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The purpose of this paper is to discuss how corporate philanthropy influences channel behaviour in the context of food security.

The authors chose an exploratory case-study design to guide the investigation, based on Yin’s (1994) argument that case studies are the preferred strategy when “how” or “why” questions are being posed, and when the focus is on a modern phenomenon within a real-life context. A survey study was focused on formal interviews onsite where product development and marketing occurred.

It is known that the concepts of power and dependency are central to channel relationships. In food distribution, it has been argued that food distributors hold more power than food processors due to end-user proximity (Ruyter et al., 1996). For corporate altruism acts to have an impact when generated by functions other than distribution and retailing, one can only argue that channel members would require a significant number of antecedents to be successful. In Campbell’s case, as shown in Table I, many became enabling to a successful outcome while others arguably made the project more challenging.

With food security, the authors would need to consider other relationships within the marketing channel. The macro-environment of the marketing channel could also be incorporated in a future study. This study also does not compare other campaigns related to a similar product. In fact, it is believed that Nourish is unique in that it is the first ready-to-eat, ready-to-ship food product which was developed with the intent to serve the greater good.

Philanthropic acts by one company can influence other channel members when intent is driven by clear altruistic and politically strategic motives, and reflects individualistic and paternalistic attitudes. Campbell’s was paternalistic but attempted to serve many causes at once. Committing to only one cause in the future may help consolidate resources and corporate energy around one single cause.

Corporate philanthropy describes the action when a corporation voluntarily donates a portion of its resources to a societal cause. Nourish’s case is different in that it is not just a linear transactional gift between a corporation and an organization actively involved in the cause. The project relies on the active participation of other channel members, including consumers, to support the campaign led by Campbell’s. It was a form of an extendable altruistic venture which allowed all channel members to contribute to the cause.

Food processors that want to address the issue of food security or any other societal causes, domestically or abroad, will not cease. The challenge for food processors lies in the functional nature of their role within marketing channels. Since they do not transact with consumers directly, they depend on distributors and retailers to relay their philanthropic convictions to consumers. Based on the Nourish case, this study set out a series of antecedents which would support similar initiatives.

This study proposes a straightforward set of performance measurements for industrialized nations. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, the paper explores the notion of ranking nations based on food safety performances, beyond benchmarking. The paper appraises how a global comparative analysis could contribute to best practices and continuance improvement in food safety. Second, this paper presents an experiment in which a group of regulators took part in a workshop held in Helsinki, Finland in the Fall 2011.

A session was held in October 2011 in Helsinki, and many countries were invited. A total of 17 countries were represented. The following countries were represented: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA. The session was designed to be informative, interactive and flexibly tailored to the delegates' needs and experience. It was also designed to raise awareness and understanding of benchmarking and supra-national ranking systems, what it is and how it can be applied using practical examples from healthcare and across other sectors.

The session also introduced the principles of process thinking and illustrated how process benchmarking can be a useful tool for continuance improvement. The session then built upon the theory presented in the introductory portion by focusing specifically on the essence of ranking indicators. In this session, delegates spent time familiarizing themselves with indicators provided by the University of Guelph, discussing how they might implement it within their individual nations and across the trust as a whole.

The collection of primary data was also debated at the session. Public trust, for example, could easily be an indicator which could be included. Measurement of public trust in food safety might be important for governments. It could provide them with information on the performance of the food safety systems from a consumers' perspective. To be an effective indicator of performance the measurement of public trust in food safety should be liable to change. Therefore, changes in performance of the food safety systems have to be reflected through the measurement of public trust in food safety.

The Helsinki session is believed to be the first international meeting in which benchmarking metrics were discussed in order to rank countries based on food safety risk practices. Ranking programs in food safety remain controversial. Most particularly, risk assessors and the public service remain skeptical about their effectiveness. The Helsinki meeting was not met to alleviate the skepticism around ranking systems, but it did allow many to better appreciate several perspectives from around the world.