British Food Journal

Comparing UK food retailers corporate social responsibility strategies

Diogo Souza-Monteiro, Neal Hooker,
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BFJ
119,3 Comparing UK food retailers
corporate social responsibility
strategies
658 Diogo Souza-Monteiro
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School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Newcastle University,

Received 12 April 2016
Revised 8 October 2016 Newcastle, UK, and
Accepted 10 October 2016
Neal Hooker
The John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University,
Columbus, Ohio, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how socio-economic and institutional factors impact UK
food retailers’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies as revealed in corporate communications and
product marketing. Building on institutional theory, the authors empirically examine whether discourse in
CSR reports aligns with commercial strategies.
Design/methodology/approach – Employing a mixed method approach the authors quantify quotes
related to key CSR themes in annual reports and claims on new private label products launched in nine key
product categories using information from Mintel’s Global New Products Database. These measures are
grouped into eight distinct CSR themes across seven retailers and seven years (2006-2012).
Findings – Health and safety and environment are the leading themes in both data sets. Animal welfare,
community and biotechnology and novel foods take the middle ground with differing use across reports and
products. Fair trade, labor and human resources and procurement and purchasing are the least commonly
described themes in reports and on products. Retailers focus on different CSR themes in reports and new
products, which may be evidence of competitive rather than pre-competitive strategies.
Research limitations/implications – This research shows that UK food retailers CSR strategies between
2006 and 2012 were more competitive than pre-competitive, which is in line with theory that suggests economic
pressures decrease incentives to cooperate. However, this research is limited to innovation data and analysis of
CSR reports. A more complete analysis would need to consider sales or consumption data, wider sources of
corporate communications and independent measures of social, environmental and economic impact. The
authors’ findings caution policy makers to be wary of retailers commitments to voluntary agreement pledges,
particularly when the competitive environment and economic conditions are more challenging.
Practical implications – Firms are increasingly pressured to contribute to social and environmental
domestic and international commitments. Business should enhance coordination between CSR offices and
commercial divisions to develop more consistent and effective social responsibility programs.
Originality/value – This is the first attempt to compare the evolution of CSR discourse and marketing
strategy over time and across businesses in a key retail market.
Keywords Corporate communications, Product innovation, CSR strategies, Food retail
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
The food industry, and particularly the retail sector, is increasingly under pressure to
contribute to the solution of contemporary social issues such as the persistent growth of
obesity, economic inequality and environmental degradation (Cairns et al., 2016). Broadly
speaking, food businesses are becoming accountable to a broader range of societal agents
besides their shareholders or investors (Maloni and Brown, 2006). Some businesses are
adapting their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs to address these concerns.
British Food Journal This is particularly evident in the UK, where food retailers have engaged in CSR and
Vol. 119 No. 3, 2017
pp. 658-675
subscribed to public-private pledges on health, socio-economic and environmental issues
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0007-070X
DOI 10.1108/BFJ-04-2016-0152 Research support of Zachary Green and Kali Grant is gratefully acknowledged.
 (Knai et al., 2015). These pledges (which span many dimensions of social, economic and Corporate
environmental topics) often require businesses to adjust product lines, sourcing and social
procurement practices, community engagement, prices and personnel/training programs to responsibility
address societal concerns. These efforts are frequently described in integrated marketing
communication (IMC) messages. However, socio-economic and institutional factors may strategies
influence the dimensions covered by CSR programs and whether these are integrated in
marketing strategies. 659
Why do businesses develop CSR strategies and respond to these pledges? The dominant
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economic paradigm in Western societies suggests that private companies are only obliged to
create value for shareholders (Reinhardt et al., 2008). However, food safety incidents in the
late 1990s, broader corporate scandals at the turn of the millennium and more recently the
financial crisis lead to closer scrutiny of business practices. Campbell (2007) proposes a
theory to explain why businesses increasingly develop CSR programs to address societal
issues. He suggests that both economic and institutional conditions drive CSR programs.
Specifically, Campbell proposes that CSR efforts lead to additional costs (presumably
greater than benefits) and therefore, from a pure economic perspective they do not make
sense. However, internal and external societal institutions may push firms to become more
socially responsible to justify or secure their operations. The interaction between these two
forces explains why firms may be more or less committed to CSR.
Building on Campbell’s discussion of how economic and institutional conditions might
affect CSR strategies, this paper compares how food retailers in the UK integrate CSR discourse
within marketing activities over time. Specifically, the goal is to describe which topics, if any,
dominate retailers’ CSR reports and claims on new private label products launched between
2006 and 2012. During this period there was a shift of both economic (the UK went through a
recession between 2008 and 2009) and political conditions (in 2010 a Conservative-Liberal
Democrat coalition government came into power) which may have affected the industry and
individual business CSR practices. Comparing discourse and marketing tactics, we contribute
to the ongoing discussion of how firms select corporate social responsivity strategies by
documenting the relative use across leading UK grocers.
We propose a novel, richer and more nuanced description of UK food retailers’ CSR
rhetoric and market action. There are a number of reasons why the British food retailing
sector is suitable for this type of examination. First, there is high level of market
concentration[1], exposing this sector to pressure from both governmental and non-governmental
stakeholders ( Jones, Comfort and Hillier, 2005; Jones, Comfort, Hillier and Eastwood, 2005).
Second, British retailers have, for many years, used several social responsibility programs
focusing on at least one of the key dimensions of environmental and ethical efforts commonly
associated with CSR (Maloni and Brown, 2006). Third, the British retail sector has a long history
of reporting their social impact (Tate et al., 2010; Jose and Lee, 2006).
The next section reviews the literature on food retailing CSR practices. Then, building on
Campbell we develop a rationale to explain why food retailers in the UK may have different
commitments to CSR programs. The fourth section briefly reviews IMC as applied to CSR
reporting. Following we describe the methodology employed for our empirical analysis. Next
we present and discuss our findings and finally we conclude and propose future research.

CSR in food retailing

In Britain, the concentration of food sales in a small number of national chain retailers and
pressure from different stakeholders is leading firms to develop an array of CSR
programs ( Jones, Comfort, and Hillier, 2005; Jones, Comfort, Hillier, and Eastwood, 2005;
Souza-Monteiro and Hooker, 2016). Food retailers are in a particularly critical position as
their business practices influence activities upstream in supply chains as well as consumer
choices (Carrero and Valor, 2015). Grocers have also been developing a portfolio of private
 BFJ label products competing with established national brands in their stores (Salnikova et al.,
119,3 2015). Aligning CSR strategies with their own product lines may provide food retailers an
opportunity to shape the future of food markets while also influencing social and policy
debates. Moreover, using CSR claims (such as organic or fair trade labels) on private label
products may also be a key differentiator from national brands (Salnikova et al., 2015;
Tofighi and Bodur, 2015). Of further importance, retailers directly interact with many
660 communities and stakeholders. They are likely to be more sensitive and responsive than
“distant” (especially international) food manufacturers who might instead pursue “global”
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CSR issues over those of “local” importance.

While retailers like Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrison cater to a general public,
Waitrose and Marks & Spencer’s have a more focused strategy and target higher income,
urban and better educated customers (Mintel/Academic, 2015). For these businesses CSR
programs are not necessarily a burden but rather an opportunity to differentiate from rival
companies and improve current and future profitability (Bonini, 2012). Consequently,
managers develop both integrated corporate communications and marketing strategies to
deliver and report CSR goals. Communications may vary by media channel and message
tactic (e.g. reporting prior success or future commitments). Strategies can emphasize one or
multiple elements of CSR. This suggests that a wide range of product and service strategies
might be seen in the marketplace (Carrero and Valor, 2015).
In the UK, since the 1990s the food industry has operated on the principle of due diligence
and developed private standards to mitigate liability associated with food safety
(Henson and Caswell, 1999). Moreover, food retailers have collaborated with public agencies
(most notably the Food Standards Agency) on the provision of nutrition information to help
consumers’ make healthier food choices (Van Camp et al., 2012). So CSR strategies may also
be devices across an industry sector to signal cooperation and future commitments in
pre-competitive practices, demonstrate consensus among peers or stakeholders, and
consequently assuage policy makers and prevent potential costly regulations.
Along with appealing to consumers and appeasing regulators, UK food retailers use CSR
strategies to engage third sector organizations, namely, environmental NGOs, labor rights
activists and consumer advocates. They may also attempt to address the concerns of ethical
investors (such as pension fund managers).
Products may be designed to improve market competitiveness through differentiation
from the private label assortments of other retailers or food manufacturers or focus on
specific and more profitable consumer segments. Of course, in practice, corporate
communication and marketing strategies will blend different CSR goals in nuanced ways.
While each firm will likely have its own individual approach to CSR, an emerging debate is
whether social responsibility is a competitive or a pre-competitive issue? Some executives in
the food industry claim that like food safety, CSR should not be a competitive issue.
Yet there may be first mover advantages with leading firms gaining a reputation for
championing certain CSR causes. The absence of industry-wide CSR standards may lead to
free-riding opportunities. Alternatively, firms not uniformly using CSR practices, pledges or
goals may affect the whole industry for instance by leading governments to impose costly
regulations (Bareuther, 2015; Moss, 2014).
Clearly, there are opportunities for win-win situations when aligning CSR and marketing
strategies to meet consumer (Manning, 2013) or other stakeholder (Wiese and Toporowski,
2013) interests. However, we need to better understand which CSR programs are used and
how these efforts are described.

Economic and institutional determinants of CSR strategies

CSR has been defined as the need for a firm to be socially, environmentally and ethically
accountable to a range of stakeholders that may be affected by its action (Maloni and
 Brown, 2006). In this definition it is not clear which stakeholders firms are economically Corporate
accountable to. However, the dominant neoclassical economics view as articulated by social
Friedman (1970), suggests that the social responsibility of businesses is to maximize profits responsibility
and that firms “can do good – but only at their own expense” (p. 4). In other words, the main
corporate responsibility is to maximize the profits of shareholders and that this is the strategies
ultimate fiduciary duty of managers (Reinhardt et al., 2008). But what if businesses are not
paying the full cost of their activities? Take the example of watershed pollution. Business 661
often fails to internalize the costs they impose on other businesses or consumers from
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polluting watersheds. Consequently, they may be transferring to shareholders undue profits

at the expense of society. To the extent that acting in a socially responsibility is a way to
internalize costs to society and thus avoid costly regulation or losses of reputational
goodwill, CSR also makes (longer-run) economic sense. It is beyond the scope of this paper to
fully discuss the different economic and business perspectives and arguments for and
against CSR[2]. However, the reality is that firms increasingly do allocate resources to CSR
activities. Campbell (2007) proposes an institutional theory explaining why firms act in
socially responsible ways. He proposes that CSR behavior of firms depends on economic
conditions but is moderated by the institutional environment in which the firm operates. In a
sense, this theory draws on the economics of institutions and property rights and reconciles
the perspective argued by Friedman (1970) with Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder theory (which
suggests that firms need to attend to both economic and non-economic demands of various
stakeholders, namely, customers, suppliers and employees). Campbell is not proposing a
formal economic theory, rather his contribution is grounded in institutional analysis and in
comparative political economy. The main gist of this work is that when internal and
external economic conditions (namely financial performance) are favorable and business
face moderate levels of competition they will more likely act in socially responsible
ways. This behavior is reinforced if business faces an institutional environment where:
regulations are strong and well enforced, but set through a participatory process; there is
“a well-organized and effective industrial self-regulation in place” (p. 956); there are active
stakeholders that monitor corporate behavior; corporations are affiliated to trade or
industry associations; and, finally, they engage in dialogue with their stakeholders.
Campbell’s (2007) main argument is that economic conditions are the key driver
of CSR strategies but he recognizes that both external and internal institutional factors
should be considered. While in a given moment all businesses in an industry and
market face identical external conditions, they may have different CSR responses.
When industries are moderately competitive, more profitable firms may be willing to invest
in CSR to improve stakeholder goodwill. So, regardless of external economic conditions, it is
possible to observe a range of business performance which will be reflected in different
commitments to CSR.
While economic performance is the necessary condition to observe CSR activities,
the external and internal institutional context of a business will also determine the design of
social responsibility programs. Campbell mainly considers the external institutional
environment facing a company. However, just as the same external economic conditions
may lead to different individual responses from businesses so may internal institutional
contexts override external institutional conditions in influencing the array of CSR
commitments. For instance the organization’s mission and values, shareholder structure,
and its customer and stakeholder base may have a larger weight in determining CSR
strategies than external influences.
Regarding business values and mission, Vogel (2006) suggests firms have two attitudes
about the use of CSR: first there are firms for which CSR makes sense and is core to their
strategy. The second attitude is reactive or defensive, where CSR is implemented only after
firms have been exposed to public outcry (see Vogel, 2006; Conroy, 2007).
 BFJ Publically listed companies and private firms tend to place a larger emphasis on returns
119,3 to their investors and higher profitability. This means that they will be less likely to develop
CSR strategies unless there is a compelling argument that it will increase returns to
shareholders. Thus, it would be expected that these organizations would design CSR
programs focusing on food safety or nutrition for which there is a threat of costly regulation
or legal action. On the other hand co-operative businesses, owned by either employees or by
662 consumers, are likely more sensitive to the concerns of the society in which they operate and
will likely have more active CSR programs. Specifically, these firms may have CSR
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programs emphasizing support to local communities or local environmental projects. This is

because owners are also stakeholders and they are integrated in the communities where the
business operates. Thus these organizations will tend to have more institutional, longer
term and more committed CSR programs.
When firms are larger in terms of the number of employees and market share, they tend
to adopt strategies to maintain their position. Then again, larger organizations tend to be
exposed to a greater array of stakeholders, particularly activist stakeholders scrutinizing
their operations. Such firms may feel under pressure to respond to these concerns. On one
hand firms may use CSR programs as a tactic to secure or expand market share by
investing in activities that resonate with their customer base and allowing for differentiation
from their competitors. On the other hand they need to design their strategies in a way that
guards them against possible antagonist campaigns by activists. The observed CSR
programs will depend on which of these two perspectives dominate.
As we described in the previous section in the UK, there is an institutional environment
favoring the adoption of CSR strategies. However, the change of government in 2010
brought in a much more business friendly and liberal policy, which we posit might reduce
the pressure on businesses to use CSR to avoid regulation. Additionally, as Figure 1 shows,
while the British economy has been generally stable in the period of analysis, the recession
of 2008 changed the purchase patterns of consumers, many continue to focus on prices and
few indulgent foods (Euromonitor International, 2016). While retailers were not much
affected during the recession, the sluggish recovery of the British economy, the raise of
discount retailer market share and the growth of online grocery sales have seriously
challenged the four leading British grocers in the aftermath of the recession (Euromonitor
International, 2016). Thus, food retailers are confronted with two conflicting drivers of CSR
programs. On one hand several external stakeholders are expecting retailers to contribute to
the solution of socio-economic and environmental challenges through their CSR programs,
on the other disappointing market and financial performance is making investors
and shareholders anxious and pressing managers to focus on core business activities.

2
Gross Domestic Product: Quarter on Quarter growth: CVM SA %
1

% –1

–2

–3

–4
Figure 1.
UK gross domestic
1

2
Q

product: quarterly
06

09

12

15

16
20

20

20

20

20

growth, 2006-2016
Source: ONS (2016)
 Following Campbell (2007) we would expect a change in CSR policies during the period of Corporate
our analysis and, for retailers struggling to maintain market share and financial social
performance, a disinvestment in CSR activities or a refocus on activities that can aid the responsibility
business proposition. Therefore we expect to observe differences in the communication and
mix of CSR activities between the period of 2006 and 2009 and thereafter. However, we also strategies
expect to observe individual differences, businesses that are less exposed to the stock
market, will likely maintain stable CSR programs across the period. Moreover, we expect to 663
see a shift in CSR discourse and practice which may characterize changes in governmental
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and stakeholder priorities.

IMC and CSR discourse

Firms communicate their CSR activities through reports, corporate communication tools
with a main goal to inform stakeholders of the range of activities the business has been
involved in. IMC theory holds that once a strategic goal is identified a unified approach to
discussing this across all channels of communications should be designed and implemented.
Raman and Naik (2010) relate this to retail in the twenty-first century recognizing a broad
array of channels and audiences (e.g. social media). Here we focus on the congruency of
messaging over two channels – product labels and CSR reports. We accept that these are
distinct elements of an IMC portfolio and that the prevalence of discussions of the CSR
themes need not be identical across the two channels. Yet the relative use of messages might
be used to discern the strategic emphasis of a retailer.
There are several instances where CSR can be seen as part of the firms’ marketing
tactics. Common approaches include promotion/communication, product innovation and
targeted procurement strategies. Ganesan et al. (2009) claim that “social responsibility
perceptions affect the images of brands and firms” (p. 85) and consequently may impact
consumer purchases and loyalty, which in turn may impact financial performance. In other
words, investments in CSR can contribute in a competitive way to stakeholders’ perceptions
of the firm’s products and services.
Critical elements of planning within CSR strategies are the identification of key
stakeholders and topics. While there are many classifications, the literature focuses on four
main groups of stakeholders: shareholders, employees and investors; consumers and
suppliers; regulators; and local communities, interest groups and the media (Clarkson, 1995;
Henriques and Sadorsky, 1999). Clearly the topics of interest of these stakeholder groups
need not coincide (Donaldson and Preston, 1995). Moreover, the benefits sought, and
therefore influence, of each group for any particular firm, product or market will not be
equal or static. So, managers need to assess the relative power of each stakeholder group
over time (Maignan and Ferrell, 2004). As such firms might be expected to vary
considerably in their CSR strategies.
Maloni and Brown (2006) provide a good starting point for a classification of key CSR
themes of relevance to food supply chains. Figure 2 adapts this to the UK food retail context.
The eight CSR themes identified in this figure can be mapped into the narrower
sustainability taxonomy of people, planet and prosperity. However, we choose to keep this
more disaggregated and balanced approach to identify a range of possible themes that
might resonate with different stakeholders, consumers and retailers. Various themes focus
on the consumer (e.g. health and safety, biotechnology and novel foods), others on broader
sets of stakeholders, including non-profit organizations and policy makers (e.g. community).
Certain themes relate to specific product attributes (e.g. animal welfare, biotechnology and
novel foods, health and safety) many of these are credence attributes (Fernqvist and
Ekelund, 2014) and therefore rely upon trust and transparency. Other themes may describe
a set of products or services provided by the retailer – efforts which impact people. These
themes (e.g. community, labor and HR and perhaps environment) may be linked to few
 BFJ
119,3 Environment Fair Trade

Health and
Community
Safety

664
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Biotechnology
and Novel Labor
Foods

Food Retail
Animal Procurement
CSR
Welfare and Purchasing
Strategies
Figure 2.
Corporate social
responsibility themes
facing food retailers
Source: Based on Maloni and Brown (2006)

specific product marketing tactics but better aligned to services suggesting they be
engrained within the broader CSR strategy (and communications) of a retailer. Such a
taxonomy does not attempt to be normative – questioning which themes are “better” or
“more effective.” Instead, we merely wish to identify the diversity of approaches being used
in this dynamic market and check whether there are dominant common themes across
business and years.
Specific to food retailing in the UK certain themes align with activities outside of the
store while others include changes within the store (Lang and Hooker, 2013). Take, for
example, activities involving a particular stakeholder group – children (Souza-Monteiro and
Hooker, 2016). Retailers might impact children via financial or product donations to school
wellness/sports programs or via product reformulation. The “people” impacted may be
consumers or citizens; the “benefits” of the CSR strategy may be “personal” or consumer-
level or “community wide” and more societal. Yet in describing a set of such localized
responses for example in a CSR report or on a webpage, a retailer might choose to focus on
common issues rather than merely report a series of case studies.

Methodology: comparing CSR strategies

Having identified the themes we used a mixed method approach to compare discourse in
CSR reports and marketing actions revealed on new product launches. In other words,
we evaluated the frequency of quotes related to the CSR themes identified by Maloni and
Brown (2006) and found in UK grocery retailers CSR reports. We also assessed the number
of claims related to Maloni and Brown themes on new private label products launched in the
UK and listed in the Mintel’s Global New Products Database (GNPD). For our analysis of
CSR reports we started collecting all the available UK food retailers’ CSR reports from the
seven largest UK food retailers in terms of market share between 2006 and 2012[3]. We
found a total of 43[4] reports as shown in Table I.
Using Nivo, a qualitative analysis software, we conducted a word frequency analysis of
the documents in our CSR reports database. This software package is commonly used to
evaluate the content of written, audio and/or video files. We also made use of SPSS to
 Grocer 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Corporate
social
Asdaa | | responsibility
(108) (126)
Marks & Spencer | | | | | | | strategies
(32) (40) (48) (48) (52) (56) (56)
Morrisons | | | | | |
(24) (40) (14) (24) (28) (60) 665
Sainsbury’s | | | | | | |
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(62) (60) (116) (42) (93) (97) (30)

Tesco | | | | | | |
(75) (84) (56) (58) (62) (70) (19)
The Co-operative b
| | | | | | |
(116) (140) (138) (61) (128) (44) (44)
Table I.
Waitrosec | | | | | | |
Corporate social
(111) (23) (44) (40) (42) (42) (81) responsibility reports
Notes: | aWal-Mart global corporate social responsibility report which include Asda as UK affiliate; bin by firm and year
2010, the Co-Op changed its reporting period to mid-year. The 2010/2011 report is included as 2011; creports (number of pages
refer to all activities of the John Lewis partnership which owns the Waitrose brand per report)

conduct a descriptive statistical analysis of the patterns of content we found in the reports.
Specifically, we conducted word searches and recorded the frequency of words related to
our eight key themes in each of the 43 reports. For each of these themes we set the search
engine to conduct an exact (that is only look for the word searched) and broad context query
(returns an observation when the word is found in a radius of 15 words). Each observation
of CSR discourse is called a “quote.” To be clear, we did not examine the content of the
quotes, we simply verified whether the text containing the search keyword was actually
referring to one of our eight CSR themes. In other words, our analysis is simply based on the
number of quotes. This is justified because we are mainly interested in quantifying
dominant themes and examining relative frequencies to compare the use of marketing
communications targeting broad stakeholder audience(s). The quotes were aggregated by
theme, firm and year. While we admit our analysis has limitations and we encourage
scholars with expertise in content analysis to complement our research, the approach avoids
the well know reliability, objectivity, socially desirable interpretation and related biases of
classic content analysis (Kolbe and Burnett, 1991)[5].
Because we are interested in assessing how economic and institutional conditions may
impact retailers CSR strategies, we decided to limit our research to the period 2006 to 2012 to
roughly balance before and after both the recession and institutional change. Moreover,
most of the retailers changed the structure of their social responsibility reports after 2011,
which might have biased our analysis if we checked more recent years. These reports
described a range of social marketing and investment programs, along with product,
service, social and environmental strategies.
In exploring the CSR reports we could not find any quotes for the category
“biotechnology,” however we did find a number of instances with the acronyms “GM/GMO”
and the words “novel food.” Since these are often used in discussions of biotechnology, we
report the findings of these words as “Biotechnology and Novel Foods.”
Our second source of data, as already mentioned is Mintel’s GNPD which contains
branded and private label product innovation data for the leading food manufacturers and
the seven grocers. GNPD includes detailed marketing information about key product
characteristics and label pictures (see Van Camp et al., 2010 for a related exposition of this
data). The resource is generally used for trend analysis, competitor tracking and marketing
research. We selected the following six food categories: chocolate confectionery; bakery;
 BFJ processed fish; meat and egg products; snacks, white milk; coffee; tea as these span the eight
119,3 (Maloni and Brown, 2006) CSR themes[6]. The distribution of claims across these categories
and years is reported in Table II. These categories were found in a more general study to
provide a rich source of private label innovation and marketing claims (Salnikova et al.,
2015). Each product was assessed for each positioning claim described on the label and
linked to a CSR theme (see Table AII) identified in Maloni and Brown (2006). Each
666 observation of a product with a CSR marketing message is called a “claim.” The claims were
aggregated by theme, firm and year.
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Results
Throughout the period of analysis there have been considerable changes in the British
grocery industry and market, which inevitably affected each business CSR strategy. Along
with a change in economic and political conditions, in this period there was a rapid
expansion of hard discount chains, such as Aldi and Lidl, which have gained market share
at the expense of Tesco (BBC, 2009). The other Big Four retailers have slightly increased or
maintained their market share, while Waitrose increased market share during this period to
5.3 percent in 2013 (Kantar Worldpanels, 2014). As Campbell (2007) suggests, these external
changes inevitably will be reflected in CSR programs which may not only be evolving across
time but also across firms, in response to these economic and market dynamics. In this
section we report what we found in our analysis of CSR reports and new product launches.
Table I similarly presents the pattern of quotes data by retailer and year. As it can be
seen there is considerable variability across retailers and years. Notably, Asda has only
recently reported CSR activity, but in a relatively long format. Compare this to Sainsbury’s
which in 2012 dramatically reduced the level of discourse in its report. The length of the
reports will drive the number of quotes in much the same way that the number of products
influences claims. Yet in our analyses our primary interest is relative changes, over time,
across retailers, and themes and not absolute.
Table II similarly presents the pattern of new food and beverage items launched by each
of the seven retailers over the seven years. Clearly, there are differences in the scale of
private label innovation which is important to keep in mind when considering the count-
based claims data reported. Further, the number of positioning claims that align with each
of the eight themes is unequal (consider, for example, Health and Safety, see Table AII). That
said, the number of products (4,754) translates to a larger number of claims (8,288)
suggesting each new product contains, on average, two CSR claims. Generally, most
retailers reduced the level of innovation 2008-2010 during the recession. Note that the total
number of quotes is similar to the total number of claims, so we have chosen not to
standardize these comparisons.
We start exploring the distribution of claims (i.e. CSR messages in new private labeled
products launched) and quotes (i.e. references in CSR reports) over the 8 CSR themes (Figure 3).

Number of innovations
Grocer 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total

Asda 108 62 65 74 116 142 156 723

Marks & Spencer 135 125 130 71 91 125 149 826
Morrisons 19 27 25 33 77 143 200 524
Sainsbury’s 92 61 55 74 123 160 120 685
Table II. Tesco 106 122 118 176 211 234 344 1,311
Number of private The Co-operative 0 1 0 4 32 68 81 186
label innovations by Waitrose 41 23 64 74 88 96 113 499
firm and year Total 501 421 457 506 738 968 1,163 4,754
 3,000
Claims Quotes Corporate

Health and Safety

Community
social
2,500 responsibility
strategies
Animal Welfare

2,000

Environment

Procurement and Purchasing

667
1,500
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Fair Trade
Biotech and Novel

Labor and HR
1,000

500 Figure 3.
Claims and
quotes by theme
0

Community appears to be an outlier worthy of consideration. Very few product claims can be
classified as examples of this social CSR tactic which is in stark contrast to the level of
discourse in CSR reports about such engagement. Admittedly, the only positioning claim that
aligns with community is “Ethical-Charity” and such messages may report very different
scales of community from supporting a national cancer network to sponsoring a local nature
refuge. It appears that a more general presentation of such CSR efforts better aligns with the
reports rather than a particular product. These are national chain retailers and private label
products are generally broadly distributed making product-level claims of “local” community-
specific CSR topics particularly difficult. This may suggest an “Act local, Talk Global”
approach in the public communications. But the lack of product-level indicators of CSR
engagement prevents stakeholders from selecting those foods which encompass their values.
A similar pattern emerges for Labor and human resources and, perhaps more surprising, Fair
Trade. As a CSR tactic fair trade relies on both process and product standards (DiMarcello
et al., 2014). In contrast, consider the Animal Welfare results where the number of claims
dominates the number of quotes. An individual product might make several positioning claims
within this theme (e.g. Ethical-Animal, Hormone free), yet not all six product categories are
relevant here (Table AI). Regardless, more than 2,800 claims of CSR efforts protecting
dimensions of animal welfare are seen more than double the number of quotes in CSR reports.
Claims about biotechnology and novel foods similarly dwarf the level of discourse about these
topics in the reports. Given the large number of product CSR strategies, why don’t firms
describe these efforts more in the reports? Perhaps this is evidence of common product
strategies. If most retailers use similar claims there is less to differentiate across CSR strategies
in reports. Similarly, if there is stakeholder consensus there is little to be gained from discourse
(Cairns et al., 2016). On a different note, environment and health and safety themes are both
leading topics for claims and quotes suggesting closer alignment between product marketing
messages and broader stakeholder communications. These may be interpreted as more
“mainstream” CSR themes with a broader appeal across various stakeholder groups and closer
congruence around normative values for stakeholders and consumers.
The temporal trends in this data are presented in Figure 4(a) and (b). The comparison
appears clear – claims in each theme have increased over time but the quotes have been
more stable. In particular the leading role of Animal Welfare claims is recent (2010-2012) and
generally many more CSR messages have appeared on private label food and beverage
labels in the UK since 2010. There appears to be some evidence that quotes were muted
during the recession, in particular 2009 and 2010. Also there is some evidence of the recent
focus on community and health and safety in CSR reports for 2011 and 2012. Along with the
 BFJ (a)
119,3 800
700 Animal Welfare
600 Biotech and Novel
Community
500
Environment
400
Fair Trade
300
Health and Safety
200
668 100
Labor and HR
Procurement and
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0 Purchasing
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

(b)
800
700 Animal Welfare
Biotech and Novel
600
Community
500
Environment
400
Fair Trade
300
Health and Safety
200
Labor and HR
100
Procurement and
0
Figure 4. 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Purchasing
Observations by year
Notes: (a) Claims; (b) quotes

findings on the number of CSR-related claims in new products, this result is consistent with
our expectations above and aligns with the Campbell’s theory that economic conditions
prevail over external institutional pressures in the design of CSR activities programs.
Next we disaggregate the data to report claims and quotes by retailer (Figure 5(a) and (b),
respectively). Tesco, Marks & Spencer, and Asda dominate the claims data, in part to be
expected as they released over 60 percent of all private label innovations. Note the similarity in
level of environment claims across all but The Co-op. This may suggest that this one theme

(a)
1,000
Animal Welfare
800 Biotech and Novel
Community
600
Environment
400 Fair Trade
Health and Safety
200 Labor and HR
Procurement and
0 Purchasing
Tesco Asda Marks and Sainsbury’s Morrisons Waitrose The Co-op
Spencer

(b)
1,000
900 Animal Welfare
800 Biotech and Novel
700 Community
600
Environment
500
400 Fair Trade
300 Health and Safety
200 Labor and HR
100 Procurement and
0 Purchasing
Figure 5. Tesco Asda Marks and Sainsbury’s Morrisons Waitrose The Co-op
Observations Spencer
by retailer
Notes: (a) Claims; (b) quotes
 presents little product level competitive advantage for retailers. This can be distinguished from Corporate
the variability in use of biotechnology and novel foods claims – the leading three retailers are the social
major users of these messages. Perhaps the most interesting result in Figure 5(b) is The Co-op responsibility
taking a leading role in discussing Community and Animal Welfare. Indeed no other retailer
came close to this level of CSR discourse. The Co-op is founded on a close model of community strategies
and social impact, and it appears that these messages persevere into CSR communications.
However, the level of product CSR strategies for The Co-op is very small. Separate of this the 669
other six retailers are remarkable in their similarity in the level and mix of quotes.
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Discussion
The food industry in general and grocers in particular have not been immune to the
movement toward CSR. Food retailers have the additional tool of selling private label
products which can extend strategies beyond that seen in national brands (Salnikova et al.,
2015). Perhaps due to the fact that they trade in goods so essential to human life, this
industry has been increasingly engaged in a range of CSR discussions and actions. Firms
are responding with more sophisticated product and service strategies. In a sense, it seems
that the food industry is adopting Porter and Kramer’s (2006) mantra that firms should
carefully plan and deploy strategies which create shared value. However, there are instances
in both data series where differences emerge over time, themes and firms.
As businesses design their CSR programs, they need to respond to external and internal
institutional and economic conditions (Campbell, 2007). When addressing societal issues
such as climate change, waste reduction or childhood obesity, firms can collaborate with
governmental authorities by setting and enforcing industry standards or cooperate with
non-profit organizations working on a specific CSR theme by committing to a voluntary
pledge linked to societal goals. This makes business sense as it may increase goodwill and
avoid costly regulation. Alternatively, they can compete by choosing to support specific
causes or engage exclusively with a given stakeholder and use CSR strategies and tactics as
tools to differentiate from competitors and add value to product lines. For food retailers,
private label product portfolios compete with national brands in price and quality space
(Bezencon and Etemad-Sajadi, 2015; Salnikova et al., 2015). Therefore, even as businesses
face common institutional and socio-economic pressures, it should be expected to observe
different, competitive activities even if firms are cooperating in certain CSR themes. At the
very least one should anticipate a range of integrated marketing communication strategies
through the use of quotes and claims. We find mixed evidence of this.
As described above we adapted Maloni and Brown (2006) CSR themes and searched for
evidence of use by the leading UK grocers’ in corporate reports and on private label
products. Our results show that many CSR strategies are discussed, though environment
and health and safety appear most congruent. To the extent that convergence of references
to themes covered in reports denote evidence of collaboration or consensus within the
industry or clear signals from stakeholders, our results suggest that firms are adopting a
range of approaches, some competitive others co-operative. When we look at specific
themes, it seems that most retailers are increasing and converging and are collectively
addressing pressing social or environmental topics. Still, the results also indicate the
competitive use of other CSR strategies and tactics, with each retailer perhaps championing
a particular theme or channel. For instance, The Co-op clearly seems to be heavily involved
in community actions as well as leading the number of quotes in six other themes. This is
consistent with their wide network of shops and the fact they are owned largely by
consumers. However, their consumer facing/product innovation record is less compelling.
Perhaps not surprising, despite the fact that only two reports are available and that they are
reporting on all Wal-Mart activities, Asda has most of the quotes on health and safety and
environment, reflecting the global agenda of the parent company.
 BFJ Based on the results we have prepared a simple classification scheme (Figure 6(a))
119,3 which might be used to group retailers by the level of CSR innovations and communications
on products and in reports. Returning to the aggregate counts of claims and quotes, these
are plotted in Figure 6(b). Recall that our interest is in the relative position and trends and
we in no way intend to be normative. That said, we suggest firms with a low use of CSR
messages in both channels are missing a way of connecting with stakeholders
670 (old-school). Alternatively, a high level of formal CSR communication and product
innovation might encourage a more contestable market to evolve or at least a more nuanced
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development of “greener” food retailing in the UK (CSR champions). It is useful to place the
seven retailers in this space (Figure 6(b)). The Co-op emerges as the lone high
communicator given its lion share of quotes. Its relatively low level of claims (and
innovations more directly) places it in the north-west quadrant “All talk, little action.”
Notably, the majority of retailers are grouped into two camps; one with the larger three
retailers (Tesco, Asda and Marks & Spencer) taking a (product) leadership role, while the
remaining three (Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose) with a moderate amount of
marketing efforts but similar levels of discourse.
We do not suggest that this approach has precise discriminatory power to distinguish
well between retailers. Indeed, when similar approaches are applied over time or for a single
theme particular retailers (with the exception of The Co-op) fluctuate between the two lower
quadrants. Recall the earlier discussion that the scale of a retailer is closely linked to the
number of new private label products and perhaps the number of quotes. As such it might
be expected that the largest three (Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Asda) appear to also be leading
in the CSR arena. However, where does this leave Sainsbury (which, according to Mintel/
Oxygen (2011) and Kantar WorldPanels (2014), had the second largest market share
throughout the period) and Waitrose? These firms are often characterized as “first-movers”
in product innovation (USDA-FAS, 2012; FDIN, 2012) and are major vendors.
We should acknowledge the limitations of our approach. First, quotes were obtained
from word searches of documents and we set the software to look for exact words in a broad
context. Thus the number of counts might have been both inflated and limited. Second, we
did not check the content of each of the quotes we found. That would enable us to have a
much richer picture of what the firms actually say they are doing and to ascertain to what
extent they are competing or cooperating. Further, our sources are likely biased as CSR
reports are corporate communication documents and, therefore, carefully edited to convey a

(a)
High All talk, little action CSR champions

Communications

Low Old-school Quiet leaders

Low Innovations High

(b) all years

The Co-op
Quotes

Sainsbury’s Tesco
Waitrose Marks and Spencer
Morrisons Asda
Figure 6.
Placing retailers in a Claims
strategy space
Notes: (a) Conceptual; (b) data-driven
 positive image of the firm to its stakeholders. Finally, our exploration of the GNPD Corporate
information is nascent and only focused on a sub-set of product categories and positioning social
claims. These data only describe new private label products and are not weighted by sales responsibility
or consumption patterns which would be one way of determining the relative performance
of such CSR tactics and which shoppers are most interested in a particular theme. strategies

Concluding remarks and future research 671

CSR strategies are increasingly being used by food businesses to not only improve firms’
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goodwill and reputation but also as competitive tools. Following Porter and Kramer (2006),
CSR strategies and tactics can be seen as instruments used by firms to create shared value.
Here we argue that the strategic choices depend on various internal and external factors
(Campbell, 2007). Thus CSR communications and marketing mixes may be revealed as both
cooperation between firms and stakeholders and competition. Rather than canceling out
each other the tension between co-operative and competitive dimensions may be virtuous.
This is because while cooperation may allow for a distribution of costs (economic or other)
between different parties, competition may prevent firms from being complacent and force
them to lead or respond to challenges that may result in efficient and effective solutions to
social or environmental problems. Regardless of the level of dispersion of CSR strategies
among retailers they still both compete and cooperate with the national brands. Firms
respond to common and distinct economic and institutional conditions which have been
argued to be dynamic. There also appears to be evidence that these conditions are correlated
with the use of both quotes and claims.
This descriptive analysis highlights how external and internal economics conditions affect
CSR programs. This raises questions on the government reliance on businesses CSR programs
to respond to societal challenges. Future research could investigate how compliance with
private-public partnerships or commitments to voluntary pledges are affected by changes in
socio-economic and political conditions. A more comprehensive institutional analysis might
also be instructive, as it would enable a deeper understanding of why certain businesses
consistently maintain a focused CSR program, while others seem to change strategies or
themes. Increasingly CSR programs are evolving to become an element of the sustainability
strategy of businesses. Thus we invite researchers to build on our classification scheme and
develop metrics to enable a comparison and evaluation of retailers toward sustainability goals,
such as those recently proposed by the United Nations development goals.

Notes
1. In 2012, the four leading food retailers (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA and Morrison’s) had a 62 percent
market share of total food and non-alcoholic drinks grocery sales (Department for environmental,
food and Rural Affairs, 2014).
2. For recent reviews of the economics of CSR see for example Kitzmueller and Shimshack (2012) and
Schmitz and Schrader (2015). For a recent review of business studies on CSR see Frynas and
Yamahaki (2016).
3. In 2006 all listed companies were mandated by the British Companies Act 2006 to include any
relevant social responsibility information in their annual reports.
4. Note that given we are tracking seven firms over seven years, we expected to find 49 social
responsibility reports in total. However, Morrinson’s only started reporting in 2007 whereas Asda
first report was issued in 2011.
5. We thank one of our referees for suggesting this justification of our method.
6. See Table AI for a description of product categories used.
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Nos 4/5, pp. 432-447.

Appendix 1

Categories and sub-categories

Bakery Processed fish, meat, and egg products

Baking ingredients and mixes Eggs and egg products
Bread and bread products Fish products
Cakes, pastries and sweet goods Meat products
Savoury biscuits/crackers Meat substitutes
Sweet biscuits/cookies Poultry products
Chocolate confectionery Snacks
Chocolate tablets Bean based snacks
Chocolate countlines Cassava and other root based snacks
Individually wrapped chocolate pieces Corn based snacks
Non-individually wrapped chocolate pieces Fruit snacks
Other chocolate confectionery Hors d’oeuvres/Canapés
Seasonal chocolate Meat snacks
Nuts
Dairy Popcorn
White milk Other snacks
Non-alcoholic beverages Potato snacks
Coffee Rice snacks
Table AI. Tea Snack mixes
GNPD product Snack/cereal/energy bars
categories and Vegetable snacks
sub-categories Wheat and other grain based snacks
 Appendix 2 Corporate
social
responsibility
Positioning claims Theme
strategies
Ethical-animal Animal welfare
Hormone free
No animal ingredients 675
Vegan
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Vegetarian
GMO-free Biotechnology and novel foods
No additives/preservatives
Ethical-charity Community
Carbon neutral Environment
Ethical-environmentally friendly package
Ethical-environmentally friendly product
Organic
Fair trade Fair trade
All-natural product Health and safety
Antioxidant
Calorie claims
functional
Functional-cardiovascular
functional-digestive
Functional-immune system
Functional-other
Gluten-free
High protein
High/added fiber
Sliming
Total allergen claims
Total cholesterol claims
Total fat claim
Total lactose claims
Total saturated fat
Total sodium claims
Total sugar claims
Total trans-fat claims
Vitamin/mineral fortified
Weight control
Wholegrain Table AII.
Ethical-human Labor and human resources GNPD claims linked
Kosher Procurement and purchasing to sustainability
Halal themes

Corresponding author
Neal Hooker can be contacted at: [email protected]

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