Recuperating from BSE: the shifting UK institutional basis for trust in food.

How did the UK, the villain of Europe as the source of the greatest recent crisis in trust in food, become the country with the highest reported levels of trust in the safety of food? The nature of the BSE crisis is explored, particularly how it rapidly became primarily a question of trust in government and science. The responses to the crisis by the different institutional actors is examined, especially the provisioning system and retailers, but also consumers themselves. A major reform of governmental institutional architecture resulted in the Food Standards Agency, a model for European development. But, we argue that this reform conformed with growing retailer power and control over the supply chain to provide a new institutional basis for trust in food.