Moral orders of multinationals: Registers of value in corporate food production

Abstract

This article analyzes moral registers about and within one of the world’s largest food corporations. Based on fieldwork at a French multinational corporation, I trace how speech registers surrounding food circulate across institutional arenas, reconfiguring material connections between the company and consumers. I examine the emergence of a ‘Big Food’ register, critical of the food industry, and analyze the discourses it has triggered within one corporation, comparing talk of ethics and economics among employees in Paris and Johannesburg. Corporate efforts to produce value through food result from struggles between value projects of diverse employees who are positioned differently relative to corporate hierarchies and global inequalities. I argue that moral language in and around the food industry can elucidate current transformations in global capitalism, revealing multinationals’ struggles to credibly voice registers aligned with consumers’ values in their search for competitive advantage.