Choosing certifiers: Evidence from the British Retail consortium food safety standard

Standards play a vital role in promoting food safety, and in many countries third-party certification bodies carry out audits to determine if food manufacturers comply with a particular standard. Using data from the British Retail Consortium global standards program, we study manufacturers' choices of certification bodies. We take a certification body's share of high audit grades in the months preceding an audit as a measure of perceived leniency, and find that manufacturers are more likely to choose certification bodies that they perceive to be more lenient. Manufactures are also more likely to choose geographically closer certification bodies, and to return to the same certifier that audited their site in the previous year.