The concept of the ‘corporate food regime’ was developed by political economist Phillip McMichael, in his work identifying different historical phases in the political economy of food and agriculture. He characterises the period from the late 1980s onwards as the ‘corporate food regime’ due to the increasingly prominent role played by large transnational corporations in all aspects of food provisioning, including through their influence on  market prices and the establishment of new regulations and trade policies. The idea is widely used by academics, particularly proponents of food sovereignty, to critically refer to the various actors and processes that facilitate the dominance of an export-led global food system.