By increasing the visibility of actors’ actions to others in the
value chain standards enable the maintenance of trust in relationships that are distant or indirect. Nevertheless, as Mol (2015)
points out, enhanced visibility or transparency is not equally
distributed. While producers and processors are subject to
increased surveillance and regulation by buyers, the reverse is
rarely true (see also Mutersbaugh, 2004). As regulatory tools,
standards empower those with capacity to control the content of
standards and/or to impose demands for certification on others.