Food Marketing 'ethics' play in food marketing Assignment

Food Marketing 'ethics' play in food marketing - Assignment Example There is need for socially responsible business to strike a fine balance between its profit making goals as well as the need to protect the long term interests of their consumers and the environment. The concept of ethics usually involves conflicting interests whereby people can disagree about the right course of action in a given situation. Marketers are therefore re-examining their connections with social values and responsibilities for the social and environmental impact of their actions. Corporate ethics and social responsibility have become hot topics for every business and only a few misguided companies can ignore these issues. As such, this essay seeks to critically analyse the role played by ethics in the process of marketing food. This essay is divided into three sections and the first part is concerned with outlining what is considered to be the most important ethical issues currently facing the food retail industry while the second section is concerned with describing how Tesco is tackling the issue of ethics in food marketing. The third part will look at economic and social trends within the European Union (EU) which may pose a conflict to the consumers with regards to ethics in marketing of food. Section A In recent years, it can be noted that the concept of ‘ethics’ has played an increasing role in food marketing. ... n be described as the â€Å"essential and enduring tenets† that help define the company and are â€Å"not to be compromised for financial gain or short term expediency,† (DesJardins, 2006, p.5). Values are obtained from a cultural environment which is made up of institutions and other forces that affect the society’s basic values, perceptions, preferences and behaviour these beliefs incline us to act in one way rather than the other (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004). There are many types of values which include financial, political, historical as well as religious among others. In as far as marketing of food is concerned, ethics may relate to a number of areas, for example, the healthiness of food, the effect of the food chain on the environment, and social effects of the food chain such as worker employment conditions. There are many factors as going to be outlined below that are considered to be the most important ethical issues currently facing the food retail indust ry. It is the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that the food they sale does not endanger the health of consumers or others. There is need to ensure that the organisation observes the health needs of the targeted consumers in order for it to remain viable. Whilst companies are not charity organisations, they need to safeguard the interests of the consumers with regards to their health concerns. For instance, genetically modified organisms (GMO) can be used to make food. However, these have come under criticism as a result of their side effects on the consumers’ health. This is an issue of ethical concern given that the organisation in question will need to take the health interests of the people into consideration of which failure to do that will result in negative publicity of the organisation