Fake eggs: from counter-qualification to popular certification in China’s food safety crisis

Abstract

Food safety dominates public discourse about health, life, and the body in China today. But incidents of ‘fake food’—including fake eggs and milk powder—raise new questions about how bodily threats are detected and evaluated, and have undermined trust not only in food, but also in official food regulations and tests. In response, new alternative food movements (including organic farms) are seeking to rebuild trust that food is real, not fake—but refuse to rely on official regulations. Drawing on theoretical literature on counterfeit goods and market devices, this paper examines how alternative food producers in Beijing, China qualify their food as authentic in a context where food fraud is expected. Whereas scholars have previously highlighted the role of interpersonal trust in alternative food markets, I argue that alternative farmers rely more on ‘popular certification’ devices—such as farm visits and taste tests—to materially certify the qualities of their food products. These tests differ from official certification because—rooted in sensory experience rather than instrumental tests—they are knowledge-making devices that are accessible to consumers. Linking agrarian change with the problems of knowledge explored by STS scholars, fake food points toward a renewed political economy of qualities.