Capturing the meaning of “free range”: The contest between producers, supermarkets and consumers for the higher welfare egg label in Australia

This paper shows how the Australian egg industry maintained its preferred definition of “free range” eggs in the face of a powerful consumer-oriented challenge to its labelling practices. We show how a consumer law initiative intended to enhance consumer confidence and address misleading labelling of industrial-scale egg production as “free range”, was reframed through the policy consultation process, so that the primary policy problem became...