Investigator Robert E. Dale, who alerted us to the seminar on Manufacturing meaning in the chicken commodity chain" (see item from two days ago), sent us an update:
Well, I did make it to the seminar, and actually it was quite serious and informative. I did chat with Peter Jackson afterwards, and he told me that this esoteric title was as nothing compared with many in the social science area (as I’m sure you are peculiarly aware).
Some of the preliminary statistics he gave were quite extraordinary, I thought: growing cycle (to 4lbs) reduced from 12 weeks in the 60’s to 6 weeks now; 885M chickens slaughtered in the UK in 2004; UK retail sales in 2002 amounted to ?2.75B. The study was via some 30-40 or so recorded interviews ("life-history" interviews) with workers in the supply chain, from hatcheries to upper management. The final general take home message seemed to be: "Food is probably safer today than 30 years ago, but the biggest issue and change in marketing is that (the striving by the super-markets for) food safety is now being replaced by (striving for) customer trust."