The Moral Commodity: Production, Consumption, and Governance in the Australasian Breakfast Cereal Industry

This paper examines the Australasian breakfast cereal commodity chain and the processes of value creation in the industry. The paper has two points of entry to the commodity chain; first, a productionist perspective aimed at revealing how the material commodity is constituted, and, second, a consumptionist viewpoint, intended to show the construction of symbolic elements of the commodity. The value of the breakfast cereal commodity includes both its utility (food) value, and the semiotic and moral narratives associated with it—its symbolic value. To maintain these value dimensions the breakfast cereal companies have fashioned relationships with other organisations to legitimise prod-ucts in the eyes of the consumers. Both governmental and nongovernmental organisations are drawn into the commodity chain, and along with consumers, they actively participate in the recreation and redescription of the commodity's value. Through adhering to the analytical strategy of delineating both production and consumption dimensions the case study was able to establish the multiple layering of meanings that are associated with breakfast cereals—meanings that continue to be aligned with the industry's founding principles.