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BFJ 115,1

Key CSR dimensions for the food chain

Sari Forsman-Hugg
Economic Research, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Helsinki, Finland

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Juha-Matti Katajajuuri and Inkeri Riipi

Biotechnology and Food Research, MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Helsinki, Finland, and

kela , Katja Ja rvela and Pa ivi Timonen Johanna Ma

National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to identify and dene the content of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the food chain. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research approach was applied in the study, based on participatory and case study research methodologies. The study drew on three different case food products and their supply chains: rye bread, broiler chicken products and margarine. The content of CSR was built through participatory workshops, the aim of which was to elicit the ideas of different stakeholder groups. Findings The study identied seven key dimensions of food chain CSR: environment, product safety, corporate nutritional responsibility, occupational welfare, animal health and welfare, local market presence and economic responsibility. Originality/value The results provide food and agribusiness companies with a better understanding of core CSR issues and their relevance in complex chains and networks. This may encourage the companies to promote their activities in a more responsible and sustainable direction and offer elements to build sustainable business cases. In addition, the results may indicate a change towards broader understanding of what is meant by corporate social responsibility. Keywords Corporate social responsibility, Food chain, Environmental responsibility, Social responsibility, Economic responsibility, Stakeholder dialogue, Stakeholders, Finland Paper type Research paper

Introduction Increasing concern about environmental and social issues in food production and consumption has been spreading rapidly in Europe. Food quality, health, environmentalism and animal welfare have become global concerns (Lindgreen et al., 2009b) and consumers are increasingly aware and demanding of responsibility in these issues (Beer, 2009). Spreading multiculturalism has resulted in a growing demand for differentiated products and services (Lindgreen and Hingley, 2009). From the corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective, food and agribusiness companies are
British Food Journal Vol. 115 No. 1, 2013 pp. 30-46 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070701311289867

The article presents results from the project Enhancing corporate social responsibility in the Finnish food chain with a stakeholder dialogue. The authors would like to thank the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Finnish Ministry of Environment, the participating food chain companies and research institutes for funding the project. They would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments during the referee process.

frequently subject to broad interests and there is an increasing need for them to respond to the challenges and obligations posed by sustainability. They need to show that responsibility has moved from ideology to reality, i.e. that their actions are responsible and appropriate. The pressures to perform responsibly are real and food companies in Finland are willing to gauge their social and environmental performance to maintain the standards of responsibility. However, consultative and participatory processes with stakeholders are necessary to design these standards. Despite the clear importance of the design of standards and the signicance of stakeholder dialogue, to the best of our knowledge, only partial efforts have addressed the importance of these issues. There are different theories and approaches to CSR , 2004; Halme, 2007; Husted and Allen, 2007; Ketola, 2008; Maon (e.g. Garriga and Mele et al., 2009a), but empirical work on how to put the theories into company practice remains limited (Lindgreen et al., 2009a). CSR is not about being seen to do good but can only be meaningful when it is part of the DNA of an organisation (see Hingley, 2010). The objective of this article was to identify and dene the content of CSR in the Finnish food supply chain context. We choose to dene CSR as a concept of collectively standardised business activities of a company to pressures from stakeholders. The denition relies on stakeholders that constitute a link between the goals of a company and the expectations of society. Companies are facing rapid changes in the food sector due to the growing concern and rising awareness among consumers of traceability in the food chain, the origin of raw materials and food safety, environmental impacts of products and processes as well as societal issues such as animal welfare. Customers, governments, NGOs, the media and wider society are all asking companies to provide an open and well-substantiated account of how they operate, what their impact on society is, and how they are minimising negative impacts and saving scarce natural resources. The specic research question is: Is it possible to identify a shared understanding of food chain CSR by relevant stakeholders? In order to assess, manage and develop their CSR actions and to take account of industry-specic features and stakeholder expectations, companies need a detailed operationalisation of CSR. The focus of this article is description of the multi-step research process that produced the essential dimensions of CSR. The content of CSR was built in three steps through: (1) a thorough analysis of supply chain cases with a detailed description of current CSR issues in partner companies; (2) participatory workshops that aimed to elicit the ideas of different stakeholder groups; and (3) CSR content building. In this study CSR implies a wider perspective than the view that companies act in compliance with the legal norms. The article draws on context-specicity, using the food supply chain and three case products as an example. The case supply chains were exemplied by three special products: rye bread, sliced, marinated and packed broiler chicken products and margarine. The rst two items were produced by a leading Finnish bakery and a meat processing company, and the last was a private label product of a large Finnish retail company. The widely accepted approach to CSR is based on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) with three dimensions: economic (prots), social (people) and environmental (planet)

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responsibility (Elkington, 1997). Companies are increasingly interesting in 3P (TBL) evaluation,that is, doing business while avoiding harm to people and the planet (Cronin et al., 2011). Beyond this categorisation there is no consensus about the denition and content of CSR (e.g. Greeneld, 2004; Dahlsrud, 2008; Wan-Jan, 2006; Jones et al., 2007). Thus, there is a need for more explicit and concrete (Wilenius, 2005; Lindgreen et al., 2009a) CSR content. Only by building meaning and content into CSR can the responsibility for operations be measured and managed. However, as the TBL approach is broadly accepted and is part of the managerial processes in companies, the research project used TBL dimensions as the basic theoretical tool to construct, understand and analyse the manifold nature of CSR in a specic context, that of the Finnish food chain. Supply chain view of CSR: food chain as an example Companies do not operate in isolation, but are closely linked to their competitive environments and to the dynamic chains and networks of different types of actors. This highlights the importance of effective supply chain management, where efforts are made to bring suppliers and customers together in a business process (Omta et al., 2001; Tan, 2001). The production of a particular food item usually includes several raw materials or ingredient supply chains, where many sub-processes take place in several companies. To date little is known about how to cover, organise and manage CSR issues in the product chains in a complex network of international suppliers and customers (Hamprecht et al., 2005; Maloni and Brown, 2006; Cramer, 2008). Research has, for example, ignored the potential development of a competitive advantage from the sustainable supply chain approach (Markley and Davis, 2007). This is a severe shortcoming despite the fact that competition today is becoming less rm vs rm and more supply chain vs supply chain (Hult et al., 2007). Fritz and Schiefer (2009) go even further by stating that the food sector builds on dynamically evolving trade relationships that are more like networks than chains. As a consequence, the control, management and monitoring of responsibility becomes even more challenging. Maon et al. (2009b), suggested that sharing supply chain expertise can be the way for corporations to demonstrate their good corporate citizenship. The food chain is a good example of looking at the context-specicity of CSR. There are many aspects, such as those related to nutrition and human health, as well as animal welfare, which are solely characteristic to the food sector. In order for a food product or an ingredient to be produced in a responsible way, the entire supply chain must take account of the impacts of its actions on society economic, social and environmental. For example, the most recent results show that eating represents 15 to 40 percent of the environmental impacts caused by private consumption, depending on the specic elements and environmental impacts that are included in the calculation la et al., 2011; see also Nissinen et al., 2007). In addition, studies by Katajajuuri (Seppa et al. (2005), among others, have shown that a signicant share of total environmental impacts in the food chain often results from agricultural production and not the manufacturing process of the nal product. Furthermore, product safety cannot be completely assured based solely on the analysis of the nal product, but the entire food supply chain should be monitored. Moreover, there is information dependency from the early stages of the food chain, as is the case, for example, with animal welfare requirements (Fritz and Schiefer, 2009).

Methodology The research project applied the qualitative approach, proceeded iteratively, and built on several steps. Since the signicance of stakeholder dialogue in dening CSR is strongly stressed (Cramer et al., 2004, Wilenius, 2005, Ingenbleek et al., 2007), a participatory approach played a signicant role throughout the research process. In participatory research the participants have an active role in the research (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995) and lay people are involved to generate knowledge about issues that affect them in their daily lives (Park, 2006). Participatory methods are often described as reexive, exible and iterative (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995). The participatory approach was implemented by organising and facilitating participatory stakeholder workshops to generate knowledge and standpoints about the content of CSR. The role of the workshops was to provide an open, inspirational and interactive forum Bringing relevant interest groups to the process of developing a meaningful and concrete concept of CSR exemplies the importance of stakeholder dialogue, the importance of which is widely acknowledged in CSR literature (Maignan et al., 2005; Maon et al., 2009a; Habisch et al., 2010, Hingley, 2010, Lindgreen and Swaen, 2010, Cronin et al., 2011,). The case study approach (e.g. Yin, 1994; Stake, 1995) was also applied in this study. This was found to provide the observational richness that is needed for understanding the relative, contextual and undened content of food chain CSR. Consequently, the project drew on three real food products and their production chains in order to operationalise the research questions. The case products and chains were selected through interaction with the companies involved in the project. The products selected were rye bread, broiler chicken products and margarine. The research process was multiform and iterative and did not proceed in a straightforward manner, which is characteristic of a case study (Eriksson and Koistinen, 2005). Research process and outputs The three main phases of the study were: (1) supply chain cases; (2) participatory workshops; and (3) CSR content building. The rst step in the research process, supply chain cases, included supply-chain-specic data collection on a wide range of CSR dimensions for each of the case products. The purpose of the chain data and respective CSR issues was to give a detailed description of the production chain and current company practices. Data were gathered and generated by means of detailed inquiries and interviews of company representatives along the production chain, interviews of experts, discussions with key persons from the companies and by using internal company documents, CSR reports, industry reports, statistics, and other data sources on CSR issues concerning the entire production chain of the case products. For each expert interview, researchers drew up a questionnaire on the basis of the responsibility dimension and the data needed from case companies. Altogether 35 persons were interviewed. For each of the cases, the entire production chain (from production to retail) and processes were described in detail, including the origin of ingredients and products as

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accurately as possible, as well as quality, human resource management and other management systems in the companies throughout the chain (Table I). A uniform data collection procedure was adapted, allowing room for case-specic features. For example, animal health and welfare issues were naturally accounted for in the case of broiler chicken products, while they were less relevant in the case of rye bread or margarine. The data collected were categorised using the TBL dimensions (e.g. Niskala and Tarna, 2003; Rohweder, 2004; SFS, 2006). The supply-chain data for the case products CSR issues were collected in a comprehensive way, but some issues turned out to be especially challenging, such as elements related to economic responsibility. For example, according to company representatives, the determination of prices was considered condential information that they did not want to share. In the case of social responsibility, in turn, detailed information on imported raw materials such as palm and cocoa was hard to nd. Compared with economic and social responsibility, the information on environmental responsibility issues was easier to establish. A detailed chain report was written for each of the cases. These reports provided accounts of the state of affairs. Based on these reports, three informative booklets were produced to serve as stimuli in each of the three participatory workshops. The booklets were written in popular language and their purpose was to give the workshop participants a concise description of the supply chain of each case product and an idea of how the chain functions from the CSR viewpoint. The booklets were in A5 format with 30-50 pages. The second phase of the study, the participatory stakeholder workshops for each of the cases, focused on the production chain perspective. The workshops took place in 2007 in Helsinki, Finland. A variety of actors interested in CSR were invited to the workshops. The participants were recruited from three main groups. One third (34) of the participants were business people from the partner companies (that is, a leading Finnish meat company, a leading company of plant-based products, a leading feed company, a leading bakery company and a leading retail trade company in Finland) representing the supply chain, about one third (35 were members of the National
Economic responsibility Protability of farming, industry protability, cost structure and investments, price margins, producer and consumer prices, history and strategy of the brand, consumer segments Well-being of farmers and workers in the production chain, wages, work safety, employee training, equality issues, animal welfare, employment effect of the supply chain, origin of raw materials/ingredients, product safety issues, research and development activities of companies, customer satisfaction and feedback Description of main environmental impacts, related actions and risks, data on environmental audits, material- and eco-balances of companies, environmental impacts of the case companies, LCAbased environmental impact data on supply chain

Social responsibility

Table I. Examples of CSR data collected and generated from the case supply chains

Environmental responsibility

Consumer Research Centres Consumer Panel (Pulliainen, 2007), and the rest (21) were experts and representatives of important stakeholders (e.g. NGOs such as the Finnish Federation for Animal Welfare Associations, and interest groups such as The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners and the Finnish Food and Drink Industries Federation, authorities such as the Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Agency and researchers from universities and governmental research institutes specic to each case). About 30 people participated in each workshop. The participants were divided into three groups in order to allow enough debate and to motivate group discussion. In each group the participants represented the three main groups noted above. The total number of participants in all three workshops was 90. The participants received case-specic booklets based on the supply chain cases two weeks before the workshop. The workshops were organised on three evenings from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. The programme consisted of four blocks: opening, group sessions, presentation and reviewing of the outputs, and closing. In addition to the participants, the workshop included a general chair and each group had a facilitator, a secretary and an assistant. The role of these representatives of the research group was to ensure that the workshop proceeded approximately according to the detailed script that was crafted. A large share of the time (100 minutes) in the three-hour workshops was devoted to group sessions focused on the three pre-selected themes specic to each case study. The themes were chosen on the basis of issues identied during the compilation of the supply chain cases and in discussions with experts and representatives of case study companies. The specic discussion themes of each case supply chain are presented in Tables II, III and IV. The group sessions had three phases: the production of CSR ideas in relation to the topic of the group, the organisation of these ideas under different dimensions of CSR, and the evaluation of ideas.
Rye bread Group theme 2 People in the production chain

Key CSR dimensions for the food chain 35

Group theme 1 Raw materials of rye bread

Group theme 3 Responsibility in the value chain of rye bread Environmental responsibility issues from the holistic perspective (12) Fair price distribution in the chain (9) Healthy/health products (9)

Ecology as respect of nature, sustainable Adequate margins cultivation and soil productivity (18) (13) Cleanness and healthy (14) National and cultural identity (12) Safe products for consumers (10) Taking care of environmental issues (9) Labour welfarea Livelihoods and wagesa

Continuity of farming (9)

Flow of information (8) Safe products (7)

Notes: aParticipants of this sub-group wanted to collect these ideas on the summary chart as many ideas produced that were close to these themes even if individually they did not get enough votes; Number of votes given by the workshop participants in parentheses

Table II. Summary of the most supported ideas from different group theme on a rye bread product

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Group theme 1

Broiler chicken products Group theme 2

Group theme 3

Environmental impacts of broiler production Animal welfare Responsibility in the value chain of and product safety poultry chicken products

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Efciency of processes in the whole chain (11); and efcient use of production inputs (10)

Treatment of animals (15)

Environmental protection in the chain (13)

Animal conditions Cleanness of products (12) (13) Taking care of the sustainable future (10) Domestic energy and food (10) Open information ow (13) Fair income distribution in the chain (10)

Welfare of farmers Employment effect of the chain (10) based on Finnish broiler production (10) Cleanness in the production chain (10) Food control (9) Responsible consumption (8) Transparency and traceability of the chain (9) Hygiene issues, zoonosis control (7)

Consumption concerns (10)

Taking care of animal welfare (9) Table III. Summary of the most supported ideas from different group theme on broiler chicken products Using best techniques and competence (8) Low environmental impacts (8)

Notes: Number of votes given by the workshop participants in parentheses

All the ideas were collected and organised under the TBL dimensions. The spatial triangle was used as a representation of TBL. Both the topics and their place in the triangle were discussed widely in the groups. The participants were asked to vote which of the ideas they considered the most important when all topics had been placed in the triangle. All participants had nine votes to be shared among six ideas created in the group sessions. The ideas that attracted the majority of the votes were collected on a summary blackboard. At the end of the workshop, the groups convened, presented their ndings and had a short general discussion during which the participants were encouraged to present ideas or questions that they felt had not yet been raised. In general, the execution of the workshops went well. The participants presented their ideas and took part in discussions actively. In the concluding discussion some participants pointed out that the exercise had been demanding but interesting. The workshops were carefully documented, including: . tape-recordings of all discussions; . the ideas produced by the participants in the workshop, different assemblies of these (photographs), and summary charts of the most important ideas; . notes taken by group facilitators; . notes taken by group secretaries; and . a memo compiled of the notes and other documentations.

Group theme 1 Raw materials of margarine Environmental impacts (9) Socially fair production (9)

Margarine products Group theme 2

Group theme 3

Manufacture of margarine Responsibility in the value chain of margarine products Safe product for consumer (13) Pay attention to environmental problems (10) Labour welfare (9) Satised consumer (12) Long-term planning (11)

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Health impacts (8) Economic efciency for companies, shareholders and primary producers (7)

Co-operation in the food chain (9)

Detailed product Equality of employees in information on the package different countries (8) (7) Holistic understanding (7)

Fair income distribution in the chain (7) Energy savings in production and consumption (7) Traceability (7) Create welfare by providing jobs (7) Competitive quality (7)

Notes: Number of votes given by the workshop participants in parentheses

All memos were published in the project blog. In the three stakeholder workshops the participants generated about 450 CSR ideas in total (130-170 ideas per case). Tables II, III and IV show the most important ideas on the three case products and from different group sessions, which were collected on the summary chart based on the votes awarded. In the case of rye bread the following issues were more or less common to all group sessions: environmental issues and ecology, product safety and clean environment and reasonable living or protability for all actors in the chain. In particular the economic conditions of farmers were regarded as quite critical in spite of the relatively high share of agricultural subsidies associated with grain growing. Nutritional and health issues were also discussed extensively, and communication throughout the chain was considered important from the transparency perspective. Although the environmental impacts of rye bread production, such as climate change and eutrophication, were reported and described in the background leaet, quite many participants described environmental issues as being linked more to uncontaminated soil, use of fertilisers and pesticides and toxicity issues. In the case of the broiler chicken products there was more diversity in the CSR ideas. Among the most important ideas there was no single idea that was common to all group sessions. Environmental concern was, however, ranked the top CSR issue in two sub-groups. An interesting observation was that in the dialogue on environmental issues, the business representatives and experts used economic terms such as eco-efciency. Consumers, by contrast, used more environment or ecology related

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terms such as pollution of water. Other important responsibility issues raised by the workshop participants concerned animal welfare, product safety issues and consumer behaviour. In the case of the margarine products, there was much more diversity compared with the ideas for the other two cases. As with the broiler chicken products, no single idea was shared by all sub-groups. Ideas related to environmental issues were generated and discussed on a general level, with no concrete focus. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the consumer perspective was very strong, being the top CSR issue in two sub-groups. Traceability was also considered an important CSR issue. The multidimensional nature of the margarine case might explain the diversity of the votes compared to the rye bread and broiler chicken products cases. The main conclusion resulted from the workshops was that the participants had signicantly a more sophisticated picture of CSR. This indicates that the classic dimensions of TBL needed to be expanded and deepened in order to grasp the manifold nature of CSR. As noted above, the case-specic workshops reached a variety of conclusions or suggestions. This was due to the fact that each workshop and its group sessions focused on specic case supply chains and themes. It was obvious that the participants had a holistic view on CSR and none of the ideas were easy to link a particular TBL dimension. The research group started to analyse the outputs of the three workshops in parallel and in relation to TBL as well as GRI and other relevant CSR literature. The analysis of the workshop outputs revealed some similarities in the CSR issues between the three different products and their supply chains, although some case-specic emphases were also found. The workshop participants shared the environmental concern, which was common to all of the cases and shared by all chain actors and stakeholders. Fair income distribution in the chain, nutritional and health issues, cleanness, product safety, consumer responsibility, and, in the case of broiler chicken products, animal welfare, were strongly associated with the CSR of the food chain. In addition, transparency and/or openness was considered to be a crucial element in many CSR issues, that is, supply chain actors should provide transparent information related to CSR issues in the food chain. The content building phase revealed a deeper understanding and more complex view, particularly regarding social responsibility. A rich description of social responsibility in the food chain context was elaborated (Figure 1). The workshop participants dened social responsibility largely as a well-being issue. On the one hand, well-being was seen in terms of human-related matters and, on the other hand, as animal well-being issues. Based on the analysis, the human well-being included coping and health of employees as focal factors, as well as meaningfulness of actions (including occupational welfare, nutritional responsibility, product safety and cultural identity, of which the latter was classied as a part of local market presence dimension). Animal well-being issues covered health and welfare of animals. In conclusion, ve dimensions determining social responsibility for the food chain were drawn from the analysis of the workshop outputs, namely product safety, corporate nutritional responsibility, occupational welfare, animal welfare, and local well-being. When taking into account the extent of environmental and economic responsibility, seven key dimensions for the food chain CSR were identied.

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Figure 1. The content building phase of CSR for the food chain

Content of the seven food chain CSR dimensions In the following text, each of the seven food chain CSR dimensions is described. Environmental and ecological issues were a widely shared concern. From the perspective of the environment the most signicant quantiable problems concern climate change and eutrophication of waters. It is important for the companies to know the environmental impacts of their own operations so that they can look for solutions to mitigate them. Environmental impacts of the product are created at all stages of the lifecycle where the impact of primary production is the greatest. This means that the production chain as a whole needs to be examined when assessing, developing and measuring responsible action. In dening criteria for the environmental dimension, two perspectives should be highlighted, namely a companys environmental impacts and environmental impacts of the product. Product safety was considered a major strength of Finnish food production and a central factor in maintaining consumer trust. In the stakeholder discussions product safety was approached from several perspectives, such as product traceability, knowledge of origin, principles of product safety (e.g. HACCP), cleanness of the products, hygiene and disease control, clean and safe raw materials and ingredients as well as safe use of food additives. Globalisation of the food markets is leading to even more complex networks of food supply chains, which, in turn, poses great challenges to product safety principles and especially to traceability requirements. From the perspective of responsibility, traceability of the products should be taken further than is required by law. Many nished food products result from several raw material chains, where the journey of a certain ingredient may have started from the other side

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of the globe. Besides transparency, more communication to the consumers would be needed on the good practices developed and applied for better food safety. Product safety criteria should encourage food and agribusiness companies to give more open and supply-chain wide accounts of their product traceability as well as production manners and practices in order to ensure safe products for consumers. Nutritional responsibility is an increasingly important food chain CSR dimension and should also be taken into account in the strategic planning of companies and consumer information on the products. Health and product safety were often linked in the stakeholder dialogue. Nutritional responsibility is operationalised, among others, in terms of healthy products, health impacts, product information, labelling (e.g. GDA), additives, and environmental questions such as use of pesticides and fertilisers. Especially from the health aspect, it is important that companies voluntarily provide nutritional product information beyond the legal requirements. Occupational welfare of employees in the agriculture and food sector has received less attention but was identied as one of the key food chain CSR dimensions. In the stakeholder dialogue, occupational welfare was operationalised in terms of working conditions, work safety, motivation, wages, equality and employment effects of the entire chain. In the domestic markets, stakeholders did not necessarily see crucial weaknesses in occupational welfare in the Finnish food chain. Issues such as child labour and equality gain more importance in the case of imported food products. Animal welfare is a very particular responsibility dimension in the food sector. Consumers are showing a growing interest in animal welfare and health issues such as animal conditions, treatment of animals, zoonosis control, and the link between animal welfare and producer welfare. Comprehensive indicators are needed for monitoring animal welfare, which take better into account the health, care, treatment and living conditions of the animals. Indicators recently developed by Welfare Qualityw may provide a helpful framework to establish supply-chain wide animal welfare criteria and measures. One of the CSR dimensions was dened as local well-being which can be dened as the interaction between a company and its specic markets. This requires that a company rst identies its primary markets and the main stakeholders within the markets. In terms of responsibility it would be important to examine the impacts of a farm or company on local well-being and how the interaction between the local operating environment and the partners and stakeholders involved in it is constructed. A particular challenge for bigger companies operating in global markets is to take account of and manage both global and local requirements and stakeholder expectations. Economic responsibility is fundamental to understanding the organisation and is the cornerstone of all business activities. It sets the basis for all other CSR dimensions. A long-term nancial performance enables companies to carry out more responsible actions, including the management of unwanted impacts on stakeholders and society. There are plenty of nancial indicators that companies use to report their nancial standing. From the food chain CSR point of view economic impacts on stakeholders and society should be seen as more relevant than traditional nancial performance indicators that have been reported and are thus already available. The main issues are the economic impacts of food production on the different parties and transparency of price formation in the food chain.

Conclusion and discussion Main results The objective of this article was to identify and dene the content of CSR in the food supply chain context. Based on an iterative research process and interactive and participatory stakeholder dialogue, seven key food chain CSR dimensions were identied: environment, product safety, nutrition, occupational welfare, animal welfare, economic responsibility and local well-being. The dimensions drew on the analysis of the CSR ideas generated in three case-specic stakeholder workshops. In addition, all these seven food chain CSR dimensions, and communicating them, should include transparency and openness as key elements for both the production chain and the related information. The article shows that dening the concrete content of CSR in the food chain is challenging. First, the widely used TBL approach to CSR is quite generic, lacking, for example, industry-specic features (Maloni and Brown, 2006; Fritz and Matopoulos, 2008). This was also proven in the workshops as a substantial number of the ideas produced ended up between the points of the TBL triangle. This indicates that the TBL does not encapsulate the multidimensionality of CSR identied by the stakeholders. Yet, a closer look revealed deeper insights, especially in relation to the content and context of the social dimension of TBL. It is intriguing to notice that the social elements of CSR were widely discussed in the workshops. The participants produced ideas that explored, for example, the well-being and health of both humans and animals alike. This result may indicate a change towards a wider understanding of what is meant by social responsibility. One aim was to promote stakeholder dialogue and thereby enhance societal discussion of CSR issues. The project offered the company partners an opportunity to reect on their own company practices and gain an insight into both theoretical and public discussions around CSR. The participants in the workshops had a unique chance to hear, discuss and hopefully understand, the various views of other stakeholders. This was especially enlightening for the representatives of companies. The partner companies denitely used their experiences of the project, at least as triggers in their CSR strategies Implications The results provide food and agribusiness companies, chains and networks, with a better understanding of core CSR issues and their relevance in the complex world of global business. This may encourage the companies to promote their activities in order to develop their business operations in a more responsible and sustainable direction and provide elements for building sustainable business cases, and in response to stakeholder pressures more collaborative business models based on CSR innovations. The process itself is transferable to other food chain cases and other industries. The project understood CSR to be voluntary actions that exceed the current legislation. This raises an interesting question regarding the benets of being responsible in an agri-food business market that is already quite heavily regulated. However, in the present market situation, players seek for actions that can differentiate them from competitors. Issues of CSR are closely related to matters of competitiveness.

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Limitations The study was based on a very laborious and detailed process of data gathering and stakeholder dialogue. Even though the focus on constructive interaction among the stakeholders was vital in creating and identifying the shared views of the main content of CSR for the Finnish food chain, the limitations of this type of approach should be noted. First, the research process was very time-consuming and expensive. Second, this type of process is possible only for such companies that already are able to provide data suitable for CSR discussions and evaluations. Third, even if the stakeholder dialogue was in focus in the project, it should be recognised that even the most rigorous recruitment plans are subordinated to those who actually participated in the workshops and provided their ideas. In an ideal situation a larger number of workshops would be organised. Fourth, the company partners involved in the project were all relatively large operators in the Finnish food chain. Therefore, it is imperative to follow up how the ideas produced are rooted in the business activities of the company partners and how other players in the food chain will respond. It is also important to follow the public discussion about CSR. The results of this project will be re-evaluated and developed further both through public discussion and implementation by the companies. Finally, it should be noted that this article focuses on CSR issues in the Finnish food supply chain and is thus based on Finnish norms, values and corporate cultures, and does not take account of cultural differences. However, the discussion of CSR is international and the framework of the study is based on international literature. It is probable that the basics of CSR are global but the operational implementations vary according to circumstance. In addition, the emphases may be different in relation to various CSR dimensions.

Suggestions for future research The current results indicate some possibilities and challenges for actors in the food and agriculture sector. The future will show how the results of this project were implemented in the managerial work of the companies. The companies faced numerous requests from stakeholders that need to be met. It is self-evident that more research is called for to back up the implementation, especially in relation to concrete measures of CSR. There is a particular need to nalise the measurement of the seven dimensions of food chain CSR. Successful implementation also requires that the companies strategically position their tasks and operations within the CSR framework. Our exercise was based on case study and participatory approaches. An interesting follow-up study would include analysis of how the dimensions of CSR are appropriated in company and in public discussion. In addition, it would be useful to see CSR as an activity that calls for wider collaboration. For example, solving potential problems related to the environment or animal welfare would probably benet from cross-sector social partnerships (see Reast et al., 2010). In addition, further research work should address the role of different CSR dimensions in a cross-cultural context.

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impacts of consumer choice as well as building corporate responsibility (CR) criteria in the food chain. kela is a sociologist specialised in food and consumption. She has been Dr Johanna Ma particularly interested in meal studies and styles and practices of eating. In her research she has used both quantitative and qualitative methods and data. Today she is Professor of Food Culture at the University of Helsinki. She is currently working in research projects that explore, e.g. future and sustainable food consumption, consumers food classications and practices in everyday life contexts, CSR in the food chain and participatory methods. rvela (MSc) is working as a researcher in National Consumer Research Centre at the Katja Ja research entity called Technologies and cultures of well-being. She is specialized in the study of consumers practices and ideas of food and eating with qualitative methods. Recently, she has studied food packages, responsibility in the food chain and interaction between consumers and farmers in the food chain. ivi Timonen, PhD in consumer economics, is the Research Director of the National Pa Consumer Research Centre, Finland. She has studied consumers everyday reasoning in dealing with environmental information. Her research interests are in the area of markets and user value and policy issues relating to consumption.

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