Abstract
This article analyzes the interrelationship between expert systems and the creation of public trust in food production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the roles of scientific knowledge and elites in academia, government, and business. The nutrient paradigm of the mid nineteenth century played a crucial part in this history, facilitating new practices of control and standardization based on measurable, empirical ‘facts.’ This article compares the different approaches, power constellations, and results of the struggle for improved and reliable food quality in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the USA. Scientists, especially chemists, the food industries, and public authorities at the local, regional, and federal levels established a structure of science‐based standardization and trust‐building, which acted on behalf of the consumer in enforcing their own ‘objective’ ideas about safe products and additives.
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