Constructing Competitive Spaces: On the Corporate Practice of British Retailer—Supplier Relationships

In this paper I critically examine a selected set of retailer—supplier relationships in order to discern some ways in which the competitive spaces of the British food industry are actively trans-formed. It is argued that within existing research on retailer—supplier relationships the innovative capacity of retailers, their competitive strategies, and the radical ways in which they have reorganised the food supply chain remain insufficiently problematised. Against this background, I employ notions of culture, identity, and strategy in order to embrace the imaginative and creative energies which fuel the dynamism of corporate practice at the retailer—supplier interface. Corporate interviews concerning food retailers' own-brand supply relationships are drawn upon in order to ground an understanding of these energies in the organisational realities of material practices. The multiple ways in which these own-brand supply relationships are initiated and negotiated are argued to be deeply embedded in the historically and geographically specific competitive conditions which constitute the food industry, as well as being endowed with the capacity to transform the meaning of production, circulation, and consumption of food in Britain.