Building brand reputation through third party endorsement: Fair Trade in British Chocolate

TY - JOUR

T1 - Building brand reputation through third party endorsement

T2 - Fair Trade in British Chocolate

AU - Da Silva Lopes, Maria Teresa

N1 - © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2016. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2016/11/22

Y1 - 2016/11/22

N2 - This article looks at the evolution of the British chocolate industry from the 1860s to the 1960s, a period during which it was dominated by Quaker businesses: Cadbury, Rowntree, and their predecessor, Fry. It provides evidence of early forms of fair trade by these Quaker businesses, showing that, before the fair trade movement took off in the 1970s, they contributed to social change and to improvement in living standards and long-term sustainable economic growth in developing countries. This article argues that when the mechanisms for enforcing food standards were weak and certification bodies did not exist, the Religious Society of Friends acted as an indirect independent endorser, reinforcing the imagery and reputation of the Quaker-owned brands and associating them both with purity and quality and with honest and fair trading.

AB - This article looks at the evolution of the British chocolate industry from the 1860s to the 1960s, a period during which it was dominated by Quaker businesses: Cadbury, Rowntree, and their predecessor, Fry. It provides evidence of early forms of fair trade by these Quaker businesses, showing that, before the fair trade movement took off in the 1970s, they contributed to social change and to improvement in living standards and long-term sustainable economic growth in developing countries. This article argues that when the mechanisms for enforcing food standards were weak and certification bodies did not exist, the Religious Society of Friends acted as an indirect independent endorser, reinforcing the imagery and reputation of the Quaker-owned brands and associating them both with purity and quality and with honest and fair trading.

KW - Brand reputation

KW - third party endorsement

KW - fair trade

KW - British chocolate

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84996772745&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1017/S0007680516000738

DO - 10.1017/S0007680516000738

M3 - Article

SN - 0007-6805

VL - 90

SP - 457

EP - 482

JO - Business history review

JF - Business history review

IS - 3

ER -