side and of a contested negotiation process around the qualities that could be claimed by the ‘miracle product’. In contrast the first major wave of OJ adoption in the UK occurred at the same time but under specific circumstances, mediated by government provision and based on uncontested claims about its nutritional – and hence health - value. The convenient product: 1960’s – 1980’sThrough the 1960s Tropicana Products Inc. capitalised on a process of “flash pasteurisation” that it had developed in 1957. This method of preservation replaced concentration with very brief heat treatment which extended the shelf life of non-concentrated juice for up to three months. Although cheaper to produce, the cost of storing and transporting this chilled pasteurised form of orange juice exceeded that of frozen concentrated OJ. It did not, however, require home dilution. Sold at a higher price than frozen concentrate OJ, the popularity of Tropicana’s pasteurised juice grew rapidly and the brand became the market leader despite the price premium - estimated as being 30% in the 1970s (Morris 2010). According to Tropicana, this was the result of superior flavour, which more closely resembled that of just-squeezed juice. Overall, RTS juice consumption rose to account for 15% of OJ consumed in the US by the late 1960s. Tropicana Products Inc. went public in 1969, having more than doubled its revenues in the preceding five years (Pederson 1999). Minute Maid - bought by the Coca-Cola Corporation in 1960 - introduced its own RTS orange juice in 1973. This product, a reconstituted frozen concentrate, was the first RTS juice to be available throughout the USA (Pederson 1999) – presumably making use of Coca-Cola’s distribution infrastructure. Growth in RTS volumes continued, reaching 34% of US OJ consumption by the end of the 1970s (Morris 2010). The rise in popularity of RTS coincided with the juice industry’s increasing use of existing dairy infrastructure, which could easily be adapted to packaging and distributing juice. This enabled both bulk frozen concentrated OJ reprocessing and pasteurised OJ packing to be carried out closer to consuming populations. As a result transport costs fell, contributing to a reduction of the price differential between frozen concentrate and ready-to-serve (RTS) (Morris 2010). The use of dairy infrastructure also presumably facilitated adoption of the “Tetra-brik” as juice packaging. This aseptic laminated board carton, developed in the 1960s as a less cumbersome, less fragile container for milk, increased the stability of packaged juice allowing broader distribution and longer storage. The increased stability would have been more marked for products with lower enzymic and microbial activity, corresponding at this time to products which had undergone the more extensive processing associated with concentration. So this era saw the introduction and rise of ready-to-serve juice in the USA. This further evolution in the OJ product, and the subsequent distinction between juice that had been concentrated and juice that had not, involved some major changes both in consumer expectations and in the system of OJ provision. New processors, especially Tropicana, gained market dominance through the success of their products; infrastructures for chilled storage and distribution were further developed to create larger domestic markets, and associations between freshness, temperature and the type of processing were forged. With Tropicana remaining a brand leader in 2010 ahead of many other branded and private label OJ products in the chilled, not-from-concentrate form, it is clear that developments during this phase established some highly durable associations between consumer expectations, product qualities and modes and technologies of provision. The success of packaging and distribution innovations in enabling market expansion for a premium product established a pattern that was to be repeated – on a larger geographical scale and by different actors – in the next phase of the orange juice history.The global product: 1980’s – 1990’sThe 1980s saw continued growth in RTS consumption, which overtook concentrate for home dilution in the USA by 1985 (Hamilton 2009), marking a significant shift in practices of OJ consumption: changes in home preparation and in what was expected of a good OJ in terms of flavour, convenience and perceptions of freshness. Before the 1980s Tropicana and Minute Maid were the only major OJ brands, jointly accounting for around a third of the US market (Morris 2010). The 1980s saw the entry of Procter and Gamble, producing and marketing both RTS and concentrate. Brand advertising expenditures on orange juice almost tripled between 1980 and 1985, greatly outpacing generic advertising by the Florida Department of Citrus (Morris 2010). This higher spending on marketing was coupled with increased new product development activity which yielded new lines such as OJ with added-pulp (to further mimic just-squeezed juice) and with added calcium (Morris, 2010). It was at this time, following a change in senior management, that Tropicana introduced the term “Not from Concentrate” on its packaging. Tropicana’s subsequent marketing strategy focused on presenting not-from-concentrate juice as sharing more of the attributes of just-squeezed juice than reconstituted juice (Morris 2010), thereby shifting the emphasis of the key product quality that relates to the flash pasteurisation technology from convenience to freshness and naturalness. This strategy was highly successful and when the Tropicana business was sold in 1988 its value had more than doubled in 10 years (Morris 2010).Growth in European OJ consumption, which had been gradual during the 1970s, gained pace in the 1980s. UK consumption rose from 97ml per person per week in 1981 to 225ml per person per week by 1990 (Adjusted National Food Survey, ONS). The majority of this growth had been satisfied by imports of first American, then later Brazilian, frozen concentrated OJ which was reconstituted in Europe and packed in aseptic cartons to allow post-packing ambient storage. UK imports of not-from-concentrate juice also began to grow in the 1980s, while at the same time OJ retailing followed milk retailing by moving from doorstep delivery to the supermarket (see Dewick and Foster 2011; Kearns, pers. comm.) This occurred at a time when retailers in the UK were investing strongly in the development of both sophisticated IT-controlled logistics systems and the private-label products that allowed them to maximise return on that investment. With domestic refrigerators now in most UK households, chilled products that could attract premium prices – initially ‘ready meals’ in particular – were an important group (Wrigley 1998, Marshall 2001, Cox, Mowatt and Prevezer n.d.). Changes in the geographical pattern of OJ consumption during this period were mirrored by changes in the geography of production. Orange processing for juice had begun in Brazil in the early 1960’s after insufficient availability of Florida juice followed freezing weather that reduced orange yields (Sterns and Spreen 2010). Exports of frozen concentrate OJ from Brazil then grew tenfold during the 1970s, reaching around 300ktonnes by the end of that decade (FAOStat). This early success of the Brazilian industry derived from its cost base being lower than its Floridian counterpart – an advantage that it has maintained ever since (Wade, Ramos and Neves 2001). In the 1980s more adverse weather events in Florida, in the face of growing demand, created opportunities for Brazilian firms to expand further at a time when they were making significant investments in orange processing technologies and infrastructure, particularly aseptic bulk storage and transport. The result was the creation of an extensive network of firms with significant capacity to store and transport OJ on a large scale into European and US markets (Sterns & Spreen, 2010). So between 1979 and 1989 FCOJ exports from Brazil more than doubled again (FAOStat).OJ production and consumption grew rapidly in this era, especially through further development of export markets for Brazilian juice. This required major investment in infrastructures for OJ provision. This increase in scale created further momentum (in Hughes’ language) in the evolving and expanding system through irreversibilities associated with the new technological infrastructure. Reinforced by growth in marketing effort, associations between specific OJ varieties with their respective modes of provision, consumer expectations and product qualities became more deeply entrenched. Scaling up brought renewed problems linked to trade-offs between flavour, preservation and nutritional value. In particular the trade-off between preservation and flavour opened up new opportunities for further innovation.The ‘fresh, chilled, healthy and natural’ product: 1990-2005By the 1990s a significant proportion of OJ that was drunk was not-from-concentrate. In the US, this variety comprised just under half of the RTS juice drunk (Neilson, Four Weeks in September 1997 in Neves, undated case study), but in Europe not-from-concentrate became even more significant. The early 1990s saw Tropicana expand into Europe and Japan; both its own sales and total sales of not-from-concentrate grew year-on-year throughout the 1990s (Morris 2010); per capita consumption in Europe reached twice the US level by 1998 (Goodrich and Brown, n.d.). In 1998 Tropicana was sold again, to PepsiCo; in the decade since its previous sale, its value had almost trebled. Investment, innovation and growth continued in the Brazilian industry in the 1990s, with both vertical integration and concentration among processing firms there (Neves undated case study, Azevedo and Chaddad 2006). As in Florida decades earlier, Brazilian orange groves were now growing more for processing than for fruit (Wade, Ramos and Neves 2001). Brazilian exports of frozen concentrated juice continued to grow, peaking in 2000. But this peak signalled less a decline in the Brazilian orange juice industry than a shift of focus towards not-from-concentrate. NFC sales growth was supported by processors’ further investments in logistics infrastructure. In the 1990s bulk storage capacity was built for not-from-concentrate juice and existing vessels were retro-fitted to enable it to be shipped to Europe, while the 2000s saw the introduction of ships designed specifically for aseptic NFC transport (Migliore 2005). Growth in the capacity of individual vessels reflected continuing increases in the scale of the industry and brought significant cost savings. By the end of the 2000s, Brazilian export of not-from-concentrate had overtaken those of frozen concentrate OJ (FAOStat). The 2000s also saw technological innovation in areas of flavour maintenance and control. Mermelstein (2000) notes how advances in the use of in-line sensors in processing allow better control of juice product composition, in turn allowing better results from aseptic processing and bulk storage. Simultaneously, practices involving the extraction of oils and essences during orange processing and their addition back into OJ products, extant since the 1950s, increased in sophistication. So processors gained more understanding of – and leverage on – flavour (Hamilton 2009; Mermelstein 2000). This improved control enabled a standardised (in flavour) OJ product to be made available throughout the (western) world.The UK OJ market was by this time completely dominated by sales for household consumption. These accounted for 80% by value of fruit juice sales, and 80% of them were via supermarkets (Euromonitor 2010). Private label products gained significant market share during the 1990s, followed by diversification in their market positioning in the 2000s (Grange 2009) which has contributed to a further strengthening of their position, so that private-label juice accounted for 42% of sales in 2009 (Euromonitor 2010). As a result, in 2010 only Tropicana had the brand “weight” to earn it a place alongside the private-label juice products in Tesco’s chilled juice cabinets. So the major Brazilian processors were now serving a market increasingly mediated by major grocery retailers, centred around private-label products. Yet although the bulk of investment in the system of provision over this period was directed towards supplying not-from-concentrate, growth in juice sales was not restricted to these products but extended across the “chilled juice” category, which includes both NFC and reconstituted juices (Mintel 2010). While governments have continued to regulate the OJ industry since the FDA’s intervention in the USA in the early 1960’s, the 1990s saw a resurgence in state promotion of juice as part of a “healthy diet”– the FAO and governments in both the USA and the UK all engaged in campaigns to encourage consumption of fruit and vegetables, including fruit juices (Stayte and Vaughan 2000; Lambert 2001, quoting Heimendinger et al 1996). But this new government promotion is somewhat ambivalent: juice remains a “contentious item” in the “5-a-day” campaigns, acknowledged as lacking some of the nutritional status of fresh fruit (Lambert 2001). In this era then, one feature was a technology-enabled trend towards global standardisation of the OJ flavour, at a time when many brands were pursuing globalisation strategies. This standardisation encompasses considerable convergence between the flavours of reconstituted juices and those which have not been concentrated. In the face of this, the rise of to prominence of chilled juices in general and of not-from-concentrate in particular seem to represent a convergence of consumer expectations with the interests of the system of provision. So the difference in typical retail price between chilled and ambient juice – over100% in the early 2000’s, according to Mintel (2004) – offers some insight into the value placed on chilled juice by both the retailer and the consumer. It also seems reasonable to suggest that the less processed and “fresher” juices are perceived to be, the more they are perceived to share the nutritional benefits of fruit, however nuanced government support for juice as a fruit substitute may be. Not-from-concentrate OJ appears to have capitalised on this association. For example Mintel (2010) notes that many consumers do not perceive any difference between freshly squeezed OJ and not-from-concentrate ‘with bits’ - even though the latter will have been in bulk storage and/or transport for much longer than the former -, suggesting that for many consumers NFC OJ fulfils their expectations of the juice from oranges. This perception aligns with the interests of supermarkets, since not-from-concentrate offers retailers the advantage of longer shelf life at a retail price only slightly lower than that of ‘fresh squeezed’ OJ (Mintel 2010). The persistence of the past in shaping potential eco-innovations – turning orange green In this penultimate section we provide an analytical overview of the historical sequences discussed so far and consider how this history shapes the potential for innovation to solve a new problem for OJ: carbon and climate change. Over the last 80 years, there have been major and interdependent changes in the product, the industry and consumers’ expectations of what orange juice offers. The preceding account has illustrated how persistent waves of technological change have propelled the OJ system to massive volumes and global reach. Innovation has been directed toward solving “problems”, including improving preservation, transportation, flavour, nutritional value, consumer convenience, and reliability of supply, within the particular technological and societal contexts from which they have emerged. As contexts have changed over time, the potential to solve problems in new ways has developed, the existing solutions to problems have become less satisfactory, and alternative solutions have emerged. This process has contributed to the creation and maintenance of associations between particular modes of provision, material properties and desirable qualities of orange juice. The consequent reinforcement or “locking in” of expectations among consumers, we argue, constrains the range of potential solutions to future problems that emerge. The first OJ was produced in order to solve the problem of orange wastage by orange growers. This tinned product was marketed as providing nutrition for consumers, due to its high vitamin C content. The success of this product was constrained by its (lack of) palatability. Subsequent developments in orange juice production were directed toward solving the problem of transportable nutrition alongside palatability. The initial process for producing frozen-concentrate OJ emerged out of research funded by the US government in the search for ways of providing adequate nutrition to the American army in the absence of access to fruit and vegetables. The stimulation of consumer demand and rapid uptake of the product that followed drew strength from the link with nutrition, despite the altered context – alternative sources of vitamins exist for citizens outside the army. The convenience of this new form of OJ (an indeed of most subsequent forms) derived in large part from its “fit” with the emerging refirgerated food distribution and storage infrastructure – the new context. What was (and still is) really being sold was “convenient, palatable nutrition”. That frozen-concentrated OJ was significantly more popular (judging by volume of sales) among consumers than its predecessor, and soon largely replaced it despite being relatively less convenient (it had to be kept cold, reconstituted at home and cost more), gives some indication of the value conferred by the closer resemblance of its flavour to that of just-squeezed juice. In this context the successful promotion in terms of convenience and economy was not by comparison to tinned juice, but relative to oranges and home squeezing. Manufacturers’ marketing efforts to connect OJ to the orange fruit continue today. Regulatory activity and one strand of process innovation also centred on maintaining (and strengthening) the association between orange juice and fruit. We see, in the establishment of segmented consumer demand for different product forms and in the limited perceived difference between not-from-concentrate OJ and freshly-squeezed juice (Mintel, 2010), how these efforts – no doubt combined with long exposure to particular products - came to shape consumers’ expectations of what is “fresh”. We can see too how early solutions to the problem of provision of nutrition, were to be re-solved in different contexts years later. While in the 1930’s its vitamin C content alone was sufficient for juice to attract the “healthy” tag, post-2000 we find that for a food to be judged healthy in the “5-a-day” schemes it must not only contain vitamins but also fibre and not too much sugar. Most recently, an association has emerged between a presumed degree of processing and products which are stored cold or in their not-from-concentrate form, appealing to expectations of freshness and health. But if the trend to sell juice cold must in part be attributed to realisation of consumers’ changing expectations of freshness, it must also in part be attributed to the physical lengthening of value chains – the global spread of refrigerated infrastructure and the development of preservation technologies that are essential elements of the orange juice story. Similarly advances in flavour creation and maintenance have emerged in the scaling-up of actors in the system of provision: in the context of brand expansion across the world higher production volumes of consistent product are required to meet expectations associated with a global brand image. The co-evolution of OJ products, practices of consumption and modes of provision proceeded differently in different places, leading to variation in the qualities associated with ‘good’ orange juice, and in the degree to which these are reflected in the revealed preferences of different groups of consumers. In the UK and to a slightly lesser extent in the US, this process has converged upon one type of OJ - not-from-concentrate - which is bought, stored and served chilled. But carbon footprint studies reveal significant differences between the carbon burdens of the various forms of OJ that are widely sold (Table 1), derived from differences between post-harvest activities rather than from orange cultivation itself. Significantly, not-from-concentrate has the highest carbon footprint. TABLE 1 HERESo against the historical background embedded carbon emissions represent a new problem, apparently unconnected to freshness, flavour, nutritional value, etc. Current innovation activity indicates, however, that this problem has to some extent been absorbed into the “orange juice problem space” with different potential innovators interpreting it in different ways. The carbon problem has as yet elicited only tentative responses. Differences between these responses are instructive for their varying attention to consumer expectations versus technical challenges. These relate in part to how the problem is more proximately understood. At one extreme it is framed as a simple question of consumer choice among existing varieties. The related solution, and a strategy adopted by one major UK supermarket, is to place carbon labels on the different orange juice varieties in the hope that consumers will choose to weigh carbon emissions alongside other qualities in their decisions over which to buy. To date there has not been any major consumer response to the provision of this information. At the other extreme, there are emerging responses that seek to solve the refrigeration problem through technological development, leaving the chilled premium product in place and not disturbing consumer expectations around associations between freshness, flavour, nutrition and temperature. A third approach, adopted by another major UK supermarket, involves shifting some orange cultivation closer to the point of consumption – i.e. for UK consumption, a shift of supply from Brazil to Spain. An alternative innovation has emerged from the food service industry, outside the current set of focal actors. This has utilised new technologies (especially in packaging) to provide premium (and not-from-concentrate) OJ products that can be stored at ambient temperature. Despite undergoing extensive trials in a major UK supermarket the products have been discontinued following pressure to conform to the price points of existing ambient products, rather than those in the premium chilled category. Success of this innovation has effectively been constrained by both existing consumer expectations and the interests of the supermarkets in maintaining the status quo. This example, together with consideration of two out of three strategies employed by the supermarkets (natural refrigeration and relocating supply) suggests that the prospect of disrupting established consumer expectations is viewed as more of a challenge than potentially risky and expensive investments in new technology.ConclusionSome efforts to understand how transitions to more sustainable societies might occur paint a picture of potentially dramatic revolutions in socio-technical systems connected to mobility, the built environment, energy production and so on. At first glance, focusing attention on a product such as orange juice might appear parochial by comparison. But as we have shown, orange juice is enmeshed in a vast and complex socio-technical system of global scale and is consumed in great quantities. The product is associated with a range of consumer expectations about the necessary qualities of ‘good’ orange juice. In its history changing consumer practice can be observed - in terms of how OJ is purchased, stored at home and prepared. As such, the practice of drinking OJ has changed significantly in terms of how people store, prepare, serve and drink it and also in the qualities that are associated with good OJ. The system of provision has changed significantly too, with the emergence of a small number of powerful processors and retailers responsible for global production and distribution.We have focused on the entanglement of consumer expectations with innovation pathways, using the notion of problem sequences and problem spaces to capture the idea that multiple problems interact with each other waxing and waning in relative prominence, creating different targets for innovators. This evolutionary dynamic arises because there are always opportunities to improve on ‘current situations’, while competitive dynamics within the system of provision mean that there are always incentives for producers to innovate to solve the problems that exist within any situation. But, at the same time, this potential for persistent innovation is constrained by the very momentum and structures (physical and organisational) created in its realisation. The case study also leads to some conclusions about the transformation of food systems more generally. Firstly, attempts to address environmental impacts on a product-by-product basis (for instance by carbon labelling) will be hindered by consumers’ established expectations of individual products and their link to wider food-related practices. These attempts are likely to make little headway unless there are significant changes to those practices and expectations - a process that is unlikely to happen spontaneously and that will require the adjustment of consumer expectations built up over decades. Secondly, when considering the potential of different innovation pathways, it is important to consider both these factors and the roles that focal organisations play in existing systems. Where focal organisations have strong commercial interests in the continuation of a current situation or the preservation of an existing and stable problem space (as retailers and processors do in this case), a very strong vision of a future situation embedded in a re-formed problem space will be needed to overcome understandable reluctance to disrupt a profitable status quo and undertake more than technical innovation within an existing system of provision.Therefore, history matters a great deal in the development of strategies for reducing the carbon footprint of products for everyday consumption. The path-dependent processes that lead to present situations create a context and structure that constrain the framing of ecological problems and their associated solutions. The case of OJ points to the importance of accumulating interdependencies between products, modes of provision and practices of consumption in this respect.Table 1. Carbon footprint of different categories of orange juice, per 250ml serving.ChilledAmbientNot from concentrate400gCO2eq300gCO2eqFrom concentrate240gCO2eq150gCO2eqReferencesAdjusted National Food Survey, ONSAzevedo, P. F. and Chaddad, F. (2006) Redesigning the Food Chain: Trade, Investment and Strategic Alliances in the Orange Juice Industry. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review 9: 18-32Bowden, S & Offer, A, (1994). Household appliances and the use of time: the United States and Britain since the 1920s. The economic history review. 47: 725-748Callon, M., C. Méadel, and V. Rabeharisoa. (2002) The economy of qualities. Economy and Society 31:194-217.Coppock, J.B.M. (1978). Food Technology in A History of Technology, Volume VII . The Twentieth Century, c.1900 to c.1950, Part II. ??Trevor I. Williams (ed.), pp.1399-1445, Oxford UP, 1978.Cowan, Robin and Staffan Hultén (1996). Escaping Lock-In: The Case of the Electric Vehicle”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol 53(1), pp. 61-80, Cox, H., Mowatt, S. and Prevezer, M. From frozen fishfingers to chilled chicken tikka: organisational responses to technical change in the late twetieth century. Paper Number 18-99. Research Papers in International Business, ISSN No. 1366-6290Dewick, P. and Foster, C. 2011. Focal actors and eco–innovation in milk production and distribution. Paper presented at the DRUID Society Conference 2011, June 15-17 2011, CopenhagenEuromonitor 2010 Fruit and Vegetable Juice – United Kingdom. Euromonitor International Sector Briefing April 2010FAOStat. Food Agriculture Organisations’s Tradestat, at ández-Armesto, F 2001 . Food: a History London: MacMillanFine, B. and Leopold, E. 1993. The world of consumption. London: Routledge.Foster, C., Green, K., Bleda, M., Dewick, P., Evans, B., Flynn, A., Mylan, J. 2006. Environmental Impacts of Food Production and Consumption: A report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA: London.Friedland, W.H. 1994. The Global Fresh Fruit & Vegetable System: an Industrial Organisation Analysis. In McMichael, P. (Ed) The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1994.Garnett, T. (2007] Food Refrigeration: what is the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and how might emissions be reduced? Food Climate Research Network, Centre for Environmental Strategy. University of Surrey. Gee and McMeekin, 2011. Eco-Innovation Systems and Problem Sequences: The contrasting cases of US and Brazilian biofuels. Industry and Innovation 18 Issue 3 Geels, F.W., 2002. Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration process: a multi level perspectiv and a case study, Research Policy 31: 1257-1274. Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J. and Sturgeon, T. 2005. “The governance of global value chains”, Review of International Political Economy, 12: 78–104Goodrich, R. M. and Brown, M. G. n.d. European Markets for NFC: Supply and Demand Issues Grange, A. 2009. Industry Insight: Developments in Private Label Packaging. Pira International Ltd. Surrey, UK. Hamilton, A. 2009. Squeezed: What you don’t know about orange juice. Yale University Press, New Haven and LondonHand, M., Shove, E. and Southerton, D. 2005. Explaining showering: a discussion of the material, conventional and temporal dimensions of practice. Sociological Research Online, 10 (2).Harvey, M., McMeekin, A., & Warde, A. 2004. Qualities of food. Manchester UniversityPress.Harvey, M. Quilley, S. and Beynon, H. 2002. Exploring the Tomato: Transformations of nature, society and economy. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Cheltenham, UK and Massachusetts, USA. Hughes, T.P. 1983. Networks of Power; Electrification in Western Society 1880-1930, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.Lambert, N. 2001 Food Choice, Phytochemicals & Cancer Prevention in Frewer, L.J., Risvik, E. Schifferstein H. Food, People and Society: A European Perspective of Consumers’ Food Choices Springer, Berlin, 2001Leonard-Barton, D. (1988) "Implementation as Mutual Adaptation of Technology and Organization." Research Policy 17: 261-267Marshall D. 2001 “Food Availability and the European Consumer” in Frewer, L.J., Risvik, E. Schifferstein H. Food, People and Society: A European Perspective of Consumers’ Food Choices Springer, Berlin, 2001Mermelstein, N. H. (2000) Aseptic bulk storage and transportation. Food Technology Vol 57 No 4Metcalfe, J.S. 2001. ‘Institutions and Progress’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 10: 561-586.Metcalfe, J.S. and Ramlogan, R. 2008. Innovation systems and the competitive process in developing economies, The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 48:433-446Migliore, M. 2005. Aseptic's ship sets sail: new shipping technology takes NFC orange juice to the high seas. Flow Control Volume XI No. 5. Last accessed 16 Nov. 2011Mintel 2004. Fruit Juice and Juice Drinks UK November 2004. Mintel 2010. Fruit Juice and Juice Drinks UK November 2010. Mintz, S. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: VikingMorris, R.A. 2010. The U.S. Orange and Grapefruit Juice Markets: History, Development, Growth and Change. EDIS document FE834, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of FloridaNeves, M. F. (undated case study) Differentiation in the Orange Juice Chain: The Case of Cambuhy M. C.Pantzar, M., 1997. Domestication of Everyday Life Technology: Dynamic Views on the Social Histories of Artefacts. Design Issues 13 (3): 52–65.Pederson, J. P. 1999. International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 28. St. James Press.Rip, A. and Kemp, R. 1998. Technical change. In: S. Rayner and E.L. Majone, Editors, Human Choice and Climate Change, Batelle Press, Columbus, OH (1998), pp. 327–399.Shove, E., 2003. Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience – the Social Organisation of Normality. Oxford: Berg.Shove, E. and Southerton D. 2000. Defrosting the freezer: from novelty to convenience. A narrative of normalization, Journal of Material Culture 5(3): 301-19.Sterns, J. A. and Spreen, T. H. 2010. Evaluating sustainable competitive advantages in Brazilian processed citrus supply chains: An application of Porter’s Diamond Framework. Int. J. Food System Dynamics 2: 162-175.Strasser, S. 1989 Satisfaction guaranteed: the makings of the American mass market. Smithsonian Books, WashingtonTukker, A., G. Huppes, J. Guinée, R. Heijungs, A.de Koning, L. van Oers, S. Suh, T. Geerken, M.van Holderbeke, B. Jansen, P. Nielsen 2005. “Environmental Impact of Products (EIPRO). Analysis of the life cycle environmental impacts related to the total final consumption of the EU25”. Arnold Tukker,. IPTS/ESTO.Unruh, G.C. 2000. ‘Understanding carbon lock-in’. Energy Policy 28: 817-830.United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics 1945. Citrus Fruits: Production, Farm Disposition and Utilization of Sales Crop Seasons 1909-10 - 1943-44. Available at , M. A., Ramos, C. C, and Neves, E. M. 2001. A comparative analysis of Citrus Costs and Returns, 1980-2000: Florida, USA and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Paper presented at the World Food and Agribusiness Symposium, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IAMA) Sydney, Australia June 27-28 2001.Warde, A. 1997. Consumption, Food and Taste Sage, London.White, J. W. 1986. The Great Yellow Fleet. San Marino, CA. Golden West Books.Wrigley, N. 1998. How British retailers have shaped food choice. in Murcott, A. (ed.) The Nation’s Diet: the Social Science of Food Choice Longman, London. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download