Case Study: Mark

Mark owns and manages a small chain long of long established health food shops. This sector is characterised by small owner managed outlets, so it was not possible to select, as was done for mainstream retailers, market leaders. Mark was approached because, on the basis of customer information leaflets in his shops, he clearly felt the issue of GM food was important enough to warrant his attention, and because the business was set up at a time when such outlets were very unusual. The interview took place in Mark’s office at one of his shops.

Mark, in contrast to John did not use ecocentric values initially to explain why he had embarked on his career. This derived more from Mark’s involvement in the hippy movement of the late 1960s, which he describes more in terms of rebellion against his parents and society in general than he does in values based terms. Talking more specifically about why he chose the wholefood trade rather than other avenues to express his rebellion, he emphasises the nutritional rather than ecological aspects of the products he sells. This is perhaps not surprising given that the selling of wholefoods does not differ from conventional food in its environmental impact; it is only when organic food is introduced, a vegetarian agenda pursued, or local suppliers sought that a meaningful ecological effect can be claimed.

Mark’s perception of his relationship to mainstream food retailing has changed since he started his business. Originally both the business and his customers were very much outside the mainstream, but now he feels the benefits of wholefoods are so widely accepted that his customer base has become much more conventional, and indeed the shop seems to sell a lot of sandwiches and the like to local office workers. While he continues to see an important distinction between himself and mainstream retailers, it is a distinction which is becoming increasingly blurred as supermarkets stock more organic and wholefood products.

Mark: [...] erm 25 years ago I developed a personal interest in wholefoods

and a wholefood way of life, organic farming and things. Actually it was more than that, it was actually... I forget, 28 years ago, erm, I was a classic hippy dropout from University, and my way was going back to the land, becoming involved with organic farming, foods. I went off to the States at the time, got involved that way. Then I came across the new, emerging natural food trade

there, just young people setting up what we now call wholefood stores here, and organic farming, it was just such an eye opener for me at the time, where I was at personally.

PQ: It was quite underground wasn’t it, at the time.

Mark: Yes, yeah. It was very much alternative, shall we say. It was very

much a conscious erm, we were quite conscious of the fact we were setting up an alternative approach to living. And that was part of the statement we were making at that time, doing something that was different and opposite to the establishment, to our parents, to the way we were educated and so on.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: It was very much a statement in that way. I don’t know if that’s a

major type statement, but radical in the sense of going back to the origin of things. So it was very much a lifestyle commitment. And that lifestyle commitment then translated for me into running a business. I came back here to the UK after a couple of years, in the early 70s, and started one of the early wholefood companies, both a manufacturer and distributor.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: I later got involved in retailing in the early 80s when the store got

going.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: Erm, then it was still very much we were offering a wholefood

alternative to the regular food trade, to the supermarkets. It was very much an us and them type situation.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: Because the supermarkets were not selling wholemeal bread at the

time. They were not selling sugar-free foods at the time. Now they are, through the emerging wholefood trade, it’s popularity, these foods have become mainstream, so we’re in a very different position than we were sort of 20 years ago. Very much the pioneering thing. But nevertheless, the origin was a personal interest conviction [??]. And people who walked through the front door of the shop generally were converted in terms of their personal ideology.

PQ: Uh-huh. So you were pretty much preaching to the converted.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I mean we’re in a very different situation nowadays.

Wholefoods is very much now... the wholefood nutritional approach is very much accepted in the mainstream, and the hazards of too much fat and too much sugar and so on are now very widely accepted through the medical nutritional food trade.

Mark: Erm, so our customers [now] are quite wide ranging, I mean being here

[location], our prime customers are actually office workers. Not necessarily coming in with any ideology in their heads about wholefood, they just want something that tastes good for lunch.

Mark has already hinted at values when he speaks of the ideology of his customers, but in the following passage he expands upon this by drawing on a distinction he makes between his reasons for stocking the products he does, and those of the mainstream retailers. Although he uses the term ideology rather than values, this passage is unambiguous in linking Mark’s values with his professional activity, although he does not give any detail at this stage what those values might be.

PQ: My perception is that the supermarkets still deal with it [wholefoods] very

Mark: Oh yes, yes, yes. My observation is that they deal in an extremely

pragmatic way, solely a pragmatic way about such issues, and if an issue comes up they say we’ll find out what our customers want, we can give them what they want, and they’re just led by statistical information which comes back from the customers. That’s my observation.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: Whereas the position we’ve taken has been a lot less pragmatic, a lot

more sort of idealistic. In a rather arrogant way, we said, this is what we feel is right, we feel there are certain health hazards with certain foods. You know, wholefoods have a certain nutritional advantage over refined foods, therefore we will focus on selling wholefoods which are not generally available. So it’s come from an ideological position, and that still is with us here, although we’re a lot more flexible than we were years ago. We will... we aim to have an extremely wide range of organic foods for example, there’s... the large multiple stores have a very limited range.

Discussing GM food more specifically, Mark’s first statement of anger clearly indicates his strength of feeling for the subject, but the reasons he gives initially for this are based around labelling rather than the existence of the food itself:

PQ: So, on the subject of genetically modified food, I mean it’s the Soya bean

particularly, I picked up one of your blue information brochures that you’ve put out. What’s actually driven the publicity that you’ve put out for that? Are you opposed to the technology, do you just feel that your customers should be aware of it, what drives that?

Mark: I personally feel quite angry that there isn’t proper labelling of

genetically modified foods. It’s my personal view.

PQ: Right.

Mark: And it’s the view of our staff here, and it’s the view apparently of a lot

of our customers. And I feel that I need to actually communicate the issue to customers. I would like to be able to spend more time doing it, but with the nature of running a business, it’s done in a rather haphazard way.

Looking in more depth at the reasons for his hostility to GM food, Mark is quick to volunteer a distinction between his professional and personal stances, although he considers the two to be very close:

PQ: Can I take it from that then, that were genetically modified food of all

descriptions fully labelled and segregated, would the issue then go away as far as you’re concerned?

Mark: Erm, well, there’s two levels I can talk and I can talk from my personal

point of view, and from the business point of view.

PQ: I’d appreciate both, actually. Mark: OK

PQ: I’m interested in how one drives the other, or not as the case may be. Mark: Sure, sure. I’ll make a distinction on that, because it’s.... I am aware of

what my own personal choices are, my personal feelings are, and also that I need to act professionally in running a business. Not that there’s a wide divergence, but it needs to make, in some cases a distinction. [...]

He continues by talking at length about activity within the wholefood industry aimed at removing, or keeping out GM food, based around notions of choice, a

position which echoes his earlier comments about the business’s increased flexibility over its ‘ideological stance’. He also expresses sympathy for the concerns of the public, which he feels are reasonable.

When elaborating on his personal feelings on the issue, he states a firm commitment to the eating of organic food, and a rejection of GM food, although at this stage he does not elaborate on why this is so:

Mark: I mean from a personal point of view, I eat organic foods, and it’s my

intention to continue to do that.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: I’m not interested in eating genetically modified foods. They don’t

have any benefit or advantage for me. Erm....

Mark is enthusiastic in his support for notions of ecocentrism, which tie in with his earlier comments about his preference for organic food. I had some difficulty explaining the concept - intrinsic value was clearly not a term he would himself have used, but once this difficulty was overcome, the final statement in this passage makes it clear that his ecocentrism is both long held and of importance to him.

PQ: There are other things in the environment like... I don’t know, giant

pandas in China, which probably have no benefit to us at all, other than perhaps an aesthetic benefit, but ignoring that for a while, they don’t actually have any benefit for us at all. Any kind of practical benefit. Or the integrity of ecosystems in Antarctica, which probably don’t have any impact on the global environment whether they were there or not wouldn’t actually make any difference to us.

Mark: Yes.

PQ: But some environmentalists argue that things like that have an intrinsic

value beyond what might use them for.

Mark: Ah, right.

PQ: Would you sympathise with that?

Mark: Oh, definitely, yes. Definitely, yes. Part of my holistic philosophy is

that we can’t separate ourselves from other organisms and life forms, energy systems, we’re all part of that.

Mark continues by explaining how the expression of his views have mellowed over the years, particularly acknowledging the importance of his family commitments, but tempers this mellowing by stating that he feels his ecocentric views have become far more socially acceptable than they were in his youth, the implication being that the degree of compromise required of him is reduced:

Mark: [...] I suppose I’m feeling nowadays that there’s very few people I find

PQ: Yes.

Mark: At first it was the other way round. But at the same time, I’ve probably

learned to be a lot more flexible and, pragmatism has come in, whereas I used to back myself into a ideological corner.

PQ: Well, it is easily done isn’t it. Mark: Yes.

PQ: But running a business you have to...

Mark: Well, having a family to support, having a business, having

responsibility for others apart from myself you know, for my family and for my staff, the customers and so on, I’m not... I can’t be totally selfish.

This section of the interview concludes with a discussion of the linkages between Mark’s work and his values. These linkages are clearly very strong, and of great significance to Mark, who has deliberately set out to create them:

Mark: I suppose the values that I’ve talked about are values that drive me in

my life, and actually being my livelihood, I mean I’ve had a personal philosophy to try to find.... try to integrate my beliefs with my need to earn money and make a living. I try to integrate those.

PQ: Do you think you’ve been reasonably successful?

Mark: I feel reasonably successful I suppose, yes. I do feel, I feel fortunate

you know that I have... that I am in essence able to support myself, my family in reasonable comfort and maintain my beliefs in terms of what I do. In that sense, you know, my work is my pleasure and my fun as well.

PQ: It’s quite unusual these days.

Mark: I need a break obviously, and I like to get out of my basement in

[location of shop] and go to where I live in [location of Mark’s rural home] and do some gardening or something, and then I can get that sort of balance.

PQ: Yes.

Mark: I feel... I get as much nourishment out of what I do here at work as I do

from other things in my life. But that has been a clear aim, a philosophy I’ve sought to do.

There is little difficulty therefore locating Mark as an ecocentrist. While he may have compromised his beliefs to a limited extent in order to provide for his family in an anthropocentric environment, his ecocentric values are clear, as are their use as a driving force for much of his professional activity. Mark shares much common ground with John, which is perhaps not surprising given their shared involvement with organic food.